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!
1 comment posted.