Fantasy - Contemporary Genre

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Summary: The Dungeon Crawlers have done the unthinkable: they’ve split the party. After defeating another adventuring party from the “real” world—fellow players long trapped in the game world who treat Revery as their own private hunting ground to be conquered and abused—the Dungeon Crawlers emerged victorious but broken, with one of their number fallen and lost in battle. Some want to seek out revenge for their lost friend, while others believe somewhere in Revery there is magic to bring someone back from the dead, and want to find it. Both quests for revenge and resurrection will reveal new enemies, new allies, and dark secrets about the nature of Revery itself. They will learn how it draws players into a world where an RPG has become real, and whether or not anyone can ever go home again. But to do so, they need to break the party in two. Can they survive apart, or will the oldest rule in RPGs prove to be true in a world where games are deadly real?

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Summary: What price would you pay to rescue a friend from hell? For Logan Conner, the answer is almost anything. Guilt-ridden over trapping his college roommate in a ghost war rooted in Portland’s pioneer past, Logan has spent years searching for a solution. Then his new boyfriend, folklorist Riley Morrel, inadvertently gives him the key. Determined to pay his debt—and keep Riley safe—Logan abandons Riley and returns to Portland, prepared to give up his freedom and his future to make things right. Crushed by Logan’s betrayal, Riley drops out of school and takes a job on a lackluster paranormal investigation show. When the crew arrives in Portland to film an episode about a local legend of feuding ghosts, he stumbles across Logan working at a local bar, and learns the truth about Logan’s plan. Their destinies once more intertwined, the two men attempt to reforge their relationship while dodging a narcissistic TV personality, a craven ex-ghost, and a curmudgeonly bar owner with a hidden agenda. But Logan’s date with destiny is looming, and his life might not be the only one at stake.

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Summary: Tad loves bouncing around in time and watching mankind grow and change. He loves humanity and helping when he can. However, his job isn’t conducive to helping people.  He’s an Angel of Death. Doug is fun loving and a drama queen.  Despite his witty exterior, he has a dark history and is prone to self-destruction. He’s also an amazing drag queen and hairstylist with big dreams. When Tad pushes the boundaries of his duties too far, his angel wings are stripped away from him, and he is sent to New York City to live as a human. Lost and alone he ends up meeting Doug, and the two start a friendship that will shape them both and last a lifetime.  But nothing is simple when you’re dealing with a former Angel of Death and a Drag Queen. Could these two cause the fabric of our world to collapse or will they manage to keep the future as it should?

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Summary: When the holidays aren’t what they’re supposed to be. When you’re on your last nerve because your boyfriend recently dumped you and your family lives out of state. What are you supposed to do? Sit home alone and be miserable? That’s exactly what David planned on doing this Thanksgiving. However, he needs to pick up his less than festive meal at the grocery store. While shopping, fate and the universe decide to step-in with a chance encounter placing Fernando and his pumpkin pie right in David’s path. How will this Thanksgiving remind David that events happen around us all the time to be thankful for? Will David be grateful and open to meeting someone new?

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Summary: Being a nobody isn’t Duncan Alexander’s life goal, but it’s worked for him. He has a nondescript job, a few good friends, and overall he’s content. That’s until one fateful trip to San Jose, California, where he is “Called” to meet the mysterious Juliet de Exter. Juliet is a beautiful, wealthy, powerful Immortal who is undertaking The Calling—a search for a human to join her world of Immortals. Inexplicably, Duncan’s calling is more dangerous than any of the Immortals, even Juliet, ever thought it would be. There is more to this nobody, this only child of long-deceased parents, than anyone thought. When Duncan experiences uncontrollable dreams of people he doesn’t know and places he hasn’t been, Juliet and the other Immortals worry. Soon, his visions point to a coven of long-dead witches. The dreams also lead Duncan to his one true love. How will Duncan navigate a forbidden romance with an outcast Immortal? How will he and the others keep the balance between the Light and Dark, survive vicious attacks, and keep the humans from learning who they truly are? More importantly, who is this implacable foe Duncan keeps seeing in his dreams?

