I’ve been an avid vampire fan since I was a child. I read Interview With The Vampire when I was nine. Where does one go from there? Well, I’ve devoured just about every vampire-themed book and film on the market today. Then, when it came time to write my own books, I did a deep dive into the history, theology, sociology, and speculative science behind the vampire myth. But I’m not going to tell you to read the boring classics (even though Dracula is a personal favorite). I’m going to list the fun books—the ones like Twilight, but better. I firmly believe reading should be fun and full of magic, no matter how old you are.
I’m biased. Some Girls Bite takes place in Chicago, where I’m from, and where some of my own characters are from. It’s really cool to see how another author uses the city I grew up in and love. But aside from that nifty accolade, it’s a fun well-written story with mature themes. The main character, Merit, is no shrinking violet. She can kick ass and take names with the best of them, which is why I love her books. It would be amazing if our characters could meet mine someday.
The first Chicagoland Vampires novel from New York Times bestselling author Chloe Neill.
Sure, the life of a graduate student wasn't exactly glamorous, but it was Merit's. She was doing fine until a rogue vampire attacked her. But he only got a sip before he was scared away by another bloodsucker and this one decided the best way to save her life was to make her the walking undead.
Turns out her savior was the master vampire of Cadogan House. Now she’s traded sweating over her thesis for learning to fit in at a Hyde Park mansion full of vamps…
Well, that’s a deep ask, can we rain check that for when I feel the need to deep dive my jacked-up psyche? I feel grossly unprepared.... What I do love, are romance novels. I have fairly strict requirements in what books should be allowed into that category. There needs to be, at least one, panty-dampening, heart-racing, mouth-watering sex scene. More than that, I'm a firm member of bitches who are too much. It should be no surprise my reading taste trends to similar loudmouthed female leads. If you've happened upon my personally curated list of my favorite panty-dampening books with badass female leads, I welcome you and rejoice in the companionship.
I adore my badass bitches to have a colorful sense of humor and I can’t get enough when they own exactly who and what they are with zero fucks given. I can hear the cheering crowd now for this demon turned good-gal.
I’m also going to admit that I have a personal habit and skipping overly detailed, drawn-out descriptions. I know, I know, patience isn’t one of my strong points. Debra, however, had me reading and enjoying her descriptions. [Insert shocked face here.]
Samantha Martin, or Sam to her friends, is fearless, unafraid to make mistakes, shameless, confident, funny, and I want to have drinks with her.
While the down and dirty scenes are a bit more PG, the plot line is perfection, characters exceptionally well created, and some moments from the series are forever etched in my brain.
I never wanted to save the world... or these damned werewolves.
Life was pretty sweet until my hellhound bit one of them. Then I accidentally killed him—the werewolf, not my hellhound. Now I need to help the local alpha track down and destroy a rogue angel or I’ll lose everything that's important to me, like my Corvette, and my awesome house with a pool.
I might wind up dead. I might wind up back in Hel. Or I might just pull something impish and manage to wiggle my way out of the whole mess.
Betty Lennox is an elemental witch desperate to leave her desert hometown of Smokethorn, California, and sell the paranormal seniors' trailer park she inherited from her mother.
Running low on cash to maintain the park's protection spell, she accepts a dangerous job: procuring a cursed grimoire so deadly even the…
Where many people would see an empty package of Oreos, I see the remains of a lost civilization, an artifact crafted galaxies away by beings who flit in and out of existence in order to build rainbows for lonely children and who have left the empty bag, filled with dog poop, flaming on someone’s front step and are laughing uncontrollably as the person stomps on it to put it out. I want to find authors who see more than the bag of Oreos. I want them to be wildly imaginative and to paint what they see with cleverness and humor. I try to do the same.
The first thing I noticed when I started reading Jasper Fforde was how funny and clever he was. This is what I’m looking for, I thought, smiling broadly. The heroine of the series of which this book is a part is a literary detective named Thursday Next. Need I say more? You know immediately the kind of humor you are getting into.
I am not easily entertained by stories with average complexity and imagination. When I find a writer like Fforde who can push my boundaries, I am so grateful. In this book, he creates a delightful alternate world in which real and imaginary figures interact and sometimes exchange places. And always a good crime to solve here.
The sixth installment in Jasper Fforde's New York Times bestselling series follows literary detective Thursday Next on another adventure in her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England-from the author of Early Riser
Dazzlingly funny and imaginative, Jasper Fforde's books have won him the affection of readers, reviewers, and-dare we say it-booksellers alike. Fans can breathe a sigh of relief because Thursday Next-or at least one of her-is back. At a time of great unrest in the BookWorld, only the ace literary detective can avert a devastating Genre War-thing is, Thursday has vanished. Now the written Thursday must answer the call, save…
I was born and raised on the beautiful Canadian prairies and prefer to spend my time outdoors with my family, kayaking, skating, fishing, and hunting. I love to read and write about vampires, witches, fae, and zombies that get to find their own version of happily ever after.
