Showing posts with label Urban Fantasy. Show all posts

Shadow Caster Debbie Cassidy (The Nightwatch Academy #1) Publication date: September 10th 2019 Genres: New Adult, Romance, Urban Fantasy...

Shadow Caster
Debbie Cassidy
(The Nightwatch Academy #1)
Publication date: September 10th 2019
Genres: New Adult, Romance, Urban Fantasy

Murdering humans is a huge no-no and comes with an off-with-your-head sentence. Doesn’t matter if you don’t remember doing the crime.
I killed a human, and no, it wasn’t on purpose, but that shit doesn’t matter to the council. I’m facing death. So, when I’m offered a deal to avoid execution, I’d be a fool not to take it, even if it means leaving the human world and urban life behind to enroll in the Nightwatch Academy – a gothic monstrosity hidden from human eyes, located way too close to the largest tear in the fabric of our reality.
It would be fun if I had any inclination of becoming a member of the Watch or supporting the shadow knights at keeping the Formorian threat at bay. But heck, the monsters beyond the mist aren’t my problem. I have personal demons to deal with.
Once I’m out, the Watch can shove it.
But one sip from the ceremonial goblet and my plans to coast are out of the window as my powers spark to life.
I’m an anomaly, one the Watch won’t be letting walk any time soon.
My only comfort is a man who prides himself on his ability to harness pain. Battle scarred and formidable, he’s my tutor, my mentor, and the object of some super saucy dreams. He’s completely off limits and my only hope of surviving my first test.
I’ll need to harness my powers fast.
There can be no distractions.
But when my fellow cadets start going missing then returning with no memory of who they used to be and my best friend is taken, turning a blind eye is no longer an option.
Allies are limited when you’re a freak. Luckily, I don’t need a cheer squad to get shit done. Whoever is responsible better watch out. I’m coming for them, and I’ll be bringing the pain.
The Vampire Academy meets Game of Thrones in this kick-ass, supernatural academy, Urban Fantasy Romance.

Slaying Monsters for the Feeble Annette Marie (The Guild Codex: Demonized #2) Published by: Dark Owl Fantasy Inc. Publication date...


Slaying Monsters for the Feeble
Annette Marie
(The Guild Codex: Demonized #2)
Published by: Dark Owl Fantasy Inc.
Publication date: November 1st 2019
Genres: New Adult, Urban Fantasy


I’m bound to a demon.
For my entire life, I avoided magic at all costs. Now, I’m responsible for a demon who wields magic more powerful than the toughest mage or sorcerer.

Demons are evil.

That’s what my textbooks say. That’s what I see. He’s ruthless, he’s temperamental, he’s cold. But he protects me without fail. I wonder if he’s hiding a heart behind his hostility.

My demon is a monster.

Heartless or not, my contract with him is illegal and beyond dangerous. Together, we need to find a way to send him back to his own world before anyone discovers our secret. If that wasn’t difficult enough, there’s another problem:
My demon isn’t the only monster I should be worried about.


From the author of The Guild Codex: Spellbound comes a new series that will plunge an unprepared young woman into the darkest magic of the mythic world.

A Drop of Magic   The Magicsmith Book 1 by L.R. Braden Genre: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance  The war isn’t over . . . ...


A Drop of Magic 
The Magicsmith Book 1
by L.R. Braden
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance 


The war isn’t over . . .
With the world clinging to a fragile peace forced on the Fae by humanity after the Faerie Wars, metalsmith Alex Blackwood is plunged into the world of the half-fae who traffick in illegal magical artifacts. Her best friend’s murder and his cryptic last message place her in the crosshairs of a scheme to reignite the decade-old war between humans and fae.
Worse, violent attacks against her and the arrival of a fae knight on a mission force Alex to face a devastating revelation of who and what she is. To catch a killer, retrieve a dangerous artifact, and stop a war, Alex will have to accept that she’s an unregistered fae “halfer” with a unique magical talent—a talent that would change everything she believes about her past, her art, and her future.
Her world is crumbling around her, and Alex will have to decide who to trust if she and the world are going to survive.
A Drop of Magic is a damned fun and original read, with sass, action, hot men, and a whole lot of magic.” —Diana Pharaoh Francis, author of the Diamond City Magic, Magicfall, and Horngate Witches series

Awakening: Rise as the Fall Unfolds  Carissa Andrews  Publication date: November 12th 2019 Genres: Supernatural Thriller/Urban...




