Book picks similar to
Sting & Song by Benjamin Medrano
fantasy
litrpg
magic
humor
Mutual Benefits
H.P. Munro - 2020
Which it would be, if Hannah was gay.Ashley West isn’t looking for a relationship. When she’s set up by her mother on a blind date, she’s ready to nip any expectations in the bud. She’s less prepared for her love interest to be straight.What do you get when you combine a fake relationship with two meddling mothers? A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy that will have you glued to the page!
This Quest is Broken!
J.P. Valentine - 2021
Perhaps she'll be a great warrior, or a wealthy merchant, or a brilliant mage. Perhaps her quest is simply to live a quiet life, constantly honing a craft to the heights of perfection.Or perhaps the Questing Stones will grant her the Legendary mission of popping over to the next village to pick up a loaf of bread.Wouldn’t that be ridiculous?Eve can’t even begin to guess how or why she’s come by such an absurd life goal, nor how a level 1 Messenger Girl is supposed to complete anything labeled as Legendary, but at least she can be sure of one thing. No matter how many wolves or goblins attack, no matter how many speeding tickets she racks up, no matter how many bakeries spontaneously combust as she steps into town, one way or another, Eve is going to get that gods-damned bread.There just might be a few Side Quests along the way.
The Alchemists of Loom
Elise Kova - 2017
His vision.Ari lost everything she once loved when the Five Guilds’ resistance fell to the Dragon King. Now, she uses her unparalleled gift for clockwork machinery in tandem with notoriously unscrupulous morals to contribute to a thriving underground organ market. There isn’t a place on Loom that is secure from the engineer turned thief, and her magical talents are sold to the highest bidder as long as the job defies their Dragon oppressors.Cvareh would do anything to see his sister usurp the Dragon King and sit on the throne. His family’s house has endured the shame of being the lowest rung in the Dragons’ society for far too long. The Alchemist Guild, down on Loom, may just hold the key to putting his kin in power, if Cvareh can get to them before the Dragon King’s assassins.When Ari stumbles upon a wounded Cvareh, she sees an opportunity to slaughter an enemy and make a profit off his corpse. But the Dragon sees an opportunity to navigate Loom with the best person to get him where he wants to go.He offers her the one thing Ari can’t refuse: A wish of her greatest desire, if she brings him to the Alchemists of Loom.
Santa Olivia
Jacqueline Carey - 2009
Loup Garron was born and raised in Santa Olivia, an isolated, disenfranchised town next to a US military base inside a DMZ buffer zone between Texas and Mexico. A fugitive "Wolf-Man" who had a love affair with a local woman, Loup's father was one of a group of men genetically-manipulated and used by the US government as a weapon. The "Wolf-Men" were engineered to have superhuman strength, speed, sensory capability, stamina, and a total lack of fear, and Loup, named for and sharing her father's wolf-like qualities, is marked as an outsider. After her mother dies, Loup goes to live among the misfit orphans at the parish church, where they seethe from the injustices visited upon the locals by the soldiers. Eventually, the orphans find an outlet for their frustrations: They form a vigilante group to support Loup Garron who, costumed as their patron saint, Santa Olivia, uses her special abilities to avenge the town. Aware that she could lose her freedom, and possibly her life, Loup is determined to fight to redress the wrongs her community has suffered. And like the reincarnation of their patron saint, she will bring hope to all of Santa Olivia.
The Legend of Eli Monpress
Rachel Aaron - 2012
He's charming. And he's a thief.But not just any thief. He's the greatest thief of the age - and he's also a wizard. And with the help of his partners - a swordsman with the most powerful magic sword in the world but no magical ability of his own, and a demonseed who can step through shadows and punch through walls - he's going to put his plan into effect.The first step is to increase the size of the bounty on his head, so he'll need to steal some big things. But he'll start small for now. He'll just steal something that no one will miss - at least for a while.Like a king.The Legend of Eli Monpress includes the novels: The Spirit Thief, The Sprit Rebellion, and The Spirit Eater.
