Three Mages and a Margarita


Annette Marie - 2018
    Those are my official reasons for answering a wanted ad for a skeevy-looking bartender gig. It went downhill the moment they asked me to do a trial shift instead of an interview - to see if I'd mesh with their "special" clientele. I think that part went great. Their customers were complete dickheads, and I was an asshole right back. That's the definition of fitting in, right? I expected to get thrown out on my ass. Instead, they...offered me the job? It turns out this place isn't a bar. It's a guild. And the three cocky guys I drenched with a margarita during my trial? Yeah, they were mages. Either I'm exactly the kind of takes-no-sh*t bartender this guild needs, or there's a good reason no one else wants to work here. So what's a broke girl to do? Take the job, of course - with a pay raise.

Wooden Nickels


Debra Dunbar - 2018
    Prohibition. Those who sell and distribute liquor can become rich — or dead if the mob doesn't get their cut. The gangsters have taken over, and in organized crime the one weapon valued more than a Tommy gun is a mage. Welcome to the world of White Lightning. A moonshine runner. A mage for the mob. And more misfortune than a blow-down at the speakeasy. Hattie Malloy has two goals in life—get the hootch from warehouse to seller, and make sure no one finds out she can conjure illusions. But when her shipment of rum is attacked by pirates on the Chesapeake Bay and she needs to call on the mob for help, those two goals collide. Suddenly the safety of her family and friends rests on her helping a group of gangsters that she wants nothing to do with. The mob is the only family that time pincher Vincent Calendo has ever known. When his boss Vito says he wants to expand his “stable” of mages, Vincent is tasked with finding unaffiliated, or free, pinchers and bringing them into the fold—willingly or not. Can Hattie keep her talents a secret from Vincent or will she lose the freedom her parents have sacrificed everything to give her?

Sword of Fire and Sea


Erin Hoffman - 2011
    For love, he unwittingly doomed his family to generations of a rare genetic disease that follows families who cross elemental boundaries. Now Vidarian, the last surviving member of the Rulorat family, struggles to uphold his family legacy, and finds himself chained to a task as a result of the bride price his great-grandfather paid: the Breakwater Agreement, a seventy-year-old alliance between his family and the High Temple of Kara’zul, domain of the fire priestesses.The priestess Endera has called upon Vidarian to fulfill his family’s obligation by transporting a young fire priestess named Ariadel to a water temple far to the south, through dangerous pirate-controlled territory. A journey perilous in the best of conditions is made more so by their pursuers: rogue telepathic magic-users called the Vkortha who will stop at nothing to recover Ariadel, who has witnessed their forbidden rites.Together, Vidarian and Ariadel will navigate more than treacherous waters: Imperial intrigue, a world that has been slowly losing its magic for generations, secrets that the priestesshoods have kept for longer, the indifference of their elemental goddesses, gryphons—once thought mythical—now returning to the world, and their own labyrinthine family legacies. Vidarian finds himself at the intersection not only of the world’s most volatile elements, but of colliding universes, and the ancient and alien powers that lurk between them.

Surrender the Dark


L.A. Banks - 2011
    A fierce battle for control of the mortal realm is brewing, and only Celeste—with the help of the Remnant, her half-human, half-angel brethren—can stand in the way. Together, Celeste and Azrael must gather an army of sensitives to defeat the dark powers that have ruled humanity for centuries, but time is running out. If Azrael surrenders to his growing desire for Celeste, he risks being trapped among humanity forever. But the longer he stays, the harder she is to resist. To save the world, Celeste must draw on her own dark experiences with addiction to help Azrael overcome the one temptation that could possibly make him an eternal prisoner—his obsession with her.

Breaking the Nexus


Lindsay Avalon - 2012
    Fantastic tales of demons and banshees, gryphons and dragons, and of course, magic. Stories that every child grows to learn are nothing more than fantasy…or are they?Beyond the world you see lies a hidden realm, the Mythrian Realm, inhabited by all of the creatures you’ve been told are mere fiction. Only one thing lies between humans and the truth: the Nexus. A magical barrier erected millennia ago to separate the two realms, it has stood the test of time. Until now.For Mythrian Sha Phoenix, magic is nothing new. But when she stumbles upon a portal on the verge of collapse, her fate will forever change. Pulled through the portal into the Human Realm, she lands in the middle of Detective Connor Flynn’s brutal murder scene. Soon it is obvious someone is using blood magic to try to bring down the Nexus. Together, Connor and Sha must work to unravel the secrets before the barrier falls and the realms collide. The Nexus is breaking and all hell is about to unleash…literally.*** Warning this book contains two graphic sex scenes featuring a sexy detective ***

Timeless


S.J. West - 2013
    You need to have either read my Watchers Trilogy or Watcher Chronicles. Appropriate for ages 13+.Lilly and Brand’s daughter, Caylin, saw her soul mate for the first time when she was fourteen years old. After a simple exchange of smiles, she knew her life was set on a path which would lead Aiden back into her world forever. For three long years, Aiden keeps his distance from Caylin out of respect for her parents’ wishes. Being a Watcher who once gave into the dark side of his curse, Aiden uses the time to come to terms with his own demons and strives to become a man worthy enough for the granddaughter of an archangel.Caylin learns that one of the Princes of Hell, Baal, is out to kill her. With the help of her family and Aiden, she discovers why he wants her dead and what she needs to do to stop him and the other princes from destroying not only her future but the future of the world.