Awakening: Rise as the Fall Unfolds 

Carissa Andrews 
Publication date: November 12th 2019
Genres: Supernatural Thriller/Urban Fantasy

The multiverse is in shambles without all its pieces in place and the darkness is coming for them. Five angels have to pull a course correction—but they have to all agree first.
Morgan’s been a psychic, tasked with awakening angels in her dimension for the past twenty years. Finding this purpose and calling was a blessing… and a curse. She never expected it would lead her to a single supernatural suicide mission to save all of creation, with the final five angels at her side.
All they have to do is figure out the missing piece and how their individual angelic gifts fit together. Too bad their humanity is clouding their judgment and none of them can get on the same page long enough to make a coordinated plan.
When they finally realize the missing piece and how they fit into the puzzle, it means leaving behind everything they’ve ever known in the hopes of changing fate. The decision isn’t taken lightly. But if they don’t accept their roles and come together, none of it will matter.
If they fail, existence ceases.

We were meant to be seductive. We were designed to lure humans in.  Fortuna Sworn is the last of her kind. Her br...



We were meant to be seductive. We were designed to lure humans in. 


Fortuna Sworn is the last of her kind.

Her brother disappeared two years ago, leaving her with no family or species to speak of. She hides among humans, spending her days working at a bar and her nights searching for him. The bleak pattern goes on and on... until she catches the eye of a powerful faerie.

He makes no attempt to hide that he desires Fortuna. And in exchange for her, he offers something irresistible. So Fortuna reluctantly leaves her safe existence behind to step back into a world of creatures and power. 

It soon becomes clear that she may not have bargained with her heart, but her very life.

Wes Rockville, a disgraced law-enforcement agent, gets one last chance to prove himself and save his career when he’s reassigned to a 2...


Wes Rockville, a disgraced law-enforcement agent, gets one last chance to prove himself and save his career when he’s reassigned to a 232-year-old secret government organization.

The Witches Protection Program.

His first assignment: uncover a billion-dollar cosmetics company’s diabolical plan to use witchcraft for global domination, while protecting its heiress Morgan Pendragon from her aunt’s evil deeds. Reluctantly paired with veteran witch protector, Alastair Verne, Wes must learn to believe in witches…and believe in himself.

Filled with adventure and suspense, Michael Okon creates a rousing, tongue-in-cheek alternate reality where witches cast spells and wreak havoc in
 modern-day New York City.


Griffin, an expert wise-ass, has never experienced true horror until his father is killed by a foul beast that certainly seems like but is...


Griffin, an expert wise-ass, has never experienced true horror until his father is killed by a foul beast that certainly seems like but is, apparently, not a werewolf—according to the knight who saves him from the same fate, anyway. He’s also never met a real knight before. Or had superhuman speed. Or strength. Or met his soul mate. Who knew the capacity for it all was in his blood all along?

Encountering the ancient Order of the Guardians and taking his place a defender against creatures of darkness awakens Griffin to a host of experiences, both human and supernatural—and often unnerving. Between monsters, psychotic enemies, and secretive knights, can Griffin and the rest of the Order hold back evil...or even survive?


When war knocks on the door, burying your head in the sand won’t make it leave. Death called and I answered. Now Genesis is coming for us....