Plain Bad Heroines
Emily M. Danforth - 2020
Flo and Clara, two impressionable students, are obsessed with each other and with a daring young writer named Mary MacLane, the author of a scandalous bestselling memoir. To show their devotion to Mary, the girls establish their own private club and call it The Plain Bad Heroine Society. They meet in secret in a nearby apple orchard, the setting of their wildest happiness and, ultimately, of their macabre deaths. This is where their bodies are later discovered with a copy of Mary’s book splayed beside them, the victims of a swarm of stinging, angry yellow jackets. Less than five years later, The Brookhants School for Girls closes its doors forever—but not before three more people mysteriously die on the property, each in a most troubling way. Over a century later, the now abandoned and crumbling Brookhants is back in the news when wunderkind writer, Merritt Emmons, publishes a breakout book celebrating the queer, feminist history surrounding the “haunted and cursed” Gilded-Age institution. Her bestselling book inspires a controversial horror film adaptation starring celebrity actor and lesbian it girl Harper Harper playing the ill-fated heroine Flo, opposite B-list actress and former child star Audrey Wells as Clara. But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins. A story within a story within a story and featuring black-and-white period illustrations.
Life in Bits
Harper Bliss - 2018
She returns home for the holidays shattered by a life-altering event and facing the terrifying prospect she'll never be able to work again.When Eileen meets Naomi Weaver, a small-town girl who dedicates her free time to helping those in need, Eileen is entranced by Naomi's zest for life. Can Eileen overcome her inner demons and troubled family relationships to let Naomi in?Best-selling lesbian romance authors Harper Bliss & T.B. Markinson have teamed up to bring this touching age-gap love story to life. Grab your copy of the holiday romance that's the talk of the season.
The Steerswoman
Rosemary Kirstein - 1989
Steerswomen, and a very few Steersmen, are members of an order dedicated to discovering and disseminating knowledge. Although they are foremost navigators of the high seas, Steerswomen are also explorers and cartographers upon land as well as sea. With one exception, they are pledged to always answer any question put to them with as truthful a response as is possible within their own limitations. However, they also require anyone of whom they ask questions to respond in the same manner, upon penalty of the Steerswomen's ban; those under the ban do not receive answers from the steerswomen.In this novel, Rowan is a Steerswoman who is interested in some strange jewels which have been found distributed in an unusual pattern. These jewels are made of strange materials bonded onto metal. Some think that such jewels are magically produced.
Ashes of the Sun
Django Wexler - 2020
But still the old grudges simmer, and two siblings will fight on opposite sides to save their world, in the start of Django Wexler’s new epic fantasy trilogyGyre hasn't seen his beloved sister since their parents sold her to the mysterious Twilight Order. Now, twelve years after her disappearance, Gyre's sole focus is revenge, and he's willing to risk anything and anyone to claim enough power to destroy the Order.Chasing rumors of a fabled city protecting a powerful artifact, Gyre comes face-to-face with his lost sister. But she isn't who she once was. Trained to be a warrior, Maya wields magic for the Twilight Order's cause. Standing on opposite sides of a looming civil war, the two siblings will learn that not even the ties of blood will keep them from splitting the world in two.
Wildsky
Magnolia Robbins - 2018
Of course, just about any place was bigger than her tiny town of Chetwynd, nestled in the wildlands of northern Canada. So when she left to attend college in the states six years ago, she thought she’d never look back. That was until a terrifying breakdown brought her overly ambitious life crumbling down around her. Shiloh Pierce had always embraced her small town in Canada, with no intention of ever leaving. A quiet cabin and living off the land was all she really needed. Except six years ago her best friend and the love of her life moved thousands of miles away, leaving a gaping hole that she was unable to fill and throwing her entire world off of its axis.When a damaged and broken Grace finds herself back in Canada over a half decade later, she too finds herself face-to-face with a friendship and a love story that had never quite finished. As Grace begins to reacquaint herself with Chetwynd, she too begins to rebuild her tarnished relationship with Shiloh. Together, the two begin to discover what they’ve really been missing in their lives, and that maybe they can help each other overcome their complicated pasts after all.
