Ilona Andrews

Magic Bites

Kate Daniels is a down-on-her-luck mercenary who makes her living cleaning up magical problems. But when Kate’s guardian is murdered, her quest for justice draws her into a power struggle between two strong factions within Atlanta’s magic circles. Pressured by both sides to find the killer, Kate realizes she’s way out of her league—but she wouldn’t want it any other way…First in the Kate Daniels series.

Kelly Armstrong

Bitten

From School Library Journal: “Armstrong puts a new spin on the old werewolf tales and has created a well-written, thought-provoking novel to boot. The only female werewolf in existence, Elena Michaels was bitten by her werewolf fiancee and learned to live within the pack. Still struggling after 10 years to accept her identity and feeling anger toward her former lover and creator, she leaves the pack to live a relatively normal life with a nice normal guy in Toronto. Before long she is called back to help discover and destroy some dangerous non-pack werewolves, called mutts, that are torturing and killing humans. More than just fast-paced action, this book offers an allegory of the difficulties with which one struggles when life takes an entirely unplanned and unwanted route. She is a feisty, tough character, easy to like, and with a good lesson to share.” First in the Women of the Otherworld series.

Keri Arthur

Full Moon Rising

From Publishers Weekly: “Australian author Arthur’s fast-paced fantasy-romance, the first in a new series, introduces part vampire, part werewolf Riley Jenson, who works for Melbourne’s Directorate of Other Races, as does her twin brother, Rhoan. When Rhoan goes missing, a naked yet powerful vampire, Quinn, appears on Riley’s doorstep and asks for her aid. Riley and Quinn team up to find Rhoan, investigate the mysterious deaths of Directorate agents and determine who’s been creating vampire and werewolf clones. Despite their mutual attraction, Quinn-once heartbroken by a werewolf lover-will never fully trust another werewolf, but that doesn’t stop him from helping Riley through the lust that engulfs werewolves in the days leading up to the full moon. Strong, smart and capable, Riley will remind many of Anita Blake, Laurell K. Hamilton’s kick-ass vampire hunter. First in the Riley Jensen series.

Patricia Briggs

Moon Called

Mercy Thompson’s life is not exactly normal. Her next-door neighbor is a werewolf. Her former boss is a gremlin. And she’s fixing a VW bus for a vampire. But then, Mercy isn’t exactly normal herself. First in the Mercy Thompson series

Emma Bull

Finder

From School Library Journal: “Finder is a delightful bit of alchemistry that deftly blends the detective and fantasy genres. Orient is a young man with unique “talent”: ask him “where is…” and add the “non- abstract noun of your choice” and he will be tugged toward the object. In the World, this odd ability made his life nearly unbearable, but in Bordertown, the mysterious land at the edge of Faerie, such magical abilities are appreciated, and Orient earns his living using his peculiar gift. An uneasy truce exists between the fey and the human, but a lethal drug that promises the credulous the opportunity to pass the border into Faerie threatens Bordertown’s stability with a trail of deaths. Enter Sunny Rico, a hard-boiled lady cop who is more than ready to have Orient find a variety of things she hopes will help her track down the killers. The characters get under your skin, and a world in which the young and disaffected are willing to risk death in a mad bid for redemption is oddly familiar in spite of the setting. Bull’s delicate touch allows her to exploit the genre crossover with particular success‘as in the best of both genres, the tragedy seeps through the thrills, humor, and relationships so slowly that one finds the tears on one’s cheek with a shock.”

Jim Butcher

Storm Front

From Publishers Weekly: “Harry Dresden is a wizard, but he doesn’t live in a fantasyland. He’s a freelance consultant in a two-bit office in Chicago, and he’s two months behind on his rent. When a woman hires him to track down her missing husband, it seems like easy money. But soon victims are being found murdered by sorcery, with their hearts magically removed from their chests. Harry has to track down the killer, an unknown, powerful wizard who’s trying to take him out at the same time. Meanwhile, the White Council of Wizards believes Harry is the murderer and is about to pass a death sentence on him, the cops are suspicious of him and a mob boss is warning him to keep his nose out of the investigation. Butcher deftly blends the fantasy and detective genres in this entertaining yarn.” First in the Dresden Files series.

Rachel Caine

Ill Wind

From Booklist: “Joanne Baldwin is a weather warden, who can control the weather and keep it from being more chaotic and destructive than it already is. She is on the run, though, for she is accused of killing a senior warden, which she did, sort of: a thread of corruption runs through some of the most powerful wardens, one of which put a Demon Mark on her and then died. Her only hope now is to get a djinn from her old friend Lewis, who stole three of them from the council of the wardens many years ago. As she runs, she picks up a hitchhiker who knows things an ordinary person wouldn’t, and who offers help. With djinns and other wardens, including those sent to arrest her, all giving her conflicting information, Joanne never quite knows whom to trust in this romantic escapist romp rife with danger, excitement, and even classic cars.” First in the Weather Warden series.