When war knocks on the door, burying your head in the sand won’t make it leave.
Death called and I answered. Now Genesis is coming for us.
But with the council making every excuse not to listen to my warnings, there’s no other option but to plot behind their backs.
Time is limited.
The sea kingdom awaits, and the sea king isn’t the kind of man to accept a rain check. It means the guys and I will need to hold fire on our plan to pinpoint Genesis’s location.
Let’s just hope that the shit stays away from the fan until my return… Let’s hope it doesn’t follow me.>

A Post-Apocalyptic Urban fantasy world with a slow burn Whychoose Romance.


Vampire with a past and homicide detective, Naoko “Nick” Tanaka just got transferred to the NYPD, where he works as a “Midnight,” o...



Vampire with a past and homicide detective, Naoko “Nick” Tanaka just got transferred to the NYPD, where he works as a “Midnight,” or vampire in the employ of the human police. Like all state-registered vamps, he gets his food delivered to his door, lives in government housing, and basically can’t sneeze without the U.S. government knowing about it.


Still, he’s determined to play by the rules. More than anything, he just wants to be left alone, to finish out his immortality in peace… but he’s barely there two weeks when things already start to go sideways.

It starts with a weird case involving inexplicable paintings that predict murders before they happen.

Between his mystery painter, a bunch of dead hybrid-humans, a conspiracy involving the richest families in New York, and a school principal who has an unsettling effect on him, Nick finds he can’t get personally uninvolved with any of it.

Instead, he gets sucked in even deeper, until he’s pretty sure he’ll end up forcibly reprogrammed by his human masters — assuming they don’t just rip his heart out of his chest and be done with it.

VAMPIRE DETECTIVE MIDNIGHT is book #1 of a gritty, romantic new series set in a futuristic, dystopian New York, involving vampires, humans and psychics trying to rebuild their world after a devastating race war that nearly obliterated all of them.


Griffin, an expert wise-ass, has never experienced true horror until his father is killed by a foul beast that certainly seems like bu...


Griffin, an expert wise-ass, has never experienced true horror until his father is killed by a foul beast that certainly seems like but is, apparently, not a werewolf—according to the knight who saves him from the same fate, anyway. He’s also never met a real knight before. Or had superhuman speed. Or strength. Or met his soul mate. Who knew the capacity for it all was in his blood all along?
Encountering the ancient Order of the Guardians and taking his place a defender against creatures of darkness awakens Griffin to a host of experiences, both human and supernatural—and often unnerving. Between monsters, psychotic enemies, and secretive knights, can Griffin and the rest of the Order hold back evil…or even survive?

A redhead with a drawl, a lawyer with pink hair, and a homeless seventeen-year-old have no business forming a pack.   In a world where magi...


A redhead with a drawl, a lawyer with pink hair, and a homeless seventeen-year-old have no business forming a pack. 
In a world where magic is commonplace, and your neighbor is just as likely to be an elf as a troll, three humans are unwillingly changed into werewolves. 

Unprepared and unwanted. 

The pack may have chosen Amber as their Alpha, but that’s not a title she is supposed to have. In order to be legally recognized as an Alpha she must pass the Trials, and it won’t be easy. If she fails, her pack will be disbanded and forced into a halfway house for bitten werewolves, aka The System. 

But the pack needs a sponsor in order to even enter the Trials. 

With everything to lose, the brand new pack must learn to work together before it’s too late.


The day she killed her boss...  Everything changed.  She never laid a hand on him to take hi...



The day she killed her boss... 


Everything changed. 


She never laid a hand on him to take his life. She didn’t have to. 

As her boss lies on the floor with a dozen witnesses staring and paramedics working in a futile effort to save him, a mysterious stranger approaches Angie with a bizarre offer. 

It’s a job with the ExtraTerrestrial Protection Agency, a secret organization. Can Angie trust a group whose very existence is ultra classified? 

She has to decide in a hurry because her newly released power starts drawing attention from life-draining, telepathic, Mindworms and alien scientists obsessed with abducting humans. Most terrifying of all, she’s stalked by one of the most fearsome predators in the galaxy. 

