Supernatural creatures have roamed the Earth since the beginning of time. There was a time when humans would not tolerate having vampires and other creatures in their midst, stealing their young and killing their fellow human beings. These humans took care of business with pitchforks, sharpened stakes, and fires. As the centuries passed, the supernatural creatures learned that they needed to hide in order to survive. As they did, humans evolved, and after a few decades, humans no longer believed the tales from mythology and folklore. Then the creatures became more bold again, showing themselves when they should have stayed hidden.

In 1945, the assistant director of the FBI suffered a horrible tragedy, which he learned later was supernaturally related. He created a small branch of the Department of Justice called the Bureau of Supernatural Investigation – the BSI. Little did he know that there were already men and women policing the world of the supernatural – or the “Fae.” The only difference was that this other group had a huge advantage over the humans running the BSI; they were also immortal, just like the creatures they policed. Should the BSI and the Immortals work together to keep the peace?

Dead Water (Keira Hudson, Series 2 Book 6) – Tim O’Rourke (paranormal, urban fantasy)

With Sam and Kayla missing, Kiera, Potter and Murphy head for the Dead Waters. Here they hope to find their missing friends and the answers to why their flesh keeps cracking like that of a statue. Knowing Potter has lied to her, Kiera is struggling with her feelings for him. Therefore, Kiera tries to keep Potter at a distance, scared that she might get hurt again.

With Skin-walkers and statues close behind them as they make their journey to the Dead Waters, Kiera can’t help but fear she is being led straight into a dead end.

Tatterdemon – Steve Vernon – HALLOWEEN FUN!!! (horror)

In 1691 the town of Crossfall taught the witch Thessaly how to die. They beat her, they shot her, they hung her – but nothing worked. When they finally tried to bury her alive Thessaly set the field against them. The first man died as a gust of wind harrowed the meat from his bones. A root,flung like a dirty javelin, cut a second man down. Many more deaths followed. The Preacher Fell impaled the witch upon her very own broom but she dragged him down into the field to wait for three more centuries.

Three hundred years later Maddy Harker will murder her bullying husband Vic. She will bury him in the field as she buried her abusive father years before that. The very same field where the revenant spirit of Thessaly Cross lies waiting.

In three days Vic will rise again – a thing of dirt, bone and hatred.

Men will call him the Tatterdemon.

And hell – and Thessaly – will follow.

When It Happens to You – Molly Ringwald (contemporary, chick-lit)

When it happens to you, you will be surprised. That thing they say about how you knew all the time, but just weren’t facing it? That might be the case, but nevertheless, there you will be.

Molly Ringwald mines the complexities of modern relationships in this gripping and nuanced collection of interlinked stories. Writing with a deep compassion for human imperfection, Ringwald follows a Los Angeles family and their friends and neighbors while they negotiate the hazardous terrain of everyday life—revealing the deceptions, heartbreak, and vulnerability familiar to us all.

In “The Harvest Moon,” a stay-at-home mom grapples with age, infertility, and an increasingly distant husband. In “Ursa Minor,” a former children’s television star tries to rebuild his life after being hospitalized for “exhaustion.” An elderly woman mourns the loss of her husband and her estranged relationship with her daughter in “The Little One.” In “My Olivia,” a single mother finds untapped reserves of strength to protect her flamboyant six-year-old son who wishes only to wear dresses and be addressed as Olivia. And in the devastating title story, a betrayed wife chronicles her pain and alienation, leading to an eviscerating denouement.

As the lives of these characters converge and diverge in unexpected ways, Ringwald reveals a startling eye for the universality of loss, love, and the search for connection. An unflinching yet poignant examination of the intricacies of the human heart, When It Happens to You is an auspicious literary debut.

The Debt & The Doormat – Laura Barnard (chick-lit, comedy)

Poppy and Jazz have been best friends from the first week of university. Whenever these two get together trouble isn’t far away and things haven’t changed much. When Jazz gets herself into financial trouble Poppy, being a good friend, offers to help. She instead ends up being talked into swapping lives, with Jazz insisting it will be good and help her get over her broken heart.

Poppy is thrown into a new life, full of crazy housemates. There’s fitness freak Izzy, horrendously beautiful bitch Grace and the slightly gorgeous, if not incredibly grumpy Ryan.

Quickly, with the help of Jazz, her life is thrown upside down. Madness ensues and her need to please everyone gets her in more trouble than she could ever imagine.

Before she knows it she’s got a fake boyfriend and is hiding so many secrets she’s scared they’ll spill out any minute. With a bullying boss, a sex crazed colleague, a mental mother and three brothers each with their own dramas, life has gotten pretty difficult for Poppy. And all of this would be much easier, if she could just stop falling over.

Will she get her life back to normal before her brother’s upcoming wedding? And will she want to?

Roping Love – Tamarra Hoffa (contemporary romance)

Ten Years ago love slipped through Chance’s lasso. This time “He was going after her and she didn’t stand a chance, just like a calf in a chute, he was going to rope her with his love and ride back into her life.”

Carrie Stewart is a dedicated horsewoman. She runs a successful breeding and training program. She is a good friend, a good sister and a favorite aunt, but she has been burned by love. Carrie has never gotten over her first love, Chance Ryan. After ten years of absence Chance shows back up in her life. Should she risk her heart again, with the man who left it broken at her feet in the past? Chance has some serious work ahead of him to win back the one woman he could never forget.