Mike Carey

The Devil You Know

From Kirkus Reviews: “A funny, frightening, thoroughly absorbing thriller set in an alternative London where ghosts and other supernatural things go bump in the night—and day.Felix Castor, reluctant magician and exorcist, lives with his long-time friend, Pen, in her ancestral family home. Castor is burdened by the unwitting exorcism-gone-wrong that placed a close friend in a mental institution. Flushed with guilt over his failure, Castor no longer has his heart in the exorcism business. But when Pen confides she needs money soon or will lose her home, Castor reluctantly takes a commission to rid an enormous government archive of an odd ghost—a woman whose face is partially obscured by a red mist. Castor receives a warning against taking the case, but what does an exorcist really fear? Carey’s writing is nimble and witty, his dialogue believable. The exorcist’s sardonic observations and personal sense of tragedy make him an unlikely, likable hero. There is tons of action and an interesting assortment of characters and creatures that will make readers want to sleep with one eye open.” First in the Felix Castor series.

Cassandra Clare

City of Bones

From Kirkus Reviews: “Fifteen-year-old geek hipster Clary thought she was just a normal kid, but normal kids don’t see invisible people, and normal kids’ mothers don’t suddenly disappear, seemingly captured by horrific monsters. But like many fantasy heroines, Clary isn’t normal, and she’s got all the secret parentage, dramatic revelations and amazing magic powers to prove it. Clary is a Shadowhunter, brought up as a mundane but born to fight demons. She and her mundane friend Simon fall in with a trio of Shadowhunter teens, and are soon embroiled in a quest to understand Clary’s past—and incidentally save the world. Rich descriptions occasionally devolve into purple prose, but the story’s sensual flavor comes from the wealth of detail: demons with facial piercings, diners serving locusts and honey, pretty gay warlocks and cameo appearances from other urban fantasies’ characters. Complicated romantic triangles keep the excitement high even when the dramatic revelations tend toward the ridiculous. Lush and fun. First in the Mortal Instruments series.

MaryJanice Davidson

Undead and Unwed

From Booklist: “Betsy Taylor–former model, newly unemployed secretary, 30, and still single–wakes up after being flattened by a small SUV in a tacky coffin wearing cheap knock-off shoes. Her mother is glad she is back, albeit as a vampire, but her stepmother is enraged that Betsy has reclaimed her designer-shoe collection. With a wealthy best friend and a newly acquired doctor pal who is not susceptible to her formidable allure, she sets out to right wrongs but is abducted by Nostro, a tacky 500-year-old vampire who rules the undead roost. It seems that Betsy is an anomaly: a vampire who doesn’t burn in sunlight, can fight the urge to feed, and is not repulsed by religious articles, all of which may make her the prophesied Queen of the Vampires. Teaming up with gorgeous vampire Eric Sinclair, who is in her opinion a major pervert, she takes on Nostro and his minions. Sexy, steamy, and laugh-out-loud funny, Davidson’s chick-lit foray into the paranormal is delightful.” First in the Betsy Taylor undead series.

Charles de Lint

Widdershins

From Booklist: “When Lizzie Mahones car breaks down at a crossroads in the early hours of the morning, and she is rescued from a gang of particularly thuggish spirits by a kindlier one, she takes her first step into the world of the spirits of the land and also into the midst of brawls and rivalries between aboriginal spirits and others who have arrived over the centuries. The dwellers in the otherlands have adapted to changes wrought by time and technology but, not having altered their nature, are as capriciously helpful or harmful to humans as they ever were in any folktale. De Lint weaves the individual characters’ stories into a tight-knit whole, accompanied by music, love, pugnacity, frustration, and healing.”

Christine Feehan

Shadow Game

From Booklist: “In Feehan’s latest paranormal, sizzling sex scenes both physical and telepathic pave the road to true love for brilliant billionaire scientist Lily Whitney and Captain Ryland Miller, the leader of a squad of psionically gifted soldiers who have been imprisoned and separated from each other after receiving life-threatening enhancements. When Lily’s father called her in to consult on a top-secret project he was working on for the government, he had no idea that he was signing his own death warrant or that his beloved daughter with her psychic talents would witness his murder and become a target for the traitors who were bending his project to their own evil purposes. Ryland lends his psychic strength to Lily and ignites a passion that brings him and his men into her high-security estate. Action, suspense, and smart characters make this erotically charged romance an entertaining read.” First in the Ghostwalkers series.