If you loved Men in Black or Ilona Andrews’ Innkeeper Chronicles series, buckle up for a wild ride with Angie Faust in Cursing. Get it now!

What if a single act of rebellion had the power to change your fate? Rowan and Abel Hayes’ birth ended a centuries-old family curse, bu...


What if a single act of rebellion had the power to change your fate?

Rowan and Abel Hayes’ birth ended a centuries-old family curse, but being a curse breaker has its drawbacks. Now they live a life full of rules.


When Rowan breaks a rule, she sets a powerful chain of events into motion that she never could’ve imagined. Abel is kidnapped, and it’s up to Rowan to save her twin. Can she rely on the aid of an old friend who once betrayed her? Or will new enemies prove too strong for her to handle?


(New Adult, contains language and sexual content. 18+)





Charley is a cleaner by day and a professional gambler by night. She might be haunted by her tragic past but she's never thought o...

Charley is a cleaner by day and a professional gambler by night. She might be haunted by her tragic past but she's never thought of herself as anything or anyone special. Until, that is, things start to go terribly wrong all across the city of Manchester. Between plagues of rats, firestorms and the gleaming blue eyes of a sexy Scottish werewolf, she might just have landed herself in the middle of a magical apocalypse. She might also be the only person who has the ability to bring order to an utterly chaotic new world. 

This is the first book in The City Of Magic series.



This is not The Little Red Riding Hood we grew up with. Supernatural races—vampires, werewolves, witches, you name it—all ex...




This is not The Little Red Riding Hood we grew up with.

Supernatural races—vampires, werewolves, witches, you name it—all exist.
Eighteen-year-old Rue Chaperon and her family belong to an elite hunting society, the S.H.A—Supernatural Hunting Association—and what the Chaperons hunt best are werewolves.

When a new hunting group convinces the Chaperons to team up with them and try a different approach to hunting the supernatural by taking out the Alpha, it sounded like a great idea.
Taking out the Alpha meant they'd eradicate the entire race.
Piece of cake, right?
But nothing is ever easy when you're a hunter.



A Little Red Riding Hood retelling with a spin that will make you believe not all fairytales were meant for children.


  When I first landed a bartending job at the local guild, I didn’t know a thing about magic. These days, I’m practically an expert on t...


 When I first landed a bartending job at the local guild, I didn’t know a thing about magic. These days, I’m practically an expert on the different magical classes, but there’s one nobody ever talks about: Demonica.

Turns out they have a good reason for that. My guild is strictly hellion-free, because who wants to risk life and limb to control the biggest bullies on the mythic playground?

Well, some people do, and now a demon has been loosed in the city. My three best friends are determined to slay it, but even badass combat mages are critically out-magicked. And that’s not all. The monster they’re tracking—it’s not hiding. It’s not fleeing. It’s not leaving a trail of corpses everywhere it goes.

The demon is hunting too. And in a city full of mythics, it’s searching for deadlier prey.

If we can’t unravel the demon’s sinister motivations, more innocent people will die, but finding the answers means digging into dark secrets … and learning truths I never wanted to know.

Note: The three mages are definitely sexy, but this series isn’t a reverse harem. It’s 100% fun, sassy, fast-paced urban fantasy.

ALL’S FAIR IN REINCARNATION AND WAR. You’ve heard the stories of Norse gods. Thor. Odin. Ragnarok. I’m here to tell you they’re all true....

ALL’S FAIR IN REINCARNATION AND WAR.

You’ve heard the stories of Norse gods. Thor. Odin. Ragnarok. I’m here to tell you they’re all true. I know because I was there.


My name is Loki.


