Mercy Thompson Series, Book 12 Smoke Bitten / Patricia Briggs / 351 pages

Latest installment in the Mercy Thompson series.  Mercy Thompson is a coyote shapeshifter who chaos just seems to follow around (but she blames that her father Coyote the primordial being from Native american myth for that). Mercy’s Husband and mate Adam has been off ever since he had to kill an old friend who succumbed to dark magic and she can feel him pulling away from their bond and becoming distant.  Even the Pack has noticed he’s been off. Adam’s Ex is causing problems like she always does which is causing tension with the pack when Mercy’s step-daughter decides to go to college in the Tri-Cities area to be close to her dad and Mercy instead of her mother.  On top of that Underhill (a sentient being and avatar of the Fae realm), who is quite bloodthirsty, likes to play games (that often end with the other person dead) and likes to take on the form of a little girl decides to put a door to her realm in Mercy’s backyard and ‘accidentally’ let out one of the dangerous creatures that roams her realm into the Tri-Cities area.  When the creature bites someone he can control them and make them do what he wants, until he kills them and moves onto his next target. And if that’s not enough a rogue werewolf pack seems to be moving into Mercy and her husband’s pack territory with the intent to take over. Just another day in the life of mechanic Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman. Narrated by Lorelei King 10h 9min.

The Sun Down Motel/ Simone St. James/ 327 pgs

Simone St. James delivers again with a spooky, creepy emotional tale. The Sun Down Motel is not only the title of the book but also a character unto itself in the story. In 1982, Vivian Delaney took off from her home in Illinois to become an actress in New York City. That was the vague plan, but she ended up in an upstate New York town called Fell and worked the night shift at the Sun Down Motel. Months later she disappeared. Thirty-five years later, her niece Carly heads to Fell to try to find out what happened to her aunt. Carly discovers, as Vivian did, that someone is killing young women and it all started when one of the women, Betty, was killed and dumped on the construction site of the motel. Betty, and others, haunt the hotel. This is downright creepy but it's also fascinating that the characters in the book just accept the existence of the ghosts without question. The story alternates between Vivian and Carly's points of view as they each work to achieve justice for the murdered women. This book has layers upon layers and is an all-around fantastic read.

War of the Damned Series, Book 1 Resurrection Of The Damned / Michael Todd & Michael Anderle / 230 pages

Three months ago, there was a demon invasion. Due to that, old rules are thrown aside as the world figures out just who the enemy really is. A mercenary named Katie is trying to take a much-needed vacation in Los Angeles but  unfortunately, both friends and foes want her in the worst possible way. While trying to enjoy her vacation she is kidnapped, has to help deal with a demon incursion, and exorcises a ghost at the hotel she’s staying at. The government wants Katie either to experiment or dissect to figure out why she is stronger than all the other damned.  Damned are humans possessed by a demon, this gives them abilities to fight and send other demons back to hell. Then the leader of the demons that caused the demon invasion also wants Katie for what, Katie doesn’t know.. Katie's Killers a mercenary group of damned that fight the demons are facing a new reality, one where they are needed more than ever now that the world's eyes have been uncovered. Narrated by Emily Beresford 5h 41min. 

The Widow of Rose House/ Diana Biller/ 352 pgs

This is a debut book which strongly reminds me of those written by Simone St. James. It's a wonderful combination of historical fiction, romance, and mystery, complete with a ghost. Alva is newly returned to New York, albeit in disgrace. In France, she'd been on the verge of scandalously divorcing her husband (for good reason). In retaliation, he put out rumors that she was all kinds of immoral. But then in a twist of good luck for Alva, someone killed him. In New York, Alva's high society parents snub her. She purchases a dilapidated house outside the city but it turns out it's haunted and the construction workers won't stick around unless the ghost is gone. Much to her chagrin, Alva is forced to turn to the delightful Sam, a scientist/inventor/ghost hunter. Sam and his family are truly the best part of this book. They are amusing, intelligent, fun-loving, and best of all, kind. Sam and Alva fall for each other in the sweetest way, but given her past, it's a long road to a happy ending. This was a wonderful read.

