by D. M. Livingston – 2013

In this heartwarming fantasy-horror novel, Nyx, a sarcastic, mouthy fairy, is hurled into Hell, but instead of damned souls and devils, she finds only a group of confused, young human witches.

It’s hate at first sight.

But Nyx and the witches, whose magical skills are not quite polished, must work together to survive the ravages of Hell, and then the demon-infested nightmare Earth has become.

The motley crew searches for the Keys of Iron, Flame, and Sorrow, which will (hopefully) close the Gates of Hell. However, the dark queen Morda, who opened the Gates by tricking Lucifer himself, takes a special interest in obliterating the bickering group.

While Nyx is pure fantasy without a hint of science fiction in it, I have to include it for two reasons: (1)Its heroine Nyx has enough spunk to take on all the other heroines in this list. and (2) I wrote this book, and when faced with the options of a) embarrassment of hawking my own book on this blog, and b) feeling stupid at not even mentioning my own spunky-heroine book, I had to go with the less annoying of two evils.