I love books that are told from a first-person point of view by a main character that is flawed yet lovable. Sam is easy to relate to. Throw in a sexy vampire love interest, and it was impossible to stop reading. Just the right ratio of mystery, suspense and romance. This is easily my favorite book to date.
A “master class in storytelling and survival.” —Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
Welcome to The Slaughtered Lamb Bookstore and Bar. I’m Sam Quinn, the werewolf book nerd in charge. I run my business by one simple rule: Everyone needs a good book and a stiff drink, be they vampire, wicche, demon, or fae. No wolves, though. Ever. I have my reasons.
I serve the supernatural community of San Francisco. We’ve been having some problems lately. Okay, I’m the one with the problems. The broken body of a female werewolf washed up on my doorstep. What makes sweat pool at the base…
I grew up with Irish folklore, Lord of the Rings, and X-Men comics as my bedtime stories, but I am also a domestic violence survivor twice over with c-PTSD. I was never able to get justice for anyone who hurt me. I created my stories as a way to cope and understand my feelings and triggers by making them their own personalities. So, I made my trauma available for everyone in a fantasy setting with two love interests to adore the heroine who had to endure so much but never gave up on giving people someone to root for when they couldn’t for themselves anymore.
What if a witch, a vampire, and a Fairy walk into a bar, all having quit their job to start a detective agency, and you get this book? I loved the pacing, the characters, all of it!
The female lead character, Rachel, is just one of the funniest characters. I loved how she was A-okay with going around the legal system in the ways she did to trip up her target was just fun.
From New York Times bestselling author, Kim Harrison, comes the first book in an exciting urban fantasy series; packed with the perfect balance of wry humour and thrilling action, which will delight fans of thrillers and fantasy alike.
Rachel Morgan is a white witch and runner working for Inderland Security, in an alternate world where a bioengineered virus wiped out a great deal of the world's human population - exposing the existence of the supernatural communities that had long lived alongside humanity.
For the last five years Rachel has been tracking down law-breaking Inderlanders in modern-day Cincinnati, but now she…
As a lifelong New Yorker and author of two books about drinking in the city—New York Cocktails and Drink Like a Local New York—these are the books about bygone days of city living that I would tell you to read if we met in a bar. You already know the ones by E.B. White, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, or possibly Pete Hamill or Walt Winchell. Those books are fantastic, but these are some “deep cuts” New York City appreciation books that you should also get to know.
This novel of interconnected stories is a fascinating snapshot of life in 1920s New York City.
Considering that it was written in 1925, Dos Pasos does an incredible job of representing different backgrounds and classes as they move through the city with one another. It shows how one can’t exist in such a setting on the highest levels of society without the help of people who make up the fabric of the rest of the town.
Encountering day-to-day strangers in the city won’t feel the same after reading this book. Plus, it takes place during Prohibition from a real time perspective, showing that the “Roaring Twenties” were more of a yelp.
'My literary hero is John Dos Passos' - Adam Curtis (filmmaker)
'A modernist masterpiece, capturing ... the fragmented lives it sketches, in a dazzling kaleidoscope of New York City in the 1920s' Christopher Hudson, Evening Standard
'Dos Passos has invented only one thing, an art of story-telling. But that is enough to create a universe' Jean-Paul Sartre
'The best modern book about New York' D.H. Lawrence
A modernist masterwork that has more in common with films than traditional novels, John Dos Passos' Manhattan Transfer includes an introduction by Jay McInerney in Penguin Modern Classics.
An intense and thoughtful time-hopping dystopian fantasy where three individuals, psychically linked through time, fight enslavement, exploitation, and environmental collapse. A great read for fans of Emily St. John Mandel.
In 2106, Maida Sun possesses the ability to see the entire history of any object she touches. When she starts…
I am a multi-award-winning African Australian writer, and have a deep passion for stories by people of colour, stories that engage with difference. I write across genres and forms, and my award-winning works are mostly Afrocentric. I am especially curious about unique voices in black speculative fiction in transformative stories of culture, diversity, climate change, writing the other, and betwixt.
Wole Talabi’s debut fantasy novel is a love story, an adventure story, and a spirit world story, rivetted with non-human protagonists.
Shigidi is an Afrocentric novel that spans across London, Nigeria, Singapore, Ethiopia, and everywhere else, and traversing centuries in vacillation. This multi-hued narrative is fast-paced and a riveting read.