Alice Worth Series, Book 4 Heart of Stone / Lisa Edmonds / 426 pages

Five years ago, mage private investigator Alice Worth escaped her grandfather Moses Murphy's Cabal, an organized crime syndicate. Now, her grandfather's war with local boss Darius Bell has drawn her out of hiding and put her in the cross-hairs of not one but two merciless crime lords. Her decision to intervene in their war has endangered everyone Alice cares about and threatens to destroy the life she's built for herself, including her relationship with alpha werewolf Sean Maclin. Alice's newest case may be the most dangerous one of her career.  She is hired to find a missing child with a rare magical ability who is unregistered to the government, and if they or a Cabal where to find him he would become a weapon for them and he would disappear forever. Then as she and her ghost sidekick Malcolm look for clues on where he went they quickly become targets for the boy's ruthless kidnappers. To stay alive and free from both Bell and Moses, Alice must rely not only on her growing powers but also her alliances with Sean's pack and the Vampire Court. But when Alice's conflicts with pack members turn violent and the Court betrays her, the truth becomes clear: freeing the kidnapped boy and finding her place in the pack will cost Alice her secrets, her safety, and-if she isn't careful-her life. Narrated by Felicity Munroe 15h 45min.

Alice Worth Series, Book 3 Heart of Ice / Lisa Edmonds / 380 pages

After closing the huge missing persons case for the Vampire Court, mage and private investigator Alice Worth is glad to be back to work as usual with her ghost partner Malcolm and spending some time with her werewolf boyfriend Sean.  Her newest case is to find three missing magic artifacts that were burgled from her client’s home, a cup that when drunk from allows a vampire one hour in the sun, a mirror that when you look into it reminds you of forgotten memories, and a cuff that raises a person’s libido.  She also has to deal with the vampire hate group that was responsible for blowing up the vampire Charles’s bar while she was still inside, while she helped the Vampire Court apprehend the group one, an ex-marine, escaped and is now gunning for her, Charles, and Charles’ people. If that’s not enough her grandfather Moses Murphy and his Cabal are making moves to take over the Cabal in her city, run by Bell the man responsible for the death of her ghost friend Malcolm, which means the city will soon run with blood, of not just the two organizations but also all the innocents caught in the way and the massive collateral damage they both will cause.  Narrated by Felicity Munroe 13h 17min.

Alice Worth Series, Book 2 Heart of Fire / Lisa Edmonds / 364 pages

Ever since taking down the group responsible for stealing a dangerous magical artifact that could destroy whole cities, Alice hasn’t been sleeping well.  With nightmares of the recent incident and from her past hounding her, her relationship with werewolf Sean Maclin, who helped her on that case, is on the rocks, federal agent Lake knows there’s more to her then there seems to be and has been following her, and Charles the vampire she occasionally does some jobs for is getting too interested in her. Alice has been, understandably overwhelmed for the last month.  Just when her friend, and ghost, partner Malcolm seems like he’s going to stage an intervention, her old mentor Private Investigator Mark Dunlap asks for her help on a case. Mark has been hired by the Vampire Court to find out who has been kidnapping prostitutes off the streets and he needs her help, especially when the list of missing has grown past 25 people, the police are fixated on vampires as the suspects, and the public is growing restless and vampire hate groups are on the rise.  Then she also has to deal with the poltergeist and demon that have been trying to mess with her. It looks like Mark’s case is bigger than they thought when they find out that the women aren’t the only ones going missing and then someone close to Alice gets taken. Narrated by Felicity Munroe 12h 33min.

