Something new in urban fantasy ... Heartblaze 4I lo

I love urban fantasy and it's getting harder and harder to find something that spins the tropes in a new way. Something like Brotherhood of the Wheel doesn't come along every day. This book, though, the first in a new series, is something different in a good way. The author blends an authentic depiction of Viking  civilization with a dark Gothic dream of a supernatural world and the result is fantastastic. Yes, there are werewolves but so much more. (And that "more" includes a heroine is strong and tough and a villain who is as memorable as she is original.) Check it out here.

Brotherhood of the Wheel...something different in Urban Fantasy

I love urban fantasy, but lately it's felt pretty stale. How many leather-clad women in katanas can one genre support? And even as someone who writes the occasional vampire story I'm starting to get a little tired of bloodsuckers. And then I read R. S. Belcher's Brotherhood of the Wheel. It's got a really ugly cover that doesn't really convey "urban fantasy" but look past that and what you get is unexpected, original, satisfying and--I really hope--the beginning of a series.
Brotherhood of the Wheel sets up a world in which the tradition of the Templars is alive and well with a group of men and women who "live on the asphalt." They are protectors of the innocent, and they can "see" the signs of evil that others cannot. And from the exciting opening when a trucker and a gypsy cab driver help capture a serial killer and save his latest victim, the book is filled with action and myth and genuine emotion and actual horror. It also has tremendous world-building and humor. (Some of the humor is a tad whimsical for my taste but overall, I think this is a terrific book.)

something for the TBR pile

A friend and I were lamenting the overload of merely mediocre paranormal and urban fantasy novels out there and wondering what to read next. I decided to go looking for a list and this book popped up on several of them.

I knew Simon Green's name but hadn't read anything of his. Looks like he's got a couple of urban fantasy series; but this one caught my eye.

Free Urban Fantasy for You!

Get free urban fantasy titles here.

Free Urban Fantasy giveaway

It's Monday, and there's a new Instafreebie giveaway!  This one is for Urban Fantasy novels. My favorite genre after mystery. Check out the freebies here.

New Cover from Christa at Paper and Sage

My urban fantasy novel Misbegotten will finally be out in late spring and I'm already working on the sequel. I was playing around with names and I saw this cover on the Paper and Sage site. The temp title was completely apt for my book, so I had the designer, Christa Holland, swap out my name for the place holder and voila. the designer also does custom work. I've already bookmarked several other covers. 

Cover reveal--my new urban fantasy series

I know that generally you reveal a cover when you're about to actually publish your latest novel, but I am so excited about this new cover that I can't wait. It was created by Kristyn McQuiggan of Drop Dead Designs, who sells both premades and custom covers. (There's a pre-made I have my eye on right now that's pretty stunning.)

This image is fabulous, I think. The model is gorgeous, the photoshopping is fine, and the overall urban fantasy concept just works beautifully. Go check out her work. She prices her work for the indie author on a budget but her work doesn't look like those cheap covers you pick up on Fiverr. (She includes the print book wraparound in her cover prices, and they are VERY affordable.)

Fury Rising by Yasmine Galenorn...a review

Fury Rising by Yasmine Galenorn

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Kaeleen Donovan—her friends call her Kae—is a Theosian, a minor goddess created when her pregnant mother wandered into a patch of wild magic that altered her DNA. Bound to the goddess Hecate, and able to roam the Crossroads where all worlds meet, Kae has a mission to retrieve a stolen artifact that in the wrong hands, could mean TEOTWAWKI. That’s the setup for author Yasmine Galenorn’s latest book and it’s a romp through a Seattle altered by a cataclysmic magic storm unleashed by Gaia before the story opens.
The Portland of GRIMM has nothing on Galenorn’s Seattle, which is inhabited by creatures of both shadow and light, beings who can shift into hawks and work magic, spirit guides, and all manner of creatures that have come from the World Tree and through the various portals ripped in the fabric of space time.
Kae is a typical kickass urban fantasy heroine with her sword and dagger and whip, but though she walks “in flame and ash on a field of bones,” she is also recognizably human and profoundly grateful that she wasn’t bound to one of the death gods of Santeria instead of Hecate, Goddess of the crossroads and of dark magic. And her world includes a day-job (running a cleaning company), which grounds the fantastical in the mundane.
The author has done a lot of world building, which is a treat and as a special gift to her readers, she’s also added the playlist she used for the book, which includes everything from Android Lust to Tingstad & Rumbel. This is the first in a series, and it’ll be fun to see what’s next for Kae, who is known as “Fury” when she’s on the nightshift.