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Summary: YOUR NEXT READ IS NOW BOARDING She can speak all languages. He can smell evil intent. They're enemies. They crave each other. With international settings, a conspiracy plot, star-crossed lovers, and sharp writing, The Demon in Business Class is a stunning debut novel spanning continents and genres. Zarabeth travels the world for a shady executive, laying the groundwork for global war. Gabriel offers a second chance to the criminals that a visionary leader sees in dreams. One rainy night in Scotland, they meet... Now, it's complicated. There's also the investigator, the witch, the playboy, the gangster, the cultist, the pre-school teacher, the two angels… And, the demon. Fans of Jeff VanderMeer, Michel Faber, and David Mitchell will love this stylish hybrid-genre novel. The Demon in Business Class is an international story of fantasy, intrigue, and love, on the uneasy ground where the human meets the divine.   "If William Gibson wrote paranormal .... weaves the dark worlds of the occult and big business into an intoxicating tale." – D. J. Butler, author of Witchy Eye "Creative spark? Anthony Dobranski ignites a creative bonfire ...A masterwork of invention." – Mary Kay Zuravleff, author of Man Alive! "... a swank cocktail of international intrigue, steeped in the supernatural, mixed with literary flair .... so sleek it flies off the page...." - Zach Powers, author of First Cosmic Velocity  

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Summary: Second of the Vyrdigaan Prophecies, telling the back-story of Caratacuus Helvellyan. The Leesthern Enclave is a place of strict discipline, where adults and children spend most of their time segregated. Ten year old Caratacuus has never accepted the division. His frequent forays into the adults-only zones earn him tough punishments from the Elders and ridicule from his peers. A visiting sorcerer from another enclave provides Caratacuus with a tantalising glimpse into a different and more relaxed way of life. His decision to run away leads him on a voyage of self-discovery. Throughout his travels, he faces many challenges but he never wavers from his ultimate goal — to join the prestigious and experimental Donovan Institute. Follow him on his journey and share his adventures as he grows from a naïve dreamer into a worldly and accomplished man of action.

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Summary: Professor Bryce MacLeod has devoted his entire life to environmentalism. But how effective can he be in saving the planet when he can’t even get his surly neighbor to separate his recycling? Former Queen’s Enforcer Mal Kendrick doesn’t think his life could get any worse: he’s been exiled from Faerie with a cursed and useless right hand. When he’s not dodging random fae assassins in the Outer World, he’s going toe-to-toe with his tree-hugging neighbor. And when he discovers that the tree-hugger is really a druid, he’s certain the gods have it in for him—after all, there’s always a catch with druids. Then he’s magically shackled to the man and expected to instruct him in Supernatural 101. All right, now things couldn’t possibly get worse. Until a mysterious stranger offers a drunken Mal the chance to gain back all he’s lost—for a price. After Mal accepts, he discovers the real catch: an ancient secret that will change his and Bryce’s life forever. Ah, what the hells. Odds are they won’t survive the week anyway.

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Summary: After a few weeks trapped inside a cursed tabletop role-playing game, the players--Eriko the rogue, Morgan the cleric, Tamsin the mage, Cordelia the barbarian, Jack the ranger, and Tobias the bard--have become fixtures in the fictional town of Moderate Expectations, doing things adventures do. Whether it's slaying ogres or saving children from actual bogeymen, the adventurers are learning their roles and becoming weirdly comfortable with the concept of being heroes locked in a game world. But when a terrifying threat bubbles up out of a broken mine shaft and threatens their starting zone and adopted home, the gang will need to go on a real dungeon crawl into the subterranean world below, where they'll learn just how dangerous this imaginary world is to them and how high the stakes can be for the people who live here. It's time for the Dungeon Crawlers to level up, face down their greatest challenge yet, and find out just how big the world they've found themselves trapped in really is... and how long it's been holding players like them prisoners. So grab your gear, check your spell list, and make sure you've got plenty of torches--it's time to go spelunking, RPG-style.

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Summary: Portents of evil. Dreams of destruction, chaos, death. Feelings of terrible foreboding, heavy as the dark skies before a storm hits. Within twenty-four hours, the sudden and nearly universal presentiment of doom experienced by folks in the peaceful beach town of Furness, California is found to be horrifyingly accurate when a handful of people wake up to find that their friends, families, and loved ones—in fact, most of the inhabitants of the Earth—have simultaneously vanished without a trace. Left behind to make sense of a strange and depopulated world are an odd assortment of people. A wry and jaded psychic who knows good and well that her fortunetelling is a sham—until the day it begins to come true. A kind, idealistic registered nurse. A thirteen-year-old science nerd. A church custodian. An outspoken, pragmatic physicist. A volatile and unpredictable bakery owner. A tough-as-nails ex-Army man with a terrible secret, who is determined that he'll survive this, even if it's at the cost of the others. But they soon discover that they're not the only ones trying to find their way through the empty streets of Furness. Because the cataclysm that took 99% of the Earth's inhabitants did one other thing. It released the monsters.

