The Frighteners follows the quest of Peter Laws, a Baptist minister with a penchant for the macabre, to understand why so many people love things that are spooky, morbid and downright repellent. He meets vampires, hunts werewolves in Hull, talks to a man who has slept on a mortuary slab to help him deal with a diagnosis, and is chased by a chainsaw-wielding maniac through a farmhouse full of hanging bodies.

Staring into the darkness of a Transylvanian night, he asks: What is it that makes millions of people seek to be disgusted and freaked out? And, in a world that worships rationality and points an accusing finger at violent video games and gruesome films, can an interest in horror culture actually give us safe ways to confront our mortality? Might it even have power to re-enchant our jaded world?

Grab your crucifixes, pack the silver bullets, and join the Sinister Minister on his romp into our morbid curiosities.

Kincaid Strange, not your average voodoo practitioner, is back in the freshly imagined and hugely entertaining second installment of Kristi Charish's urban fantasy series.

Kincaid Strange cannot catch a break. After dealing with a spate of paranormal murders, there's barely time to recuperate--let alone sleep in--before there's a new problem in Kincaid's world of paranormal activity. When her roommate, Nathan Cade--the ghost of a grunge-rocker with a pathological lack of self-control--comes home bound to a dead body, it's up to Kincaid to figure out how to free him. Ideally before her new mentor, Gideon, a powerful sorcerer's ghost, discovers that Nate is trapped in the body he'd coveted for himself.

When Aaron, a Seattle cop on the afterlife beat--and Kincaid's ex--calls her in to help out with a cold case, she takes the chance to mend fences with the police department. The problem: they want to interview Nate's ghost, which she can't produce. Then people from Nate's past start showing up dead, and what's killing them doesn't seem to be human. And the way it's killing them is especially brutal.

Nate's hiding something, but he's Kincaid's friend and she wants to help him. But she also wants to stay alive...

She can glimpse visions of the past, present, and future but she doesn’t know when, how, or why. She only knows the outcome, and it doesn’t look good…

Being human is hard enough. Being human with psychic abilities is worse. It was for Terra Vane anyway, until she immigrated to Portiside. There she feels at home in the thriving city of the Fey, Shifters, Vampires, and other gifted humans.

Where there are many factions of creatures, however, crime and skirmishes are to be expected. With a stubbornness born out of years of being deemed a “freak,” Terra’s determination and unique ability serve her well as an Enforcer Field Agent for the Portiside City Agency.


Alongside her annoying wolf-shifting partner, Kaleb, there is no case that is too strange to solve. No case too dangerous—until there is, and the trail of bloodlust leads them to unravel a mystery that threatens Portiside as they know it.

How in the world have I not read something by Katie Epstein before?

Death Be Blue was my introduction to her writing. I picked it because, let's be honest ya'll, that's a great cover. 

The blurb reminded me a lot of one of my favorite series, The Bloodhound Files by D.D. Barant. The main character is an FBI profiler that has been taken from her world into an alternate reality where only 1% percent of the population is human and the rest is vampires, werewolves, and golems. Oh my.  After reading the blurb, I was all in. And I'm so glad I did!

The similarity to The Bloodhound Files is superficial. Death Be Blue is it's own creature. I read this in about two days and would have finished a lot sooner if not for having to work  (ugh)  those two days. This book is so much fun!

In Terra Vane's world of Portiside, she works as an Enforcer Field Agent, bringing wrong-doers to justice with her shifter partner, Kaleb. Think of them as detectives on the police force, if the detectives all had magical or supernatural abilities and the criminals grow fur and teeth at will.

Terra is a complex character. She has a heart-breaking backstory that she struggles to leave behind. Betrayed by those in her past, she's determined to forge a new life for herself in Portiside. She's tough, but vulnerable, and not just because she's a sheep amongst the wolves. (pun intended) Being human is a world where everyone around you sprouts claws and fangs, surely would weigh on anyone. She is determined to make those around her see her as more than just the breakable human though. It's rare that we see such a kick-ass character made imperfect and relatable without being annoying. She's flawed but she knows it, so she shakes herself off and moves on.

The supporting characters are well thought out and charismatic. I loved Kaleb. He made me smile more than once. He's kinda like the best friend that is trying to figure his way out of the friend zone. His relationship with Terra is well grounded but yet, tumultuous because of that. Cole is the strong, silent type, if the silent type also is your boss that always seems to be pissed at you. There's a bit of a love triangle here for Terra. I can't say that I wouldn't be happy with either of her choices. I loved the development of the romance in this book. I absolutely hate when characters immediately fall in love, or in bed, or when the story line comes second to the relationships. This had just the right amount of build up and slow burn. That scene at the end...woof! (pun not intended, ha!)