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Another for the TBR list: Wake of Vultures

I don't usually read reviews when I'm deciding to read a book or not. Reviews are subjective and I know there are lots of books that I've loved that have not sold well. And I was not a big fan of Gone Girl, even though the book has thousands of reviews.

But I was reading a review of a friend's book and curious about the reviewer. This book came up in his "reviewed list" and he was SO enthusiastic about the urban fantasy that I have to check out Wake of Vultures.

TBR: Flicker

This looks like a fun urban fantasy with fae instead of the usual werewolves and vampires. (Even though I write about vampires, I'm pretty tired of the same old same old.)

Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Giveaway

Who doesn't like the opportunity to win some goodies? Books. Gift cards. And the opportunity to encounter new writers and new books. I'll be interested in reading the Dragon  Born Awakening series from Ella Summers that's part of the package. You can enter here.

Drunk on the Moon--Werewolf PI Roman Dalton is back

Roman Dalton, the werewolf PI created by Paul D. Brazill, first appeared on the pages of Dark Valentine Magazine, a orint and digital publication I published. We ran a second adventure of Roman's and soon after that, Paul invited me to join him and a group of other writers (Kate Laity, John Donald Carlucci, Allan Leverone) to contribute a story to his anthology of Roman Dalton stories, Drunk on the Moon.
It was a lot of fun playing in Paul's sandbox and I enjoyed writing my story, which included Persian fire demons, albanian gangster werewolves and a whole lot of weirdness.
There's a new eidtion of the anthology out now with a deliberately retro cover, and newly slicked up stories. Right now it's free on Kindle, so if you like urban fantasy and hard-boiled noir, you should check it out.

Friday Freebie--Hyde by Lauren Stewart

I'm always up for a re-imagining of the old horror classics--I've watched more bad Frankenstein reboots than you can imagine--so this book caught my eye. It's the first of a three-book series (isn't everything a trilogy these days?) and it comes with a 4.3 rating on Amazon (from 318 readers). I like the cover of Hyde, and think the trio of covers work well together. the author makes it clear this is a sexy book with dark themes and I'm okay with that. It's described as an urban fantasy and that's still one of my all-time fravorite genres. I can't wait to see what Stewart has done with the Robert Lewis Stevenson classic.

the Best Urban Fantasy Short Story You'll Read Today--and it's free

I found this short story listed in "The Best Short Stories You've Never Read" from HuffPost Books and it sounded so engaging I immediately clicked over to it. King Oberon and Queen Tatiana in the modern age. Look for "A Tiny Feast" on the New Yorker's site.

Review: 7 Against the Dark: Urban fantasy boxed set

Seven Against the Dark: Seven Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Series Starters by Annie Bellet

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


My very favorite thing in this book—which is full of delightful details—is in Kate Danley’s book “Maggie for Hire” about a “magical tracker in L.A. who carries a silver stake her sister had engraved for her at Things Remembered. I loved that detail and I very much enjoyed the story with its magical objects and deep dark secrets.

Danley’s book is only one of seven novels in this bundle and every single one of the books is a lot of fun to read. Annie Bellet’s “Justice Calling” gives a star-making entrance to its sexy tiger-shifter Aleksei Kirov “Justice of the Council of Nine” but it’s the author’s setting—Wyld, Idaho—that elevates the book from its genre. The small town where the heroine runs a comic book and tabletop gaming store is “the shape-shifter capital of the west,” and we can visualize exactly the kind of town it might be. The heroine, jade Crow, has a sense of humor and her reaction to Aleksei is a deadpan, “So, you know, not your average comic book or tabletop gaming enthusiast.”

There’s another heroine named Jade in the book, Jade Calhoun, the empath at the heart of “Haunted on Bourbon Street.” Her description of a “craft shop” run by Bea puts us right in the center of magical New Orleans, and Deanna Chase, like the other writers in the bundle, gives a lot of weight to sense of place.

This is true even when the “place” is one the author made us, as Anthea Sharp did in “Feyland.” Her writing is drop-dead gorgeous, near poetry at times, and lines like, “She smelled of stars and roses,” convey the magical quality of the Dark Queen of the Faeries.