A thousand years ago, give or take a century or two, I walked the Nine Realms with my brothers, spreading mischief and leaving behind a trail of broken hearts wherever I roamed. I built an unforgettable brand as the trickster god, the father of the Midgard Serpent, Fenrir the wolf, and even Hel herself. In my exploits, I may have accidentally on purpose triggered a bit of unpleasantness that led to the end of the world, but apparently, it wasn’t the end of me. Recently, the shield of ice that froze me in an arctic cage melted (thanks, global warming), and I clawed my way to the surface of a new world.


With a fresh lease on life and a rocking-hot body, I just need one thing: the rune that grants me immortality.


Oh, and a bra would be nice. These boobs really know how to get in the way of a good hustle.


“When all else fails, the ass end of a carp makes a damn fine weapon.” Your new favorite monster hunter has arrived! Bubba the Mo...





“When all else fails, the ass end of a carp makes a damn fine weapon.”

Your new favorite monster hunter has arrived! Bubba the Monster Hunter has some competition in this horror comedy collection from best-selling author duo Gail Z. & Larry N. Martin!

By day, Mark Wojcik can be found elbow-deep in engine grease, making cars and trucks safe for the highway. By night, he can be found traipsing through the wilds of Pennsylvania, making the world safe for humans. He’s more than just a mechanic, he’s a New Templar Knight. He travels the backroads and byways fighting weresquonks, ningen, selkies, ghosts, and…gnomes? Is that gnome…naked? (sigh).


Season One collects the first four novellas in the Spells, Salt, & Steel series –
Spells, Salt, & Steel
Open Season
Deep Trouble
Close Encounters


Excerpt


When all else fails, the ass end of a carp makes a damn fine weapon.
I’d been lying in wait for the ningen to show up, and by the wee hours of the morning, I was tired and cranky and out of coffee. As soon as the sun went down, I pulled in to the Linesville, Pennsylvania, spillway. The tourists were gone, and the concession stand’s gates were closed. Still blows my mind how many people will come look at a bunch of fish. Even if those fish are a boiling, writhing mass of three-foot long, twenty-pound carp that look like something out of a Biblical plague.
I’m Mark Wojcik, mechanic—and monster hunter. I gank things that go bump in the night so that most people never have to know supernatural uglies exist outside of bad horror movies. No one chooses this life; it chooses you, usually in a violent and awful way. In my case, a deer hunt turned into a wendigo hunting us. I survived—barely—but my father, brother, uncle, and cousin didn’t. Neither did the wendigo, when I was done with it.
The carp weren’t my problem. Tourists loved throwing day-old bread into the water to watch the carp roil over each other, mouths gaping. Tonight, they weren’t the only ones with an unnatural interest in big fish.
A corpse-pale creature balanced on the low concrete rim of the spillway catch basin. It stood about five feet tall, slender with long arms, and a body that looked like a giant white tadpole with arms and skinny, short legs. Ningen can get as big as sixty feet, or so the cryptid sites say, but then again, they say that ningen are only found in Japan, so I don’t put much stock in them.
“Koko ni sakana no kao ga kuru,” I called to it, betting that a Japanese monster might understand Japanese. Then again, I’d looked up key phrases on Google Translate, so God only knows what I actually said. “Come here, fish face,” I repeated in English, in case the ningen was bilingual.
The ningen cocked its round head and blinked its solid black eyes. I leaned over the railing and waved my bait at it, a nice piece of salmon I’d paid fifteen bucks for at the supermarket, thinking the creature might want an upgrade.
“That’s it,” I coaxed, dangling the prime wild salmon and giving it a shake. “That’s a good little sekana no neko.” That’s the magic of translation: “fish fucker” sounds classier in a foreign language.
If the ningen felt offended, it didn’t look it, although for all I knew, maybe I’d been descriptive instead of insulting. The ningen raised its head and opened its mouth, scenting the air. It shuffled toward me on its stubby legs, like it had its pants down around its knees. I grinned, keeping the sharpened iron harpoon blade concealed behind my back in my right hand.