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Summary: Third of the Vyrdigaan Prophecies, telling the back-story of Edeeshah Modjian. Born into Varagan society where females are prohibited from learning and practising sorcery, Edeeshah faces two tough choices — keep her nascent powers a secret or go to mainland Varathusia and find someone to teach her. Neither of these appeals to her and she chafes against the restrictions imposed upon her. When a third option is presented to her, she embarks on a path which will bring about a dramatic transformation. Follow her journey as she learns important lessons and deals with many challenging situations. Read less

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Summary: The first rule of adventuring: don't split the party. The Dungeon Crawlers should know better. While they've only been trapped in the cursed role playing game they now call home for a short time, most of the party are well-versed in tabletop gaming. Whether in the real world or trapped in a fantasy one, you just don't split the party. Which is why, when Eriko, the group's rogue, decides to let curiosity get the better of her and run off on her own, everyone knows nothing good will come of it. And "no good will come of it" means a pack of feral cannibalistic undead, led by an ancient evil, who takes a special interest in the group's talented, if ridiculous, bard, Tobias. Joined by a shadowy creature whose goals coincide with their own, the rest of the group--Morgan the cleric, Jack the ranger, Cordelia the barbarian, and Tamsin the mage--find that to survive, and rescue their friends, they're going to have to split the party even further. Are they clever enough to get away from a pack of ravenous ghouls alive, or will this be the Total Party Kill they've dreaded since they first arrived in this game world? The Ghoul Slayer's Guide is the third novella in the The Dungeon Crawlers series. Find their earlier adventures in the Players Guide to Dungeon Crawling and the Dungeoneer's Bestiary.

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Summary: The Great Forest and Other Love Stories  is a collection of short stories, with various settings, including an alien planet, an imaginary country, and places in Virginia, and the end of the world. These gay love stories explore the growth of relationships, and the negotiations of various complications and challenges.

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Summary: Get Your Bad-Ass On! The rumble of a Harley... The gleam of black leather... The shine of polished chrome... The freedom of the open road.... Motorcycles meet magic and mayhem as Lance Cosain, the halfling leader of The Wild Hunt MC, protects his turf and his people from attacks ordered by Dair na Scath, the high king of the fae. Holding his own against rogue fae, redcaps, and pissed-off road gremlins, all Lance wants to do is settle down with his lady. Instead he goes toe-to-toe with the high king’s champion over an ancient dagger and his claim to the throne. Who will triumph? The king of the road or the king of the realm? Either way, the Hunt is on!

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Summary: The chase is on for the soul of San Francisco! Norton, Iria, and Madge's grand plan has fallen through at every turn. Now they find themselves scrambling to improvise in a battle across time against a new and unexpected foe! Jaunt across the centuries by these scrappy heroes' sides as they dive headlong into eras both familiar and strange to each. With allies old and new, they must weave a magic spell on the fly to save their beloved city from the clutches of Mammon--and from something even worse!

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Summary: Alex Philothea thought life would be less complicated now that she was no longer the interim director of KHNM. She was wrong. The Keepers of the Holy and Noble Maat (KHNM) shield the mortal realm from the lethal chaos of the ancient Egyptian Gods. Under a crushing eviction deadline of midnight, the agency is being driven from its headquarters by ongoing litigation with the Gods. The agents of KHNM race against the clock to pack unstable supernatural artifacts they have guarded for centuries. With nowhere to go and only a menu of bad options to choose from, the agency shelves Alex’s plan to return a primordial book of magic to her ancestors in the lost oasis. If this due date isn’t met, the ancient water lore within will be lost forever—a deadly late fee humanity can’t afford to pay. As chaos swirls around her, an artifact stolen by a formidable immortal adversary sets Alex on a perilous quest. All the while whispers from the Gods calling for Alex’s death grow louder.