The world building, in a genre, where it's "all been done before", is surprisingly unique. The story is fast paced and exciting.  The writing style is down to earth and easy to read. The dialogue is witty and flows well.

If you haven't picked up Death Be Blue and you love urban fantasy, go now and get it. This will definitely not be my last by Katie Epstein.

I *may* have already downloaded the second in the series, "Death Be Charmed" to devour next.

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for the opportunity to review Death Be Blue!

Katie Epstein is an author of paranormal romance, fantasy and urban fantasy novels. She is known for the Prophecy Child series and the Terra Vane series.

Living in the UK, with a husband, two children and a wild imagination, Katie now dedicates her time to churning out stories in genres where the artistic licence is limitless.

Almost every tourist destination has a graveyard. You go to Yosemite National Park: there’s a graveyard. You go to Maui: graveyards everywhere you look. The Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park: both graveyards. The number one tourist destination in Michigan has three cemeteries. America’s best-preserved Gold Rush ghost town has five. Gettysburg is a National Park because it has a graveyard. 

Some graveyards are even tourist destinations in themselves: the Old Jewish Cemetery of Prague, the colonial burying grounds of Boston, and Kennedy’s eternal flame in Arlington National Cemetery. Jim Morrison’s grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery ranks in the top five tourist sites of Paris. 

Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel contains 35 graveyard travel essays, which visit more than 50 cemeteries, churchyards, and gravesites across the globe. 

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Fear makes us feel alive. 

Your heart starts pounding. 

Your neck hairs stand up.

You get goose bumps.

Custom demanded that Prince Urban get a love mark tattooed to the side of his left eye as an infant, just like the rest of his people, but to him, the stupid things have only brought on the scorn of his father, the misery of his siblings, and caused his entire kingdom to go broke from fighting so many wars over the irritating ink stains.

When Urban’s sister must travel to Donnelly, the kingdom within the sand, for her arranged marriage to align two realms, he goes with her. But he no sooner steps foot inside their castle than his mark starts itching like a son of a bitch, telling him his one true love is near.

It just figures, though, that the woman meant for him is completely forbidden. Now he must decide if he should ignore the persistent mark, telling him she’s the one, in order to avoid a possible war between kingdoms, or if he should discover whether she’s worth risking everything for so they can be together. Either way, his life gets sucked into chaos with threats of beheadings, dark magic lurking, castle traitors scheming, and sword fights eminent.

Who knew one little tattoo could cause so much trouble? (ONE TRUE LOVE is the author’s first attempt at a fantasy romance. Please forgive her; she might’ve read an overabundance of Cassandra Gannon, Sarah J. Maas, and Eve Langlais books, then gone off to watch too many episodes of Supernatural, Game of Thrones, and Outlander, because this was the outcome.)

Marjorie Glatt feels like a ghost. 

A practical thirteen year old in charge of the family laundry business, her daily routine features unforgiving customers, unbearable P.E. classes, and the fastidious Mr. Saubertuck who is committed to destroying everything she’s worked for. Wendell is a ghost. A boy who lost his life much too young, his daily routine features ineffective death therapy, a sheet-dependent identity, and a dangerous need to seek purpose in the forbidden human world. 

 When their worlds collide, Marjorie is confronted by unexplainable disasters as Wendell transforms Glatt’s Laundry into his midnight playground, appearing as a mere sheet during the day. While Wendell attempts to create a new afterlife for himself, he unknowingly sabotages the life that Marjorie is struggling to maintain. Sheets illustrates the determination of a young girl to fight, even when all parts of her world seem to be conspiring against her. It proves that second chances are possible whether life feels over or life is over. But above all, it is a story of the forgiveness and unlikely friendship that can only transpire inside a haunted laundromat.

Katie Bishop would have taken her secret to the grave, 

but . . .

a bunch of fat cat society folks smelled her out and made her an offer she couldn't refuse.

Katie just wants to run her tattoo business quietly under the radar. But when a man walks into her shop and hands her a drawing of the same tattoo she's been dreaming about for weeks, things start to spin out of control. The last two people who tried to apply that tattoo are dead.

Only half human, it's her other half that an elite group wants to hire-a group of Savannah's more privileged citizens, including the city's reigning coven of witches.There's a rogue god on the loose, and Katie is the only one who can send him back to hell before he breaks open the crossroads and lets the underworld waltz right in-if he manages to get that deadly tattoo inked onto his back.