Neil Gaiman

Neverwhere

From Library Journal: “The story revolves around Richard Mayhew, a bumbling young businessman, who is about to discover a new side of London after helping a wounded girl named Door. He is trapped in an alternate dimension, known as London Below, or the Underground. Once he steps into it, he finds that his normal life no longer exists. The only chance of getting his old life back is to accompany Door on a dangerous mission across the Underground. Like adults stumbling through the pages of a bizarre children’s story, Gaiman’s likable protagonists fight off the sinister villains of this nebulous underworld. Shards of the concrete world continually pierce the surreal surroundings, as Gaiman weaves a link between the two dimensions of London. Gaiman’s gift for mixing the absurd with the frightful give this novel the feeling of a bedtime story with adult sophistication. Readers will find themselves as unable to escape this tale as the characters themselves.”

Simon R. Green

Something From the Nightside

From the Barnes & Noble Review: “Something from the Nightside is a hard-boiled mystery that chronicles the life of John Taylor, a down-and-out private detective with supernatural abilities who specializes in finding lost things in Nightside. The realm of Nightside is “the secret, hidden, dark heart” of London, a subterranean world where time and reality have no meaning, a place where it’s always three o’clock in the morning and something dangerous is most definitely lurking right around the corner. When a desperate blonde comes to John searching for her runaway daughter, he takes the case, although it means returning to his place of birth, Nightside. John has been living in “the real world” for five years, and returning to Nightside means being reacquainted with old friends like Razor Eddie, Punk God of the Straight Razor, and Shotgun Suzie, a leather-clad bounty hunter. But the first rule in Nightside is never trust anyone.” First in the Nightside series.

Laurell Hamilton

Guilty Pleasures

From Library Journal: “Someone is killing St. Louis vampires, which is murder since vampires are now legal U.S. citizens, and the vamps want Anita to find the killer. No friend of fangs, Anita raises the dead for a living and kills criminal vampires as a sideline, but loyalty to a friend convinces her to take the case. Now she’s in for wererats, ghoul attacks, vampire “freak” (swinger) parties, and too many encounters with nymphet vampire queen Nikolaos, plus a parade of gorgeous men (some human, some vampire), all trying too hard to be friendly.” First in the Anita Blake series

Charlaine Harris

Dead Until Dark

Sookie Stackhouse is a cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana, but she keeps to herself and doesn’t date much because of her “disability” to read minds. When she meets Bill, Sookie can’t hear a word he’s thinking. He’s the type of guy she’s waited for all of her life, but he has a disability, too–he’s a vampire with a bad reputation. When one of Sookie’s coworkers is killed, she fears she’s next. First in the Southern Vampire series (and the basis for the HBO series True Blood)

Kim Harrison

Dead Witch Walking

Rachel Morgan is a runner with the Inderland Runner Services, apprehending law-breakers throughout Cincinnati. She’s also a witch, one of the many Inderlanders who revealed themselves after a genetically engineered virus wiped out 50% of humanity. Witches, warlocks, vampires, werewolves – the creatures of dreams and nightmares – have lived beside humans for centuries, hiding their powers. But now they’ve stopped hiding, and nothing will be the same. On the run with a contract on her head, Rachel reluctantly teams up with Ivy, Inderland’s best runner and a living vampire. But this witch is way out of her league, and to clear her name, Rachel must evade shapechanging assassins, outwit a powerful businessman/crimelord, and survive a vicious underground fight to the death. Fun, sassy, filled with action, humor, and romance, Dead Witch Walking is the perfect summer read for anyone who likes vampires, paranormal fantasy, romance, or just a great beach book. First in the Hollows series.

Tanya Huff

Enchantment Emporium

From Publishers Weekly; “Thoughtful and leisurely, this fresh urban fantasy features an ensemble cast of nuanced characters in Calgary, Alberta. Headstrong young museum research assistant Allie Gale takes over her missing grandmother’s titular junk-shop, which is supposedly crucial to the local community. When Allie arrives to find a leprechaun, a monkey’s paw and a magic mirror, she realizes her grandmother didn’t mean the human community. After spotting low-flying dragons and other UnderRealm creatures in the neighborhood, Allie calls on the help of her powerful family of modern, benevolent Toronto witches, who attempt to visit via a spacetime-spanning Wood until something shadowy begins pushing them out in inconvenient locales like Haiti. Fantasy buffs will find plenty of humor, thrills and original mythology to chew on, along with refreshingly three-dimensional women in an original, fully realized world.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon

Night Pleasures

A handsome immortal finds himself drawn despite himself to the prim and proper Amanda Devereaux, a smart, witty, and conservative young woman who wants nothing to do with the paranormal. Rendevous Reviews called it “an intoxicating mix of adventure, humor, fiery passion, and a bewitching plot.” First in the Dark Hunter series.