Christine Pope’s “Darkangel” is also firmly rooted in its sense of place, and provides a practical look at the issue of a witch finding her consort. (Let’s just say Angela McAllister has to kiss a lot of frogs before she finds the literal man of her dreams.) One of the hallmarks of this book—like the others in the collection—is the strong sense that there’s a whole world contained in the pages of the book. Angela’s witch clan has rules and taboos and allies and enemies, and all of this is worked out beautifully.

Ditto for Helen Harper’s “Bloodfire” with its casual scattering of paranormal creatures into the mix. (A group of shape-shifters avoids admonishment because there are “water-wights terrorizing pleasure boats on the Thames.”)

I also enjoyed Colleen Gleason’s vampire hunter historical urban fantasy “The Rest Falls Away” with its Jane Austen world (so much better than “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”) The book gave us not just a sense of place but also a sense of time.

Boxed sets are great introductions to writers and series. I’d only read one of these writers before, but now that I’ve read the others, I’ll be back for more.




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I Will Make Wine of Your Blood

The heroine of my upcoming urban fantasy novel (Misbegotten)  is a paranormal crime reporter named Kira Simkins.  In the course of the story, I mention that "Kira" has written two true crime books, one about a syndiate of murderous mer-men (Poseidon's Stepchildren) and one called I Will Make Wine of Your Blood. My friend Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services whipped up covers for the imaginary books and I've always planned on writing novelettes to give away to my so-far nonexistent mailing list. But as I get close to finishing Misbegotten, I find myself more and more intrigued by the premise of this paranormal "true crime" book. I really want to write it now, but that will play havoc with my schedule this year.
I love this cover so much.

Shameless Self-Promotion Saturday

This is the summer I finally get all the bits and pieces of writing up and out there. Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services has created a great new cover for me as I collect all the L.A. Nocturne stories and add them to new ones as a "teaser" for my Misbegotten novel. (Urban Fantasy, set in L.A. There are vampires and werewolves and shapeshifters but no chicks with swords or tramp stamps.)

"Death of a Fairy" new fiction from the Misbegotten universe

I have been writing "Misbegotten" stories for almost seven years now, urban fantasies set in the City of the Angels where paranormal creatures exist alongside normal citizens. (In L.A., it's sometimes hard to tell the difference.) I decided to test the waters of the short fiction marketplace by putting "Death of a Fairy" up for sale(under my pseudonym Kat Parrish) as a stand-alone story using their beta cover generator to put together a cover. It's an experiment. I'm curious to see how it'll turn out but in the meantime, I am pleased with the story, which begins when a homeless woman mistakes a dead fairy for a discarded Barbie doll in the alley she calls home.

Free Book! L.A. Nocturne

I'm running a free promotion on my book of urban fantasy short stories--L.A. Nocturne--Tales of the Misbegotten--in advance of the release of the novel set in that universe, Misbegotten.  You can get it free for the next five days. I hope you enjoy it. And if you do, I'd love a review. (Well, I'd love a good review. As my grandmother used to say, "If you can't say something nice, maybe you shouldn't say anything at all.") Find the link here.

The next book you read should be...Gil's All-Fright Diner

I am a big fan of A. Lee Martinez' loopy brand of urban fantasy. I really enjoyed his book Monster, but somehow I'd never read Gil's All-Fright Diner (published in 2006).  ASll I can say is that now I've read it I hope you don't wait seven years to read it because it is a treat.

It begins with a vapire named Earl and a werewolf who likes to be called Duke, pulling off a road in the middle of nowhere to grab a bite to eat. the next thing they know, there are zombies crashing down the front door and Earl's met a lonely ghost and the teenage hottie determined to open a portal to the old gods has targeted Earl as someone who would make a dandy supernatural sacrifice. By the time a malevolent soul snarls, "I'll kill you and your little dog too" at Cathy, the aforementioned lonely ghost, the reader will be having a rollicking good time.

Part of the pleasure of reading the book is that Martinez has an eye for the absurd reality of paranormal and normal creatures interacting in the same space. The people in the small town where all hell is about to break loose are familiar iwth weird stuff happening (it's kind of like Haven in the show of the same name), and they roll with the weird.  He's also got a sharp eye for cultural detail and throws out offhand comments about  teenage girls and vampires that toss familiar horror tropes on thier heads.

It's not always easy to pull off a hybrid of horror and humor, but Martinez does it better than anyone since Christopher Moore and Practical Demonkeeping.