A Washington Post top 10 best science fiction and fantasy book of 2023
"A heist caper with sex, violence, and superpowers popping off every technicolor page." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Defiantly ambitious...an action-packed thrill ride." -The Washington Post
A mythic tale of disgruntled gods, revenge, and a heist across two worlds, perfect for fans of Nnedi Okorafor, Neil Gaiman, Marlon James, and Karen Lord
Shigidi is a disgruntled and demotivated nightmare god in the Orisha spirit company, reluctantly answering prayers of his few remaining believers to maintain his existence long enough to find his next drink. When he meets Nneoma,…
I am Danielle M. Orsino author of the Birth of the Fae series published by 4Horsemen Publications, I am a world champion silver medalist in martial arts, I have worked with Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson in the WWF Superbowl Commercial and I am in the World Martial Arts Hall of Fame. So, I would like to think I know a few things about kick-ass women. I am also a comic book geek and cosplayer, the characters in my books are inspired by strong women in pop culture like Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, Storm, Lynda Carter, and Morgan Le Fey.
This is one of my favorite Laurel K. Hamilton books, Dead Ice is Anita Blake at her best, kicking ass and taking names, as a necromancer Anita can raise the dead but she is also a US Marshal with the highest kill count in the US. She deals with misogyny and bigotry for sleeping with the Vampire king—Jean Claude. The mystery is well written in this book but the fight scenes are great and the monsters are scary as heck, Anita comes off as complex as she deals with being engaged but still wanting to maintain her independence as a woman. This is one of LKH better books as she pens the double standards about how a woman is treated in the workplace by others for being good at her job versus a man- Anita has a high kill count and is looked down upon for being violent if it…
Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton returns with another addictive adventure featuring vampire-hunting heroine Anita Blake, to thrill fans of Charlaine Harris and Anne Rice.
My name is Anita Blake and I have the highest kill count of any vampire executioner in the country. I'm a U.S. Marshal who can raise zombies with the best of them. But ever since master vampire Jean-Claude and I went public with our engagement, all I am to anyone and everyone is Jean-Claude's fiancee.
It's wreaking havoc with my reputation as a hard ass - to some extent. Luckily,…
Not only am I an avid reader of the urban love/romance/erotica genre, but I'm an award-winning, bestselling author in the genre, having written under multiple pen names. I've worked with enough traditional editors and freelance editors to know a well-crafted, entertaining, engaging read of this nature when I not only write one—ha!—but read one. As an author, I rarely offer book reviews—you'll only find one review from me on Amazon—but that's because I'm brutally honest and hard to win over, and I respect my relationship with my fellow literary artists too much to risk it on a not-so-favorable review. So, you know when I say it’s good, it’s good.
If Nikki Turner's Hustler's Wife had a little sister, it would be this book. Oh, to be young, dumb, and in love again... or never again. The author puts it in the reader's hand to determine if love truly conquers all, or if all conquers love. Guess it depends on how strong that love truly is.
When her brother is killed, Trouble, who has everything she could ever want because of her brother and his “complex occupation”, embarks on a mission of revenge that involves seducing the enemy and then killing him.
Lem's a mace-wielding teen space-ninja in a universe of sentient insectoids, purple jungles, and insane electromagnetic fields. She solves most problems by hitting harder, and never plays by her enemy's rules - until Jared Diebol captures her.
Diebol's the rising leader of an army uniting the galaxy by force. He…
Africa can easily become an obsession: an extraordinary continent, blessed with breath-taking beauty and wonderful people, yet cursed by climate, corruption, war, and… crime. This continent is the most incredible setting for stories about people driven to crime, victims of crime, the detection of crime.
Based in the UK, but a frequent visitor to Southern Africa, having written many non-fiction books, South Africa (and Cape Town in particular) was always going to be my choice of setting for my crime novels. For me, a good novel – within any genre – transports the reader into an unfamiliar world, absorbs them in the lives of the characters, and reveals insights which touch on their own lives.
Visceral, immediate, and engrossing, Adenle’s debut novel features two main characters embroiled in a murder in Lagos. British journalist Guy Collins, an alien in a dangerous, fast-paced city is implicated in a gruesome crime. Amaka, a woman who has devoted herself to the protection of the city’s working girls, speaks for him, hoping that her intervention will be re-payed by Collins in the form of global publicity for her campaign against the people traffickers and body-parts smugglers. Both out of their depth, at great peril, and at the mercy of Nigeria’s mega-city and its huge cast of characters, they find themselves caught in a maze from which there appears no escape.
Guy Collins, a British hack, is hunting for an election story in Lagos. A decision to check out a local bar in Victoria Island ends up badly - a mutilated female body is discarded close by and Collins is picked up as a suspect. In the murk of a hot, groaning and bloody police station cell, Collins fears the worst. But then Amaka, a sassy guardian angel of Lagos working girls, talks the police station chief around. She assumes Collins is a BBC journo who can broadcast the city's witchcraft and body parts trade that she's on a one-woman mission…