Melissa Marr

Wicked Lovely

From Publishers Weekly: “Marr gives the oft-tried modern faerie story a fresh infusion of glamour, thanks to a likable pair of protagonists, a page-turning plot and an ample dose of sexual tension. Seventeen- year-old Aislinn has a secret; she sees fairies everywhere—working their mischief and doggedly following her for reasons she does not understand.One of them, the handsome Keenan, takes a particular interest in her. He is the Summer King, on a centuries-long quest for his queen, the one person who will be able to help him unseat his vicious mother, Beira, the Winter Queen. Keenan has chosen incorrectly over the years; the latest to accept his offer is Donia, who now lives in Beira’s icy thrall. Beira offers Donia a deal: prevent Keenan from finding his proper queen, and Beira will release her spell over her soul. Aislinn confides her secret to her friend Seth, whose steel-walled home (an abandoned train) protects her from the fey. As Keenan pursues Aislinn, convinced she is his true mate, secrets emerge about Aislinn’s family history and she wrestles with the decision to become the Summer Queen. Aislinn and Seth are a smart and compelling couple who must make tough choices throughout. Marr offers readers a fully imagined faery world that runs alongside an everyday world, which even non-fantasy (or faerie) lovers will want to delve into. First in the Wicked Lovely series.

Devon Monk

Magic to the Bone

From Publishers Weekly: “In this clever and compulsively readable debut, set in a magical analog of Portland, Ore., Allie Beckstrom is a Hound, able to trace a spell back to its caster. When a young boy is injured by a spell, Allie tracks it back to her estranged father, Daniel, a ruthless businessman who protests his innocence. Then someone magically disguised as Allie kills Daniel. Allie and sexy corporate operative Zayvion race against time to find the answers. Magic is common in this alternate universe, but using it always incurs a physical or mental cost, rendering it a commodity to be bought and sold, used and abused. Allie’s internal and external struggles are brilliantly and tightly written, creating a multifaceted character who will surprise, amuse, amaze and absorb readers.”

Kat Richardson

Greywalker

From library Journal: “Recovering from a brutal assault that had left her clinically dead for two minutes, private investigator Harper Blaine finds her perceptions have changed. Now she sees people that others can’t and often struggles against a grayish mist that seems to permeate her world. A friendly couple with experience in the paranormal explain to her that she is a Greywalker, someone with the ability to cross between the living and the ghostly worlds. Suddenly, her life-and her business-grow a lot more interesting and much more dangerous. Richardson’s first novel features a genuinely likable and independent heroine with a unique view of reality.” First in the Greywalker series.

Jeri Smith-Ready

Wicked Game

From Publishers Weekly: “Newbie marketing intern Ciara Griffin lands a job at WMMP, a station threatened with being sold to Skyware, a giant communications conglomerate, unless ad revenue picks up. A former con artist with a canny way with people, Ciara soon learns that the DJs are undead and specialists in the musical eras in which they were turned into vampires. One of them, Shane McAllister (turned in 1995), is really hot and dangerously tempting. In order to attract more listeners, Ciara promotes a new marketing strategy and the Sherwood, Md., station becomes 94.3 WVMP, the “Lifeblood of Rock and Roll,” exploiting the fang factor (which no listener takes seriously) for profit. It works, until an ancient vampire cult wants to pull the plug. Also playing in is “The Control,” an equally ancient paramilitary group created to protect good vampires and kill bad ones. Smith-Ready’s musical references are spot on, as is her take on corporate radio’s creeping airwave hegemony. Add in the irrepressible Ciara, who grew up in a family of grifters, and the results rock.” First in the WVMP Radio series.

Carrie Vaughn

Kitty and the Midnight Hour

From Library Journal: “Kitty Norville has a late-night radio show in Denver. One evening, she takes a call from someone who asks, “Do you believe in vampires?” As it turns out, she does. She even knows a few undead, plus an even larger number of werewolves (in fact, she herself is one). Thus is born Kitty’s new hit program, The Midnight Hour , where those who believe in or belong to the paranormal community call in to discuss their problems. It’s not long before Kitty faces threats from vampires and werewolves who would rather not have their existence aired publicly. Kitty is a lively, engaging heroine with a strong independent streak and, usually but not always, enough sense to know when to cut her losses. This fast-paced debut novel is the first in what should prove a very popular series.” First in the Kitty Norville series.