Alice Worth Series, Book 1 Heart of Malice / Lisa Edmonds / 340 pages

She used to be a prisoner of her grandfather, Moses Murphy’s Cabal ( a magic crime syndicate) for twenty years, since he murdered her parents when she was eight.  He did horrible and inhuman things to her to force her to use her magic to do his bidding on jobs and torture and kill his enemies, until she faked her death, permanently changed the way she looked and escaped becoming Alice Worth. Now she is a private investigator that specializes in cases involving the supernatural as she tries to atone for the things she was forced to do for her grandfather’s cabal all the while keeping her identity hidden.  But a simple job to recover some stolen books for a client turns dangerous when it’s discovered that a dangerous magical artifact also disappeared and that it could be used to destroy whole cities, and then her client gets kidnapped . Alice gets help from the ghost, Malcolm that is now haunting her but if others discover him they both could be in trouble. Alice can’t register Malcolm with the government agency in charge of supernatural concerns because she is hiding from them and her grandfather and Malcolm is hiding from the Cabal that murdered him and would find him and bind him, to use as a battery for his magic, if she did.  Narrated by Felicity Munroe 12h 9min.

Blood And Magick Series, Book 2 Demon's Kiss / Katerina Martinez / 275 pages

Now that Madison has settled into living in the New Orleans French Quarter she didn’t think she would be having so many problems but since exposing Remy, the now ex-coven leader of New Orleans of using some kind of dark magic to make himself stay young and for his part in the vampire purge 200 years ago, she and Nicole, her friend and neighbor have dissolved the old coven and have now created a new democratic kind of system made up of smaller covens.   But when things go wrong as they have been lately everybody keeps coming to her since she was the one who exposed Remy. She just wants to write her books not deal with Imps that have been stealing magic. On top of that Jean-Luc, the man of her dreams, took the vampires that were sleeping in her house and disappeared and she hasn’t seen him in three months. Nicole thinks she been cooped up in her house writing and wallowing for too long, and now Madison has to deal with something even worse than the imps, a blind date.  Narrated by Carly Robins 6h 9min.

Blood And Magick Series, Book 1 Magick Reborn / Katerina Martinez / 290 pages

When Madison bought the old Victorian house in the New Orleans French Quarter she was trying to get away from her toxic life in New York and her ex-boyfriend Dave. She thought it would be a fresh start and that the change of atmosphere was what she needed to be able to finally finish writing her book.  Madison may have practiced magic but since she was adopted, she didn’t really have much of a connection to other practitioners and didn’t really get involved with the covens back in New York. Now living in New Orleans the coven here is much more close-knit and the mysterious and sexy Remy has invited her to join his coven.  She was not expecting to be thrown into the middle of an ancient war between vampires and witches. But then she accidentally awakens two of the vampires that have been sleeping under her house for centuries, under magic protections. One is bent on revenge against the witches that hunted the vampires centuries ago, the other vampire, Jean-Luc, Madison has been dreaming about.  Narrated by Carly Robins 6h 16min. 

Harry Russo Diary Series, Book 3 Deadlocked / Lisa Emme / 212 pages

Angharad, “just call me Harry,” Russo has had a very busy week, solving murders, finding missing werewolves, stopping a crazy Fae Prince that was hell-bent on eradicating werewolves and killing all of Cian (her maybe more than boyfriend) Nash’s family line. She just wants things to settle down so she can focus on opening up her new coffee shop in the store next door to her flower shop, is that too much to ask? Apparently, she just found out that the Magister, who is the big bad vampire in charge, is her father.  Then there are also the creepy ghosts that are popping up, due to their murders, that some rogue vampires in the area are causing. On top of that it seems like the Mariposa, a vampire in charge of an area overseas, is going to make a move on the Magister’s territory, that might be why rogue vampires are in the area testing the waters, so to speak. Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg 6h 40min.