At the speed the ningen hop-walked, it might take it ten minutes to get to me, but once I ganked him, I’d be back home relaxing with a nice cold beer.
That’s when the damn thing leapt into the air like a horny salmon going to spawn and grabbed the filet in my hand so hard he pulled me over the fence and into the carp-filled water. I lost the piece of fish, but managed to keep the harpoon. When I fell in, fully-clothed and in my steel-toe boots, I thought I’d sink, but I fell onto the roiling carp that made a moving, lumpy.
net beneath me. They buoyed me along just long enough for me to regain my wits and scramble onto the small stretch of rocky shore between the overflow basin and the wall below the fence. The ningen crouched, eyeing me as it shoved the raw salmon into its mouth, and I got a look at its jagged, sharp teeth—something else the cryptid reports had been less than accurate about. I realized then that the small strip of land around me was covered with fish bones. Those all-black eyes kept staring at me, and although I’d heard long pig tasted like chicken, this jagoff looked like he was wondering how much I’d taste like fish.
It sprang for me, and I rolled, gritting my teeth as the sharp stones and fish bones jabbed through my jacket and jeans. I brought up my harpoon gun and got off a shot. The barbed iron blade hit the ningen in the shoulder instead of the chest like I’d hoped, but it must have hurt like a mother since the thing let out an ungodly howl that would have put any loon to shame.
I yanked on the rope attached to the base of the blade with all my might. The ningen stumbled toward me. Then it grabbed the rope and pulled. And I found myself face down in the water, getting smacked in the head by carp the size of toddlers.
I scrambled back onto the rocky bank. What little I could find about ningen, that was written in English, said it would have less power on land. I yanked the rope again, getting angry now, and the ningen bared its barracuda teeth at me and gave another ear-splitting shriek.
The iron had an effect on it; I could see black veins radiating from where the blade lodged in its shoulder, spreading across the once-perfect white skin. I just didn’t know how long the iron blade would take to kill the creature, or if it would do the job completely. My gun was safe and dry in my truck, since I’d figured going for a forced swim was likely. But I had a couple more tricks up my soggy sleeves.
The ningen closed in on me, and I grabbed a kada, one of those martial arts sickle blades, from a scabbard on my back. I didn’t know if Japanese weapons were extra-lethal on Japanese monsters, but I fully intended to go ninja on its ass for leaving me soggy and freezing and smelling like carp.
“Let’s see you shi’ne, you piece of fish shit,” I muttered. I watched as much anime as my Crunchy Roll subscription could handle, and I’d picked up on a few overused phrases. “Die” seemed like a good one.
Except that the ningen didn’t seem to take it the way I’d intended and jerked me back into the water.
I managed to roll so I got the kada blade between us and swung as hard as I could, sinking the point of the curved blade into its chest where I hoped its heart might be. The black veins from the iron blade had spread across its entire torso, up its fish-belly white neck, and down its overly long arms.
But it wasn’t dead yet, and it came at me again, forcing me to fall backward in the water into another mass of carp. I kicked with my legs to get some distance between myself and the ningen.
The carp weren’t pleased to have me land on them, and one of the fish jumped out of the water and landed in my arms, all thirty pounds of him.
Instinct took over, and I wrapped both arms around the carp’s middle and thrust its powerful tail toward the ningen. The fish wriggled wildly in my grip, its tail slapping back and forth with sharp scales and fins. It knocked the harpoon deeper into the ningen’s chest, as the black lacework of the iron’s poison spread across the rest of its skin.
I got my feet under me and dragged myself onto the shore, still holding a pissed-off carp between me and the monster. The ningen lurched forward, grabbing for me with its long, skeletal arms and clammy, dead white hands. Then it fell over and lay face-down amid the carp, completely covered by the deadly pattern of the iron’s taint running through its veins.
“Tora, tora, tora that, fish fucker,” I muttered. I dropped the carp, and it disappeared into the roiling mass of its companions.
I hauled myself back up on the rocky shore and caught my breath. The night was warm, but that’s a relative statement in this neck of Northwestern Pennsylvania, and I started to shiver. The ningen lay where it fell, and I was just about to pull it out of the water when I saw its body twitch.
“Oh, no you don’t!” I growled, but before I could climb up the wall to get my gun out of the truck, the carp began to thrash. My stomach turned as I realized that the ningen wasn’t moving on its own; its body jerked and moved because dozens of carp were nibbling at its flesh.
In the next moment, the ningen’s form sank lower, pulled down by the fish. The pale body vanished beneath the water, and the fish fought each other to get closer, obscuring it from view. “Hey buddy! No fishing!” I turned and got a face full of flashlight beam, blinding me. The perfect end to a lousy evening would be getting arrested for monstercide. Or in this case, fishing without a license.
“Oh, it’s you, Mark.”
I blinked and recognized a familiar voice. Louie Marino, a guy I’d known since first grade, and one of Linesville’s Finest.
“Not fishing, Louie. Honest. Just business.” Louie’s one of the few area cops who know what I really do. He gets it—mainly because when he had a nasty little infestation of demon-possessed rabid raccoons a few years back, I took care of it for him, no questions asked.

