Book picks similar to
Talisman by Fran Wilde
urban-fantasy
espionage
serial
serial-box
Heavenly Bodies
Joel Derfner - 2015
Diane cuts a deal.Rafe’s academic troubles grow worse, but he finds comfort in surprising places. When Micah plunges into mathematical calculations that threaten to expose trade secrets long held close by Kaab's people, Kaab must do some quick thinking of her own. Meanwhile, Diane seeks to involve the house Balam in her intrigues, and the river yields up a mystery of its own. This episode is brought to you by Joel Derfner, who dials up the heat in our play of passions. “Heavenly Bodies” continues the 13-part serial,
Tremontaine
, presented by Serial Box. This prequel to the cult classic Swordspoint is brought to you by the collaborative effort of a team of writers under the creative direction of Ellen Kushner herself. Join the dance of swordplay and scandal, week after week, on Serial Box.com. And don’t forget to share the love! If you’re enjoying Tremontaine, help us get the word out by liking us on Facebook, following us on Twitter and Tumblr, and telling your friends about us! We’d also love to hear what you think so please give us a review! “Sharp blades and even sharper wits abound! Delicious new adventures await fans in this welcome return to the world of Swordspoint.” – Jacqueline Carey, New York Times Bestselling author of the Kushiel’s Legacy series“Lovely! Beneath a froth of silk and lace Tremontaine is finely muscled, rippling with skill and promise.” – Nicola Griffith, author of Hild“More Tremontaine stories? YESPLEASE. Tremontaine stories by some of my favorite, excellent writers? HELLA YESPLEASE. I can't wait to read them all! ”– N. K. Jemisin, author of The Fifth Kingdom “A pure delight full of sparkling characters that match equally dazzling wits and swords. If you've visited the world of Swordspoint before, you'll be delighted to return; if it's your first time, you'll be welcomed in style. I can't wait to read more myself!”– Naomi Novaik, author of Uprooted
Thor Games / Dogs and Suds
Barbra Annino - 2018
The first, Dogs and Suds, combines the two worlds of Amethyst and Everafter as Thor—Stacy Justice’s Great Dane familiar—meets Beast—guardian of the five princesses of Enchantment—for the first time. The two magical Great Danes pair up again in THOR GAMES, where Thor is forced to face an old foe—and an old fear—when a leggy blonde asks for his help. Spun from the popular Stacy Justice Witch Mystery series and the enchanting Everafter series, this new take on familiars will captivate readers who enjoy magical fiction and four-legged heroes.
Grave Sight, Part 5
Charlaine Harris
In the stunning conclusion to this three-part series, Harper's step-brother, Tolliver Lang, finds himself in trouble with the law while Harper struggles to clear his name.
The Market Arcanum
Margaret Dunlap - 2015
When a mysterious invite arrives in the mail and Father Menchu responds by whisking Sal off to Lichtenstein, the former cop is left on very new ground as she gets more than a glimpse at the broader world of magic users. Unfortunately, they are immediately confronted by a wealthy business man who is less upset about them blowing up his boat two episodes ago, as he is about them stealing his (sludge-demon releasing) book. When the three remaining Team members back in Rome suddenly find themselves under attack, Sal and Menchu are left scrambling for how to help and have to turn to the peculiar techno-cultists whose computers run on seahorses and have a pointed interest in the cop sister of their acquaintance Perry. Welcome to the Market Arcanum. This episode is brought to you by team-writer Margaret Dunlap who shows us that the Society is far from the only fish in the magic-hunting sea—and certainly isn’t the biggest. "Bookburners is sheer enormous fun! Energetic, intense, vivid prose. More soon please." --Naomi Novik, author of Uprooted and the New York Times bestselling Temeraire series "Bookburners is the breathless, hallucinogenic love child of Torchwood, the Librarians, and the Laundry Files. More soon, please." --Ian Tregillis, author of The Mechanical and Bitter Seeds "Bookburners is an exciting new take on urban fantasy. Love the premise, love the characters, love the unique (and sometimes wonderfully disturbing) spin on the dangers of magic!" --Cassandra Rose Clarke, author of The Assassins Curse "Bookburners has everything I want from episodic storytelling - strong writing, a rich premise, and memorable characters that will keep me coming back week after week." --Mike Underwood, author of the Ree Reyes Geekomancy series "Bookburners satisfies my craving for pulpy, demonic chaos with sharp writing, deliciously sinister magic, stellar black humor, and a kick-ass cast. The serialized story perfectly suits a sorcerer’s codex of baddies while the plucky Sal digs for deeper truths in her work with the Black Archives squad." --Lindsay Smith, author of the Sekret Series
Godwalker
Greg Stolze - 2005
Ignorance is no excuse for the cops and creeps and exterminators whose desires shaped the world. Knowledge is a little power, a dangerous thing, to the cross-dressers and risk-takers who understand enough to damage the world more to their liking. They all collude and collide on a driverless ride, each trying to be the one to break the secret heart of the world. But only one can claim the prize of being the cosmos' corrupt ward boss. Only one can be the Godwalker.
