New In Urban Fantasy

It is time to start the new year with some great urban fantasy reads. What better way to ring in the new years, than with some gerat heriones kicking some immortal butt? Perhaps your resolution should be to read every book on the list?

MANAGING DEATH, Trent Jamieson (Orbit, $7.99, January 2011)
Steven de Selby is the new Mr. D, but with Death’s office come Death’s problems. People are dying in the brutal summer heat. Monstrous zombies are on the rise as their dark god draws near. Someone is trying to kill Steven de Selby. And he has a conference to organize. It’s the hottest December on record, and a month before the Death Moot—a meeting of the 13 Deaths of the world—and it’s being hosted in Brisbane. If it doesn’t go smoothly, mass extinctions are certain. A unified front is needed to face the undead god. It’s not easy. There’s an even greater darkness within him called the Hungry Death and it’s waking up. Oh, and everyone at work is expecting a great Christmas party. Steven must start managing Death, before the Hungry Death starts managing him, or this time the Apocalypse will be more than Regional.

CRIMSON WIND, Diana Pharaoh Francis (Simon & Schuster, $7.99, 12/28/2010)
Max knows what trusting the wrong person can cost you. Her former friend Giselle, a powerful witch, enslaved Max years go, turning her into a Shadowblade —a deadly warrior compelled to fight for Giselle. But there’s more at stake now than Max’s thirst for revenge. The Guardians, overseers of the magical world, have declared war on humanity and on any witches not standing with them. Max and Giselle have come to an uneasy truce in order to protect what’s left of Horngate, their coven’s home. Max would do anything for Horngate—even give herself over to a mysterious otherworldly creature in the nearby mountains in exchange for his help. But first, she intends to save the mortal family she left behind. And Alexander, the Shadowblade warrior who could be her closest ally or her deadliest enemy, is going with her. On a road trip into the unknown, Max and Alexander face wild magic, desperate enemies, and battles that bruise both body and soul. But the greatest challenge will come from unexpected revelations that test everything Max believes about who she is—and where her loyalties lie.

HELLFORGED, Nancy Holzner (Ace, $7.99, 12/28/2010, Deadtown)
A demon is stalking Vicky’s dreams—just as several of Deadtown’s zombies are viciously attacked and become really dead. And when Vicky realizes she is the only connection between the victims, she suspects that the demon is somehow working through her dreams to become Deadtown’s living nightmare.

DEATH'S SWEET EMBRACE, Tracey O'Hara (AVON, 1/25/2011, $7.99, A Dark Brethren Novel)
Teenaged shapeshifters are being slaughtered by a sadistic serial killer who rips their still-beating hearts from their paralyzed bodies. A task force forms to halt the madness, including the vampiric Aeternus Antoinette Petrescu, as well as Kitt Jordan and Raven Matokwe, members of enemy Animalian tribes . . . and forbidden lovers. A centuries-old blood feud has divided their shapeshifting peoples, and if their passion is discovered it will doom them both. But past hostilities must be put aside, for the killer they seek is but the first sign of the all-consuming nightmare of The Dark Brethren.

SOUL HUNT, Margaret Ronald (EOS, 1/25/2011, $7.99)
Without even realizing what she was doing, Genevieve Scelan has made a bad bargain. The Red Sox fanatic and supernatural tracker known as "Hound" for her extraordinary power of scent wishes she could leave magic behind now that she’s eradicated the evil cabal that oppressed Boston’s undercurrent for centuries. But now her talent’s fading, the local adepts’ squabbles are turning ugly, and worse, she’s just discovered that she owes a very large debt to someone . . . or some thing. And in the undercurrent, debts are taken very seriously. Evie has until midwinter to pay up . . . or else. So when she gets a job that might save her—even if she’s breaking all her own rules to take it—she can’t pass it up. Now, with danger at her back and uncertain allies beside her, she’ll trace the very bones of Boston itself to protect both the city and the people she loves.