“Keeping busy?” he asked, angling the flashlight so I could see again.
“Always. They pay you enough to be on fish patrol at this hour?”
Louie shrugged. “Workin’ nights this week. Drew the short straw. Just another day in paradise.” He wrinkled his nose. “You stink like carp.”
“I’ve heard of ‘swimming with the fishes,’ just didn’t intend to take it literally,” I replied, wringing out the water from the hem of my flannel shirt.
“Do I want to know?”
I shook my head. “Probably not. If the rangers at the Spillway say anything about their fish count being down, tell them it’s been taken care of.”
Louis grinned, taking in my utterly disreputable condition. “You’re just lucky I was on duty tonight, or you’d be going from the fish tank to the drunk tank.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny,” I mumbled, although I knew he was right. “Oh, and Louie?” I said as we headed back to our vehicles. “If I were you, I wouldn’t eat any carp out of the lake this season. I think their diet’s been a little…off.”





Spells, Salt, & Steel is a collection of four novellas. Each follows Mark Wojcik (Voy-chick, not Whoa, chick!), mechanic and monster hunter extraordinaire on his nightly escapades tracking down and sometimes not-so-quietly ridding the world of things that go bump in the night. Sure the monster hunter thing has been done before but never so well as this. I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself at the end of the first novella. Why? Because I had forgotten that it was a novella!

Right from the first pages, the authors construct an elaborate world and story to immerse yourself in. With great characters, fun cryptid cases, and plenty of comedic banter, I didn't want Spells, Salt, & Steel to end. Some of the cryptids seemed so far fetched, but a quick google search later... nope, they aren't making this up. (Well, they are, but you know what I mean!) From ghosts to gnomes, shubin to selkies, and trolls to tulpas, there's broad mythology to the creatures that Mark encounters. There's no one size fits all solution, and Mark comes up with some outlandish ones, that's for sure!

As he states, no one gets into hunting for fun and profit; they do it because they've lost people. In Mark's case, he lost his brother, father, uncle, and cousin to a wendigo. You don't survive that without wanting vengeance so he became a hunter. Mark is such a great character. He's fallible but tries to do the right thing. Armed with research from the dark web, "ghost" stories from the locals, and holy water and salt improvised weaponry, Mark is quite creative in his hunting — often finding Plan B only seconds after Plan A fails. I loved his Scooby support team too: couple Blair and Chaira, Louie Marino, police officer, and Father Leo, priest and member of the Occulatum, a secret Vatican organization battling supernatural and demonic activity. Ready with good-natured ribbing and backup, his friends provide intel, assistance and sometimes, alibis.