Etiquette & Espionage
Gail Carriger - 2013
It's quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners--and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality. But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine's, young ladies learn to finish...everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but they also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage--in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year's education.
Rebel Mechanics
Shanna Swendson - 2015
history where the British control with magic and the colonists rebel by inventing.It’s 1888, and sixteen-year-old Verity Newton lands a job in New York as a governess to a wealthy leading family—but she quickly learns that the family has big secrets. Magisters have always ruled the colonies, but now an underground society of mechanics and engineers are developing non-magical sources of power via steam engines that they hope will help them gain freedom from British rule. The family Verity works for is magister—but it seems like the children's young guardian uncle is sympathetic to the rebel cause. As Verity falls for a charming rebel inventor and agrees to become a spy, she also becomes more and more enmeshed in the magister family’s life. She soon realizes she’s uniquely positioned to advance the cause—but to do so, she’ll have to reveal her own dangerous secret.
Longinus The Vampire
Alan Kinross - 2013
Love, lust and revenge never die - they smoulder and explode with all the fury of the abyss. Present-day Scotland and New York...Lord Branislav Cervenka rules the New York vampire coven and criminal underworld with an iron fist. He is building a vampire army and plans to conquer all other covens in the United States.His hunters torture and destroy a female vampire in the Highlands of Scotland and steal a strange, ancient tome. Then all hell breaks loose: a mysterious vampire warrior is killing his vassals and disrupting his criminal activities; a horrific vampire plague is spreading throughout the city; New York is descending into anarchy, and the National Guard is on the streets.Who is this vampire and what does he want?The identity and full horror of their ancient adversary is revealed as the coven's historian translates the hideous book.As his depraved kingdom is ripped apart in a sea of fire and blood, Cervenka commands his malignant horde to find and kill his enemy. But it is too late for both the hunters and their elusive prey. Something else is coming: something powerful and terrifying.And She will destroy them all.There is no redemption for the damned.------------------------------------Longinus the Vampire is a dark, anarchic, exciting, bloodthirsty and disturbing HORROR novel.It contains scenes of violence, depravity and retribution that will keep humans awake at night.The evil that humans do is carried with them into the afterlife and reborn with a vengeance. No one is safe and nothing is sacred.The hideous tome is scribed in the tongue of the Britons.Gird your loins, mortal, and enter of your own free will.You may never return...
Witchful Thinking
Amanda M. Lee - 2018
Join Bay, Clove, Thistle and Aunt Tillie as they share a magical Christmas, travel through a crazy soap opera world, and take on the government when they’re convinced an unidentified flying object went down in a nearby field. This three-book omnibus includes A Witchmas Carol, All My Witches and Close Encounters of the Witchy Kind.
The Reclaiming Honor Omnibus (Books 1-8): A Kurtherian Gambit Series
Justin Sloan - 2019
She will fight for the oppressed. She will destroy evil. This digital box set contains eight action-packed science fiction adventures:
Justice is Calling
Valerie must flee a brother who leaves her for dead. Because, if there is one thing Valerie understands? It's that Justice Doesn't Turn the Other Cheek. 150 years after a near apocalypse, the world is rebuilding. Survival has become the only rule, and justice is in short supply. Now, Justice has come calling.
Claimed by Honor
The New York City-State wakes up and their world has been shaken to its core. The Enforcers have been scattered, but they aren't finished. This vampire is but a bump in their road to keeping the city-state in the hands of the CEO's.The Were's are involved, some leave, some stay and new alliances are made and an old one broken.However, in the end, it always comes back to heart and determination.
Judgment has Fallen
The City Has Changed... but not always for the better. Some love her, some hate her, but the one thing that is causing the city problems is Valerie herself. As a lightning rod, she needs to get out of the public's eye and allow the emotions to cool without her presence.Whether she wants to, or not.
