Showing results for "The Contemporary Novel" in Dark Fantasy

Fresh out of jail and eager to start a new life, Chet Moran and his pregnant wife, Trish, leave town to begin again. But an ancient evil is looming, and what seems like a safe haven may not be all it appears. Snared and murdered by a vile, arcane horror, Chet quickly learns that pain and death are not unique to the living. Now the lives and very souls of his wife and unborn child are at stake. To save them he must journey into the bowels of purgatory in search of a sacred key.

Sinuous new secrets come to life in the wake of Archangel Lijuan's destruction. The war isn't over yet.

After winning the trust of the terra indigene residing in the Lakeside Courtyard, Meg Corbyn has had trouble figuring out what it means to live among them. As a human, Meg should be barely tolerated prey, but her abilities as a cassandra sangue make her something more.

As a cassandra sangue, or blood prophet, Meg Corbyn can see the future when her skin is cut - a gift that feels more like a curse. Meg's Controller keeps her enslaved so he can have full access to her visions. But when she escapes, the only safe place Meg can hide is at the Lakeside Courtyard - a business district operated by the Others. Shape-shifter Simon Wolfgard is reluctant to hire the stranger who inquires about the Human Liaison job.

Since the Others allied themselves with the cassandra sangue, the fragile yet powerful human blood prophets who were being exploited by their own kind, the delicate dynamic between humans and Others changed. Some, like Simon Wolfgard, wolf shifter and leader of the Lakeside Courtyard, and blood prophet Meg Corbyn see the new, closer companionship as beneficial - both personally and practically.

The New York Times best-selling author of The Black Jewels Trilogy transports readers to a world of magic and political unrest - where the only chance at peace requires a deadly price.... The Others freed the cassandra sangue to protect the blood prophets from exploitation, not realizing their actions would have dire consequences. Now the fragile seers are in greater danger than ever before - both from their own weaknesses and from those who seek to control their divinations for wicked purposes.

They say opposites attract, and for werewolves Anna and Charles, this is certainly true. Charles, the pack enforcer, is a dominant alpha - whereas Anna has the power to calm others of her kind. Now that werewolves have dared to reveal themselves to humans, it's their job to keep the pack in line. The pressure mounts when the FBI requires Charles's assistance. He's sent on a mission to Boston with Anna, and they quickly realise that a serial killer is targeting werewolves. And that they're next on the killer's list.

After a human uprising was brutally put down by the Elders - a primitive and lethal form of the Others - the few cities left under human control are far-flung. And the people within them now know to fear the no man's land beyond their borders - and the darkness.... As some communities struggle to rebuild, Lakeside Courtyard has emerged relatively unscathed, though Simon Wolfgard, its wolf shifter leader, and blood prophet Meg Corbyn must work with the human pack to maintain the fragile peace.

Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter—polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline. Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter—adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tom-boy. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you've got. They were five when they learned that grown-ups can’t be trusted. They were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you a life filled with magic.

Sebastian Pana is a sin-eater, a shaman-like figure who can absolve the dead of their transgressions before they move on to the afterlife. But when a tear in the fabric of reality allows hideous beasts to invade the small arctic town he calls home, Sebastian must wage battle with them the only way he knows how: by unleashing the power of sin itself. Thus, the stage is set for an epic confrontation between the forces of good and evil, in which a mother monster strives to save the dying land around her.

Andrew Waggoner has always hung around with his fellow losers at school, desperately hoping each day that the school bullies - led by Drake - will pass by him in search of other prey. But one day they force him into the woods, and the bullying escalates into something more; something unforgivable, something unthinkable. Broken, both physically and emotionally, something dies in Waggoner, and something else is born in its place.

After her father's funeral, Zoe moved to the big city with her mother to start over. But change always brings trials, and life in the city is not so easy. Money is tight, and Zoe's only escape, as has always been the case, is in her dreams - a world apart from her troubled real life where she can spend time with her closest companion: her lost brother, Valentine.

In the dark underbelly of our world, there's a black market in arcane things - living and dead. Angela Gough has been pulled into this world, making her a criminal on the run. In London she encountered the Kin-satyrs and centaurs, Nephilim and wraiths, hunted and slaughtered for their body parts. Fleeing back to the United States, Angela discovers that the Kin are everywhere, and they are tired of being prey. When her niece Sammi is struck by lightning, she is drawn toward the mysterious Folded Land and its powerful and deadly ruler.

Chance Matthews is drawn into a battle between angels and monsters because of something in her possession - a fossil of a creature that couldn't possibly have ever existed. But it did. And still does.

Jamie is a young veteran with a painful history, most of which he'd rather forget. He tried to escape to a familiar place, but with a new job. A new life, really. In his mind, it was simple. He was done battling for others. The end. It was a great plan...right up to the whole "fight for your life in a mini-mart" thing. Without warning, Jamie is attacked by a sword-wielding man and warned to stay away. From what, he's not sure.

Auben Mutze has more vices than he can deal with - six to be exact - each branded down his arm for the world to see. They mark him as a lesser twin in society, as inferior, but there’s no way he’ll let that define him. Intelligent and outgoing, Auben’s spirited antics make him popular among the other students at his underprivileged high school. So what if he’s envious of his twin Kasim, whose single vice brand is a ticket to a better life, one that likely won’t involve Auben. Then Auben starts hearing voices that speak to his dangerous side - encouraging him to perform evil deeds....

Stormy Bay is a dying town nestled against an eerily placid ocean, and Ray Lilly is trapped in it. He can barely remember his name let alone his mission for the Twenty Palace society. Worse, he realizes that for some time now he's been living as a puppet, his body and mind under the complete domination of an unknown power, and the townsfolk think this puppet is his real identity. And that power can still seize control of Ray's body at any time, forcing him and the people around him to playact in nonsense stories that center around a mysterious boy and his monster dog.

In modern America, two soldiers will fight their way through the magical legacies of Poe and Hawthorne to destroy an undying evil - if they don't kill each other first. US Army Captain Dale Morton is a magician soldier - a "craftsman." After a black-ops mission gone wrong, Dale is cursed by a Persian sorcerer and haunted by his good and evil ancestors. Major Michael Endicott, a Puritan craftsman, finds gruesome evidence that the evil Mortons, formerly led by the twins Roderick and Madeline, have returned, and that Dale might be one of them.

Gabe is being held prisoner by the sheriff and heir to the ranch, Owen Rutherford. Owen is determined to harness the power of the Tree of Life - and he needs Gabe to reveal its magic. Secretly, the sheriff has also made a pact to free a creature of the underground, a flesh-devouring mermaid. Muirenn has vowed to exact vengeance on Gabe, who helped imprison her, but first...she's hungry. Once freed, she will swim into Yellowstone - to feed. With her coyote sidekick, Sig, Petra must descend into the underworld to rescue Gabe before it's too late...for both of them.

As the daughter of an alchemist, Petra Dee has faced all manner of occult horrors - especially since her arrival in the small town of Temperance, Wyoming. But she can’t explain the creature now stalking the backcountry of Yellowstone, butchering wolves and leaving only their skins behind in the snow. Rumors surface of the return of Skinflint Jack, a 19th-century wraith that kills in fulfillment of an ancient bargain. The new sheriff in town, Owen Rutherford, isn’t helping matters.