Lightpoints – Peter Kassan (science fiction, paranormal)

What if you suddenly discovered you had a sense-and powers-that almost no one else in the world did? When Amanda Lindner Nichols, a 24-year-old graphic artist living with her husband in Queens, New York, is revived from a near-death experience, she discovers she perceives everyone around her as points of light-but not with her eyes. She soon learns she can not only perceive the life energy of others, but she can give and take it. With the help of others like her, she brings her husband Chris to the brink of death and back to bestow on him the same remarkable faculty, and they’re the happiest they’ve been. But not for long. All over the world, people who’ve been revived from their own near-death experience at just the right moment discover themselves with these same unusual powers. They find ways to use them-some for good and some for evil. When Amanda and Chris encounter a ruthless group of gangsters with the same faculty, tragedy follows-and Amanda faces the greatest challenge of her life.

Baby, You’re as Sweet as 3.14159265 (101 Funny Love Advice Answers, 20 Sexy Stories, & Lots​ of Jokes)- Hog Wild (ADULT comedy)

WARNING: Content may not be suitable for people offended by naughty words, honest thoughts about love, and sexual thoughts of sextastic sex with sexy people.

(Edited synopsis due to rude words that may not be suitable for all) From the book…

A lot of girls like a guy who is a bad-ass. That’s why my conversations with women go like this:

GIRL: I like a man of danger.

ME: Come back to my place and we’ll open the .exe attachments in my email!

—

Dear Shirtless Guy in his Profile Picture, you REALLY want to impress girls? Get a job and pose in front of your cubicle.

—

They say you can get a girl to like you, if you can make her jealous. So I make sure the girl sees me with a pretty expensive handbag!

—

Girls like when you tell them about the adorable things that children do. For instance, like when my little nephew asked me, “When babies are in the tummy do they use mommy’s belly button as a window?”

Cute!

Thank God he didn’t ask what they use as a door!

Pastels & Jingle Bells (Heavenly Bites Novella 1) – Christine Feldman – SEASONAL FUN!!! (contemporary romance, seasonal)

(Set for publication for November 1st, 2013)

Trish Ackerly never expected to cross paths with Ian Rafferty again, but when she spots the former bully of her childhood years through her bakery window, she thinks she may just have been given the best Christmas gift ever:  the opportunity to finally give Ian the comeuppance he deserves.

But clearly she does not have a knack for this whole revenge thing, because before she can make good on her plans, Trish gets inadvertently drawn into Ian’s life in an unexpected way that lets her see just how different the man is from the boy he used to be.  In fact, much to her astonishment, she actually starts to like the guy.

A lot.

Trouble is, Ian doesn’t know who she really is, and explaining it to him is going to be a little difficult now—which is bad news, because Trish is starting to realize that all she really wants for Christmas this year…is Ian.

Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook – Kelly I. Hitchcock (contemporary)

Twelve women, twelve tattoos, and a narrative thread that weaves them all together, Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook is a collection of stories that answers that lingering question in the back of your mind when you see an inked woman: what does your tattoo mean (or perhaps – what were you thinking)? From a parent’s suicide to the birth of an unlikely child, the stories behind why women tattoo themselves are literally worn on (and sometimes under) their sleeves, and retold on these pages.

Complete with artwork from the original tattoo artists and a foreword by Dr. Marta Vicente, one of academia’s foremost voices in Women’s Studies, this series of literary vignettes celebrates real, everyday women and their tattoos that, while they may seem insignificant at the time, are a symbol of the larger struggles and triumphs that make them who they are. These stories explore the idea of tattoos bringing together women from different worlds, and teaching them how these worlds might not be as far apart as they think.

The Drake Equation – Heather Walsh (contemporary romance)

She’s a Democrat, he’s a Republican. She spends her days fighting global warming at an environmental non-profit, he makes his living doing PR for Bell Motors and their fleet of SUVs. But as soon as they meet, Emily Crossley and Robert Drake realize they have encountered their intellectual match. You’re never challenged, he tells her. You’ve surrounded yourself in a cocoon of people who think exactly the same way you do. She hurls the same accusation back at him, and the fiery debates begin. Despite both of their attempts to derail it, there is no denying that they are falling in love. But their relationship is threatened by political differences, Robert’s excessive work hours, and Emily’s fear of losing her identity as she falls deeper in love. Can their love survive? The Drake Equation is a tale of modern love and all its complexities.

Animus – Thomas Evans (crime)

A family is torn in half when a careless killer evades justice. Jason McDowell’s bad choice to drive to work drunk one morning leaves a father dead, a daughter in a coma and her twin sister and mother to try and pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Three years later, while Jason has gone on with his life, ignorant of the struggles of his victims, someone has decided it is time for him to face justice.

Bounty Hunter – S.J. Hollis (fantasy)

What do you do when your magic makes you a target? Run. Fight. Die.

14-year-old Kai Koson had nothing to do with the apocalypse, thank you very much. He was just a baby the day a coven of blood witches ripped a hole in the universe and the demons fell screaming from the sky. Earth and its magic perished. Witchkind was hunted and annihilated.

Now, because he was born a witch, Kai must spend his life running and fighting for survival. Even his own uncle seems determined to abandon him.

With nothing left to lose, Kai runs away and joins a team of galactic bounty hunters. But instead of providing an escape, it sets Kai on a path that will destroy everything he believes about himself and the apocalypse, transforming him into the most wanted teenager in the galaxy.

Written with humour, imagination and darkness, Bounty Hunter and its protagonist Kai Koson stand confidently beside Percy Jackson, Artemis Fowl, Alex Rider, Young Bond, Mortal Engines and Harry Potter.

I also wish to read The Keeping (Law of the Lycans, Book 2) (sequel to The Mating) by Nicky Charles, Dead Push (Keira Hudson Series 2, Book 7) by Tim O’Rourke, plus many, many more.

I hope you have enjoyed looking through my mixed bag! Happy reading, guys 🙂

Caroline Barker