Angel of Reckoning
For this vampire, it's time to die... a second time.Valerie understands that to take the fight to those who are attacking in New York, she needs to leave the spotlight. Both for the city, and for herself.Her enemies are relentless in their attacks to get to her. Since they have relocated to the Chicago City-State area, that is where she must go.
Born Into Flames
When Valerie and Robin head north to take on an army of post-apocalyptic pirates, the deadly duo find themselves on a thrill-ride of air-ship battles and full-on assaults against pirate strongholds.Her friends back in Old Manhattan discover an attempt at mutiny, while Sandra learns that being an expecting mother doesn't mean she has to stop kicking ass and taking names.
Everyone must step up their game, or be consumed by the flames of this new world.
Defending the Lost
A time of reckoning has come for the council of Toro, a bandit city about to burst with corruption and injustice.
Valerie refuses to allow her world to rot, and she's brought friends to help her teach the council a lesson.
Saved By Valor
A dream of peace. A hand of justice. A time for closure.
Valerie has found her way full circle, heading back to Europe, where it all began. New enemies await, calling themselves The Gods, and the journey to put an end to the atlantic pirate problem means dealing with the local trouble makers as well as these false gods.
Bookburners: The Complete Season 1
Max Gladstone - 2016
It’s trapped in ancient texts and artifacts, and only a few who discover it survive to fight back. Detective Sal Brooks is a survivor. She joins a Vatican-backed black-ops anti-magic squad—Team Three of the Societas Librorum Occultorum—and together they stand between humanity and the magical apocalypse. Some call them the Bookburners. They don’t like the label.Supernatural meets The Da Vinci Code in a fast-paced, kickass character driven novel (previously published serially at SerialBox.com/Serials/Bookburners) chock-full of magic, mystery, and mayhem, written collaboratively by a team of some of the best writers working in fantasy.
The Hole Behind Midnight
Clinton Boomer - 2011
Follow the Hole Behind Midnight into a world of oracles and monsters, kings and usurpers ... follow it into the 25th Hour. A darkly comic postmodern urban fantasy crime/mystery noir/pulp tale-of-suspense-and-magic-and-cursing, this is a story of the 25th Hour for mature audiences only
A Pool for Company (Housekeeper series Book 2)
Matteson Wynn - 2019
Lives on the line. A new magic user. What could go wrong?
Finn Foster just found out that magic is real, she can wield it, and now she’s the housekeeper of a magical house. Sure, to wind up here, she’s had to survive homicidal hail spells, enchanted discoing cacti, and assorted hocus pocus. But now that she’s housekeeper, Finn is ready to settle in and embrace her new magical path.But Finn hardly has a chance to get her feet wet before she gets thrown into the deep end without any floaties. Between the house’s mysterious errands, unexpected guests popping in, and the council trying to rain on her parade, Finn is barely treading water.
With time running out, and magical enemies everywhere, it's time for Finn to sink or swim.
A Pool for Keeping, an urban fantasy that appeals to young adult and new adult fans alike, is the second book in the Housekeeper series. This addictive adventure transports readers to an enchanted world filled with unusual magical characters and the kind of strong female protagonist you want as a best friend. Fans of hard-to-put-down mystery suspense and humorous magical action adventures will love Matteson Wynn’s Housekeeper series.
Dive into the magic and grab your copy today!
Follow Finn’s adventures from the beginning!
Book 1: A House for Keeping
*Fans of the transportive magical realism in the Harry Potter series and the relatable heroines in the Mercy Thompson and Edge series will be drawn to Matteson Wynn’s smart, humorous urban fantasy.*
Pete, Drinker of Blood
Scott S. Phillips - 2012
He’s also a vampire. He lives alone and avoids the other vampires in L.A., but Pete’s simple life goes haywire when he falls for Angie, the cute bartender at a Sunset Strip dive -- and when sinister vampire lord Carson Fitzgerald returns to claim his children, Pete learns that nothing's ever easy for a creature of the night.
A Dark Root Christmas: Merry's Gift
April Aasheim - 2015
Suddenly, she's become the parent to a strange baby owl, and the caretaker of what appears to be an enchanted tree. But will her wish for a family Christmas be granted? Or will her mother's desire for a year without a holiday win out? Magick, mystery, and family take center stage in this charming witchy novella featuring the Maddock girls when they are young. This 20k word novella is a prequel story to the popular Daughters of Dark Root series and can be read as a stand alone novel.