A Knight to Remember
Bridget Essex - 2014
Holly tells herself that the reason she hasn’t asked her girlfriend to move in (after four years of dating) is that she’s too busy–but it isn’t true. A very book-obsessed librarian, Holly has buried herself in so many romantic and magical stories, that at night, she dreams of a woman who will sweep her off her feet–something her indifferent girlfriend has never done. But one night, during an unusually vicious storm, magic and romance appear in Holly’s backyard in the form of a mysterious, gorgeous woman…wielding a sword. The dashing stranger’s name is Virago. She claims that she’s a warrior on the hunt for a great and terrible beast; that she, and the beast, slipped through a portal from their world into ours. Holly isn’t sure what to believe, but she is now responsible for a (possibly crazy) swordswoman who is bewildered by modern-day conveniences like escalators, but not by the chivalry of sweeping a woman off her feet. Can Holly help Virago find her own world again, or will that falling-in-love thing get in the way? And, of course, there’s the tiny problem of the beast Virago wounded that is now seeking revenge…
Under a Falling Star
Jae - 2014
Her new job, as a secretary in an international games company in Portland, OR, isn’t off to a good start. Her first assignment—decorating the Christmas tree in the lobby—results in a trip to the ER after Dee, the company’s second-in-command, gets hit by the star-shaped tree topper.Dee blames her instant attraction to Austen on her head wound, not the magic of the falling star. She’s determined not to act on it, especially since Austen has no idea that Dee is practically her boss.
Girls Made of Snow and Glass
Melissa Bashardoust - 2017
She never guessed that her father cut out her heart and replaced it with one of glass. When she moves to Whitespring Castle and sees its king for the first time, Mina forms a plan: win the king’s heart with her beauty, become queen, and finally know love. The only catch is that she’ll have to become a stepmother.Fifteen-year-old Lynet looks just like her late mother, and one day she discovers why: a magician created her out of snow in the dead queen’s image, at her father’s order. But despite being the dead queen made flesh, Lynet would rather be like her fierce and regal stepmother, Mina. She gets her wish when her father makes Lynet queen of the southern territories, displacing Mina. Now Mina is starting to look at Lynet with something like hatred, and Lynet must decide what to do—and who to be—to win back the only mother she’s ever known…or else defeat her once and for all.Entwining the stories of both Lynet and Mina in the past and present, Girls Made of Snow and Glass traces the relationship of two young women doomed to be rivals from the start. Only one can win all, while the other must lose everything—unless both can find a way to reshape themselves and their story.
Queen in the Mud
Maari. - 2020
The only insight into her precarious situation is a prompt opening before her eyes indicating that the system failed to delete her.The doggedly optimistic and naive teenager, Naomi, is reborn as a monster into a fantastical world governed by the rigid rules of a suspiciously game-like system; a world full of magic and danger where the familiar mingles with the inexplicable. She finds herself deep in the bizzarre, savage forests of the unclaimed lands where deadly monsters prowl in the shadows just out of sight.After a close brush with death, any hope that this could be a lighthearted adventure evaporates as she feels real pain for the first time. The realization sinks in as Naomi comes to terms with this not being just a game; it’s her reality now.As if coming to grips with the life or death survival situation she finds herself in isn’t enough, the description of one of her skills seems to be speaking to her...
Bliss
Fiona Zedde - 2005
It's a world Bliss wanders through with blinders on, all the while craving more. And she finds it in the most unlikely of places.Embarking on a series of carnal adventures with a notorious bad girl as her guide, Bliss opens herself to every new experience and every taboo. In abandoned warehouses, private fetish clubs, even her own office, Bliss is skating on the thin ice of desire--until her world comes crashing in.Now, broken and wanting, Bliss decides to spend a summer in her birthplace, Jamaica, where she hopes to reconcile with her estranged father and rediscover herself. There, in a land of lush ripeness, of heat, warm breezes, easy smiles, and the family she left behind, Bliss will discover what she didn't know was missing. It's a journey that will awaken every one of her senses and take her to the edge of known pleasure and far beyond it, to a love that is as sexy as it gets, as real as can be, and more surprising than she can imagine--a place of total bliss.