Harry Russo Diary Series, Book 2 Tooth and Claw / Lisa Emme / 244 pages

Angharad “Harry” Russo had some major life changes recently, her roommates is dead, (good riddance, she was a backstabbing traitor), her computer is possessed by the ghost she had helped, she is now willing to admit that her abilities are more powerful than she would previously admit, what with her being a necromancer and having control over the dead (that includes vampires), and she now has a vampire “servant” she accidentally bound to her. The electric tension between her and detective Cian Nash keeps heating up especially when she gets involved in his cases,  the suspicious deaths of two college kids and the fact that there are werewolves going missing. She thinks it’s connected because she’s been seeing some ghosts of werewolves now and they aren’t like normal ghosts instead of taking their human forms the werewolf ghosts seem stuck as wolves and the clues they’ve been giving her point to that. On top of handling all of that, she also learns that her mystery father is a vampire making her a dhampir, half human half vampire, with a bunch of new abilities making her wondering what crazy new ability or event will happen to her next.  Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg 8h 7min.

Harry Russo Diary Series, Book 1 Dead and Kicking / Lisa Emme / 203 pages

Angharad Russo, nicknamed “Harry” likes to deny that she’s special, but not only is she a witch, she can also see dead people.  When the ghost of her grandmother talks her into going to a coffee shop to try to meet new people and have a “meet cute,” one of those romcom stereotypical meetups, with a cute guy she’s seen at the coffee shop, Harry goes to get her grandmother off her back.  She just doesn’t expect the guy her grandma was talking about to already be dead. And now he knows that she can see him he wants her help, he was murdered before he could get a flash drive with important info on it to the Magistrate, the vampire in charge in the area, to buy off his sister’s debts. He doesn’t seem to remember who killed him, but at least his killers didn’t find the flash drive and now he needs her to take it to the Magistrate.  Harry’s peaceful life has now gone crazy, dealing with Cian Nash the homicide detective in charge of the murder case of the body she found, she finds him just as sexy as he is aggravating, the Magistrate is now interested in her, which is not good news, and there are zombies that keep popping up all over town. Narrated by: Dara Rosenberg 6h 2min.

Codex Blair Series, Book 2 Blood Hunt / Izzy Shows / 293 pages

It’s been a year since Blair Sheach found out she was a mage and since she stopped the dark ritual that the necromancer tried to use to destroy the city.  It’s been pretty quiet, she’s gotten used to her powers and patrolling the city protecting the mundane from the supernatural. Shawn the ex-military medic that Fin once introduced her to to stitch her back up after the dark ritual has been flirting with her, which is weird, she’s not used to such attention and he doesn’t know about the supernatural world.  But things are heating up in her city, she has to kill a vampire to save a woman and that could be bad news if Dudley, the vampire in charge, can’t keep his grip on his people or if a rogue vampire is moving in on his turf. Then there’s her friend Fin, he works for the police department and he’s one of the only officers in the know about the supernatural world because of his high up position.  Fin’s not suppose to tell others about magic but he tells some of his subordinates because people are dying, five bodies have shown up around the city drained of blood and be-headed and Blair suspects there’s a bigger problem with the vampires than she first thought. And if this isn’t settled quickly then the secret about the supernatural world will be blown wide open and neither supernaturals or mundanes will be safe, not to mention what will happen if the Order of Mages finds out about her or that mundanes know. They keep tight control of human mages if they found out about her powers there’s only one thing they’d do to contain her, they would kill her.  Narrated by: Gemma Dawson 9h 19min.

Codex Blair Series, Book 1 Grave Mistakes / Izzy Shows / 335 pages

Blair Sheach can never keep down a normal job and anything that runs on electricity seems to break down on her at inconvenient times, like elevators when she’s in them.  But if she doesn’t pull some money together soon she’ll be out on the streets, her landlady has given her till the end of the month to pay the rent, only four days. She gets a job from a lady who saw one of her P.I. flyers (when she was trying that job) and beggars can’t be choosers.  She takes the unusual job the ladies husband has gone missing and apparently he’s cheating on her with a ghost, yeah right the lady has obviously read too many paranormal romance books. But as Blair delves into the case she finds out that magic really is real, that the case is more complicated than she thought because it  involves necromancers, and that she also has magic. Narrated by: Gemma Dawson 9h 23min.