If Wishes Were Curses


Janeen Ippolito - 2019
    On purpose. With genie powers I shouldn’t be able to use, thanks to my curse-mark.In my defense, the damn grizzly was threatening civilians and might have been a vampire as well. Pittsburgh is safer without him. Only the Fae court doesn’t believe my story, and the shifters are out for blood.Now I’ve lost my job as a romantic investigator, and I’m on death row. My only hope is an oddly outgoing vegetarian vampire lawyer who seems strangely familiar. Too familiar. Almost like we’ve met before, and this whole thing was a set-up to take us both down.Wishing won’t get us out of this mess.But my forbidden wish magic just might.A snarky urban fantasy with humor, heart, some romance with heat (nothing graphic), and gleeful send ups of many romantic fantasy tropes, all wrapped up with an otter-shifter in the bargain.

Honey Blonde Chica


Michele Serros - 2006
    She and her best friend, Raquel, hang with the Flojos, a kick-back crew named for their designer flip-flops. And their habit of doing absolutely nothing. But the return of long-lost amiga mejor Dee Dee wrecks Evie and Raquel's Flojo flow. A few years in Mexico City have transformed their shy, skinny, brunette Dee Dee into a Sangro nightmare. Dee Dee has reinvented herself as "Dela," complete with tight designer threads, freaky blue contacts, and that signature blond hair. When Raquel wants precisely nada to do with the new Dela, Evie finds herself caught between two very different friends. At heart, is Evie a Cali-casual Flojo chick, or a sexy Sangro diva?

The Moon Shines Red


Pamela Sparkman - 2017
    On the thirteenth year of his birth, the red glow of the moon washed over land and sea like a faded bloody stain. A constant reminder of the curse that marked him before he was born. Every night he gazed at it like he was lured and haunted by it. It followed him, it beseeched him. It called out to him. Just once he wanted to see the moon glow as everyone else saw it. Bright and illuminating. But he knew that would never be possible. The all too familiar feeling of despair suffocated him, like long gangling fingers squeezing his neck, cutting off his air. He fell to his knees and begged for the sky to fall on him. He had suffered long and tirelessly and he was desperate for it to end. And yet, he fought to breathe. He fought to stand back on his feet. Because fighting back was as instinctual to him as breathing. He had come too far to let his loneliness and despair get the best of him now. He was battle worn and weary, but he still had a reason to live. Or so he hoped. He stood back on his feet and he fought against the doom that hovered over him since the day he was born and he stared up into the darkened sky. At the moon that shines red only for him. I should have stayed away from him. But I couldn't. HE was my love...my life. And he just might kill me. I suppose that means...he may also be my end.

Starfire


Jenetta Penner - 2018
    Her father is the architect of this grand civilization and staying behind is not an option.Once she arrives on Arcadia, it's not so bad since her family is treated like royalty and the lush planet does offer salvation to the human race.But when a terrorist attack strikes and her father is killed, a mysterious and gorgeous boy rescues her, and she's plunged into a reality she never knew existed. Cassie shares an undeniable connection with this boy she doesn't understand, and she uncovers secrets about herself and the new planet no one wanted to emerge.

The Serpent and the Rose


Kathleen Bryan - 2007
    She is a powerful mage, trained by the Ladies of the Isle, but when her father calls her home to take up her duties, she must leave that life behind. In her city of Fontevrai, she meets Gereint, raised as a common villager but greatly gifted in magic, a novice of the magical order of the Knights of the Rose.The Knights and their sister order, the Ladies of the Isle, defend a great secret: the means and location of the Serpent's imprisonment a thousand years ago by the Young God in whose name their order was founded.Quitaine is under subtle attack by the King of Lys, who has secretly become an adept of the hidden order of the Serpent, and he will let nothing and no one stand in the way of his quest to discover how to free his God. But the Knights of the Rose, and the Ladies of the Isle believe that if the Serpent is freed, the world will be enslaved to chaos: humanity will destroy itself, and all that man has made will be corrupted. The War of the Rose and Serpent has begun again, after a thousand years.