FLIP THIS ZOMBIE, Jesse Peterson (Orbit, $7.99, 1/3/2011)
It’s been six months since a zombie plague destroyed Sarah and David’s lives as they knew it, but here they are living the American Dream. Owners of “Zombiebusters,” an extermination service for those squeamish about taking care of the undead, they’re raking in the dough and becoming more and more proficient killers. But then they are contacted by a doctor who claims to be working on a cure for zombie-ism, so they switch their focus from killing zombies to capturing them for his experiments. Only the good doctor isn’t all he seems to be. When the couple realizes he’s actually building bionic zombies, they decide it’s time to shut him down—and just maybe save the world.

TAKEN BY THE OTHERS, Jess Haines (Zebra, $6.99, 1/4/2011)
Once, New York P.I. ShiarraWaynest’s most pressing problem was keeping her agency afloat. Now she’s dealing with two dangerous, seductive vampires who have been enemies for centuries. The only thingMax Carlyle and Alec Royce agree on is that they both want Shia—for very different reasons. Max is determined to destroy Shia for killing his progeny, while Royce’s interest is a lot more personal. That’s not sitting well with Shia’s werewolf boyfriend, Chaz. As the feud betweenMax and Royce gets ever more deadly, a powerful vampire-hunting faction is urging Shia to join their side. Shia has always believed vamps were the bad guys, but she’s discovering unexpected shades of grey that are about to redefine her friends, her loyalties— and even her desires.

MERCY BLADE, Faith Hunter (ROC, $7.99, 1/4/2011, Jane Yellowrock)
Jane, a shapeshifting vampire-hunter-for- hire, crosses paths with a stranger who has arrived in New Orleans, enlisted to hunt vampires who have gone insane—or so he says

SECRETS OF THE DEMON, Diana Rowland (DAW, $7.99, 1/4/2011)
Homicide detective Kara Gillian has a special talent: she can sense the “arcane” in our world, and there’s quite a bit of it, even in Beaulac, Louisana. She’s also a summoner of demons, and works on a task force that deals with supernatural crimes. Her partners are attractive and smart FBI agents, but they’re not summoners, and they’re not telling Kara why they are on this special force with her. To make things worse, Kara has pledged herself to one of the most powerful of demons—a Demon Lord—who helped save her partner’s life, but now expects things in return. Meanwhile, she’s trying to solve a string of murders that are somehow tied together by money, sex, rock music and...mud. But how can she concentrate on the case when she’s not even sure who—or what—her partners are?

BOONDOCKS FANTASY, edited Jean Rabe & Martin Harry Greenberg (Daw, $7.99, 1/4/2011)
An all new anyhology of contemporary fantasy with a unique southern twist. From vampires in the Appalachians and leprechauns in the Smokies to mermaids in the Mississippi and bloodthirsty trolls in an Alabama trailer park, the South makes a unique setting for the 20 stories in this anthology of redneck vampires, werewolves, wizards, elves, and other creatures.

SHADOWFEVER, Karen Marie Moning (Random House, $26.00, 1/18/2011)
MacKayla Lane was just a child when she and her sister, Alina, were given up for adoption and banished from Ireland forever. Twenty years later, Alina is dead and Mac has returned to the country that expelled them to hunt her sister’s murderer. But after discovering that she descends from a bloodline both gifted and cursed, Mac is plunged into a secret history: an ancient conflict between humans and immortals who have lived concealed among us for thousands of years. What follows is a shocking chain of events with devastating consequences, and now Mac struggles to cope with grief while continuing her mission to acquire and control the Sinsar Dubh—a book of dark, forbidden magic scribed by the mythical Unseelie King, containing the power to create and destroy worlds. In an epic battle between humans and Fae, the hunter becomes the hunted when the Sinsar Dubh turns on Mac and begins mowing a deadly path through those she loves. Who can she turn to? Who can she trust? Who is the woman haunting her dreams? More important, who is Mac herself and what is the destiny she glimpses in the black and crimson designs of an ancient tarot card? From the luxury of the Lord Master’s penthouse to the sordid depths of an Unseelie nightclub, from the erotic bed of her lover to the terrifying bed of the Unseelie King, Mac’s journey will force her to face the truth of her exile, and to make a choice that will either save the world . . . or destroy it.

Enjoy!