The Night Stranger / Chris Bohjalian / 375 pages

Chip Linton is an airline pilot whose plane crashed into the water after flying into a flock of geese which caused the plane's engines to shut down.  Thirty-nine people died in the crash.  Flash forward several months and Chip, his wife, and twin daughters have moved to a small town in New Hampshire.  They have bought an old Victorian house that has a mysterious room in the basement that is sealed shut with thirty-nine bolts.  Added to that is that the people of the town are unusually interested with Chip's twin daughters.  Many of the women of the town are "herbalists" and obsessed with the herbs they grow in their green houses.  Chip starts to see and talk to three of the passengers that died in the crash.  These elements all come together to tell a page turning scary story.

Charmed / Jayne Ann Krentz / 352 pages

Anthology from authors Jayne Castle/Jayne Ann Krentz, Lori Foster, Julie Beard, and Eileen Wilks.  

Bridal Jitters by Jayne Castle; Set on the futuristic world of Harmony, with a love story between Sam Gage a ghost hunter and Virginia Burch an illusion tangler the merging of their businesses, marriage of convenience and their adventures down in the alien catacombs. Man in the Mirror by Julie Beard; Katie Montgomery goes back in time through a mirror, and becomes involved with one of King Arthur’s knights. Tangled Dreams by Lori Foster; Two ghosts instigate a passionate encounter between a shy young lady and her dream man, a sexy bartender. Pandora’s Bottle by Eileen Wilks; Dora Kitlock goes away on what she thought was a weekend getaway with her boyfriend John Raven where he might propose to her.  Only to find out that his family has a dark secret that every male generation has to deal with.  Now she will be forced to make a choice between John and his mysterious doppelganger Jack.

Lazy Girl’s Guide to Magic Series, Book 3 Spirit Witch / Helen Harper / 280 pages

Third book in the Lazy Girl’s Guide to Magic series.  Ivy Wilde has been recovering from her near death experience with necromancy and her boyfriend Raphael Winter has been driving her crazy during her recovery.  She cares for him deeply but if he cleans her apartment one more time, she might go insane. Things wouldn’t be so bad if he hadn’t given his resignation to the Order because they did something that conflicted with his morals, he’s someone that needs to keep busy so having no job is giving him cabin fever.  Although she might be going crazy anyway because she’s seeing dead people and they won’t leave her alone! They want her help, so that they can finally move on, and she’s the only one who can see them. But Ivy’s doesn’t want to do more work, she’d rather lay on her couch and watch TV. Then the ghosts offer information on a recent serial killer that’s targeting witches, she and Winter will have to work with the Order to catch this murderer before he kills more people. Narrated by: Tanya Eby 8h 4m.

Carnton Plantation Ghost Stories / Lochlainn Seabrook / 249 pages

Carnton Plantation is in Franklin, Tennessee and was built in the early 1800s.  It was the sight of the Civil War battle, the Battle of Franklin II on November 30, 1864.  It is considered Tennessee's most haunted Civil War house.  The author is a descendant of the McGavock family, the original owners of the plantation. He is a former tour guide and author of several Civil War books and magazine articles.  The book is filled with many stories and photographs of the house.  The Southern slant on the Civil War that comes out in the author's writing was amusing and interesting.  I had heard of Carnton Plantation before I read this book.  Next time I travel through Tennessee I plan to stop there and take a tour.

The Broken Girls/ Simone St. James/ 326 pgs

I really like Simone St. James's moody, supernatural books. This one is no exception. There are two timelines that revolve around Idlewild Hall, a school for castoff girls in Vermont.The first timeline covers 4 girls at the school during the 1950s. The second covers modern day Fiona, whose older sister's body was found on the school field in the 1970s. There is a ghost, there are multiple mysteries, there is the creepy old abandoned school which someone wants to resurrect. All of this is wonderfully woven together into a very satisfying outcome. I recommend any of St. James's books.