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Summary: WILL YOU BE ONE OF THE INVITED? A forbidden midnight market is coming to town. The Night Bazaar isn't new. In fact, it's as old as civilization. Its first recorded appearance was in Sana'a, around 700 B.C.E. with secretive merchants from the East who presented covered stalls of exotic goods and arcane services. Various mentions appear in obscure and controversial works from around the world. The only common element is that the market opens at midnight, closes before sunrise, and may appear for up to a week in the same city . . . Paris, 1796 . . . London, 1888 . . . Berlin, 1936 . . . San Francisco, 1906 . . . but never in the same venue each night. And never again in the same city. There's just one catch: In order to find it, you must be Invited. Tonight, The Night Bazaar opens in a parking garage somewhere in Manhattan. A whole subterranean city full of antique costumes, alchemical treatments, magical dentistry, palmistry, Tarot, tea leaf-reading, and water-, glass-, and crystal-gazing, oddities and objets d’art, medical curiosities and surgical instruments. Other lost arts and body alterations are offered in certain alcoves. Through the narrow aisles throng jongleurs, freaks, charlatans, mountebanks, faeries, prostitutes, and acrobats. The scents of opium, perfume, tobacco, greasepaint, incense, plastic explosive, alcohol, and sex permeate the air. But each object or service comes with a gift, a curse, or a haunting. (This is the summary of volume one. However, The Night Bazaar anthologies need not be read in any particular order; they are all designed to stand alone as well.) The Bazaar sells that which cannot be had elsewhere. Everything you’ve read about but thought had passed away, or perhaps never existed. How wrong you were! Your guide is Madame Vera, a tall, thin woman of uncertain age, ethnicity, and trustworthiness. The stories within are your invitation to join us. It seems you have already spotted something you desire . . . but don’t head off that way, not just yet. You have all night . . . but not a moment more.

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Summary: In volume three of this widely-praised dark fantasy anthology series, the Night Bazaar, a secret marketplace of the rare, strange, occult, and dangerous, journeys to 19th century London. There, as usual, its vendors will purvey curious services, forbidden wares, and rare objects which cannot be had elsewhere, for any price. The midnight market has operated throughout history in various locales, appearing in a city for one week only, never to return. This time the Bazaar’s proprietress, the enigmatic and unflappable Madame Vera, escorts the reader on an eerie, fantastical British tour in ten linked short stories by various authors. Some tales feature such recognizable luminaries as Sherlock Holmes, occultist Madam Blavatsky, and Queen Anne Boleyn. Several take place during the Bazaar proper, while others occur earlier or later, tied to its 1880 London appearance by a curse or spell – or, by an object found, inherited, purchased, or stolen during the decades since, by the unsuspecting, foolish, or greedy (though seldom the completely innocent). Together, these ten linked stories take readers on a fantastical journey into astonishment, dread, and dark delight. The Night Bazaar still holds everything you’ve read about but thought had passed away, or perhaps never existed at all. How wrong you were! But be warned: as usual, each object or service comes with a gift, a curse, or a haunting. NOTE: THE VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES MAY BE READ IN ANY ORDER YOU LIKE!

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Summary: For six lifelong friends, it was supposed to just be a simple game night. But when they break out a new, classic high-fantasy style game—half tabletop RPG, half dungeon-crawling board game, simultaneously familiar and unexplored—for a test run, they find themselves transported into the game’s setting, living the lives of their made-up characters, where the dangers, and the monsters, are deadly serious. Left with little choice but to jump headlong into their roles, Cordelia, Morgan, Jack, Eriko, Tamsin, and Tobias will have to become the heroes they were just pretending to be to stop a nightmare creature’s reign of terror… or find out if life and death in this fictional setting is as real as it seems. Ranger and cleric, barbarian and thief, bard and magician: they'll have to combine all of their new-found abilities to stop a creeping evil and to survive in this strange new world.

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Summary: The Hunt is On! When strength becomes weakness… And hope becomes doubt… As the past collides with the future…hard… Can Suzanne—Wild Hunt biker chick and one-time member of the fae High Court—stand strong as her world falls apart? She survived an assault by redcaps, an all-out battle with the High King’s armies, and her first encounter with roller derby… but how will she fare against her inner demons? Caught in the midst of a transformation she scarcely realizes and does not understand, her hard-won convictions are tested as never before. Suzanne is left with only one question—what if they’re wrong? The truth could mean the difference between saving her sanity and losing her soul…