There were so many humourous situations, and some serious ones that Mark's banter made funny. Here's just a few of the moments that made me giggle:

So here I was loaded up with more weapons than Elmer Fudd in duck season, looking for a carnivorous cryptid in a bottomless swamp. What could possibly go wrong? Fuck-all, that's what.
And another:
Which explained how a grown-ass man like me ended up squatting down behind a cemetery angel in the middle of the night, looking for a two-foot-tall prankster with a helium-high giggle. The fact that this wasn't the worst way I'd ever spent a Saturday night speaks volumes about my life. 

My favorite stories out of the bunch were definitely the gnome in the cemetery quoted above and the tulpa in Wonderama, the abandoned amusement park, but I enjoyed all of them. My least favorite? Probably the UFO. Though I enjoyed that one too so that's saying something.

With plenty of humor, first-rate characters, and even better creatures, Spells, Salt, & Steel was a fun universe to blow a couple of days in. Apparently, multiple story arcs of the author's urban fantasy series intersect, so if you enjoy Spells, Salts, & Steel, check out the Gail Z. Martin's Deadly Curiosities series and her Witchbane and Badlands series, written as Morgan Brice.







Gail Z. Martin discovered her passion for science fiction, fantasy and ghost stories in elementary school. The first story she wrote at age five was about a vampire. Her favorite TV show as a preschooler was Dark Shadows. At age 14, she decided to become a writer. She enjoys attending science fiction/fantasy conventions, Renaissance fairs and living history sites.




Larry N. Martin is the author of the new sci-fi adventure novel Salvage Rat. He is the co-author (with Gail Z. Martin) of the Spells, Salt, and Steel/New Templars series; the Steampunk series Iron & Blood; and a collection of short stories and novellas: The Storm & Fury Adventures set in the Iron & Blood universe. He is also the co-author of the upcoming Wasteland Marshals series and the Joe Mack Cauldron/Secret Council series.
The Martins have three children, a Maltese, and a Golden Retriever.









A collection of nine adventures: Buttons, The Restless Dead, Retribution, Coffin Box, Wicked Dreams, Collector, Bad Memories, Shado...




A collection of nine adventures: Buttons, The Restless Dead, Retribution, Coffin Box, Wicked Dreams, Collector, Bad Memories, Shadow Garden, and Spook House. 


Cassidy Kincaide runs Trifles & Folly in modern-day Charleston, an antiques and curios shop with a dangerous secret. Cassidy can read the history of objects by touching them and along with her business partners Teag, who has Weaver magic and Sorren, a 600 year-old vampire, they get rid of cursed objects and keep Charleston and the world safe from supernatural threats. An extension of the Deadly Curiosities book series.

Revised Edition 2, 2018. Includes an updated cover, minor edits and the BONUS section with three stories chronicling Sorren’s early days: Vanities, The Wild Hunt, and Dark Legacy.


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Thirty years ago, the gods of Greek legend returned to the world. Their return restored their powers, which had been spent in a ...





Thirty years ago, the gods of Greek legend returned to the world. Their return restored their powers, which had been spent in a cataclysmic battle with the Titans. With the ancient deities imprisoned in Tartarus, the Olympians now reside in Néo Vasíleio, formerly known as California.

Twenty-four-year-old Derek Aerios is a war scion, a descendant of Ares, the God of War. He and his brother, eighteen-year-old Liam, capture mythological creatures and rogue scions as part of Ares's elite military force. As he struggles to cope with his violent powers and the scars of a traumatic childhood, Derek tries to keep the two vows he has made: protect his brother, and never kill a human again.

But when Ares forces him to hunt and kill four rogue scions under Athena's control—by threatening Liam's life—Derek chooses to go after the scions in order to save his brother and keep his promise to himself.

Yet the closer Derek gets to the scions, the more he realizes that his orders are part of a deeper conspiracy that put him at odds with his mission and his conscience. Athena may not be the enemy, a traitor could be in their midst, and the Titans could be closer to freedom than ever before.