The Blessed

By Anne Shade

Suri Daniels, a beautiful and troubled woman, is the descendant of a family of supernaturally gifted women, known as the Blessed, and literally holds keys to gateways between the earthly plane and seven powerful gods. A series of tragic losses and a stipulation in her grandmother’s will has her returning to the family’s home in New Orleans, unaware that she will need to step into the role of Orisha priestess and escape the attention of a powerful demon. To top it all off, she must accept the help of a Cambion—Lyla Jefferies, a dark supernatural being she has spent her life avoiding. What’s worse? She can’t help being drawn to Layla in ways she doesn’t understand.

Being the love child of a top-tier demon and a human isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. For the past two hundred years, Layla Jefferies has lived a life of quietude. When an unknown force draws her out of seclusion, the pull is too strong to ignore. Layla is tasked to assist with protecting the gateways and saving Suri from becoming a vengeful demon’s avatar. Falling in love with her is definitely not part of the plan.

Layla and Suri are brought together by fate to defeat the darkness threatening to tear their world apart. What they don’t expect to discover is a love that might set them free.

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Shadow Rider

By Gina L. Dartt

Elemental Riders | Book 1

The world of the Five Nations is ruled by Elementals, those chosen few capable of controlling earth, air, fire, and water, but it is the Paths of the Shadow Realm that link the nations, navigated by the mysterious Shadow Riders.

Courier Shay Kendrith carries precious goods and crucial documents for the Crown, a solitary and dangerous life that takes her from one end of the world to the other. The last thing she ever expected to discover while traveling the Realm is an Elemental fighting for her life against the deadly wraiths inhabiting the Shadows.

As an Undine, Marshal Keagan Riley wields water, using her abilities to protect and serve the Crown. Being drawn into the Shadow Realm with Shay begins a harrowing journey that will lead them to the Elemental Stones, previously lost to history, but uncovered by unknown forces that may destroy everything they’ve sworn to protect.

In the Shadows, one can easily find death, but can Shay and Keagan find love as they fight to save the Five Nations?

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A Wolf in Stone

By Jane Fletcher

Amateur Sleuths
Marriage of Convenience/Fake Relationship
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Other Worlds

High level politics in the Kavillian empire is a dirty, dangerous game—a game Cassie knows well. As a member of an ambitious imperial family, she has been tutored from birth to play a leading role in the contest for power. Yet even she is caught out when a murderer raises the stakes.

Meanwhile her lover, Arian, has problems of her own. Life in the upper strata of Kavillian society is so very different from the honor-based culture of her homeland. She despises the unending, ruthless cycle of intrigue, blackmail, and deception that Cassie views as normal—regrettable sometimes, but more often a source of entertainment. Nor can she accept Cassie’s willingness to sacrifice everything and everyone to advance her family’s position.

Arian’s determination to stay true to her own moral code will be put to the test if she is to save their relationship, and Cassie’s life.

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Digging for Destiny

By Jenna Jarvis

Food
Pirates
Good girls/Bad girls
Friends & Community
AnimalsĀ 
Asexual/Aromantic
Bisexual
Friends to Lovers Romance
Magic
Close Quarters
Military
Disability
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Other Worlds
Dragon Circle Series | Book 2
Financial gap/Class disparity
People of Color

Kella Mabaki, dragon slayer extraordinaire, devoted sister, and celebrity hero of Jeenobi, has become a nobody by choice. Unable to continue hunting the dragons still tormenting her people and distanced from a brother she no longer understands, Kella is adrift in the city that was once her home. When she’s captivated by a rumor that could mean the end to the dragon sickness plaguing her land, she becomes obsessed with learning the truth of it. Nobody or not, she’s never been one for standing still.

Dragonrider Litz is torn when Kella reappears in her life, devoted to a quest she appears to have invented. Despite her beloved cousin’s disappearance and her growing doubts toward the empire she serves, Litz is experiencing an unexpected period of stability in her life. Kella’s arrival and the brewing war between their nations forces Litz to make a choice. Her country, career, and family, or the chance of making a better world with the woman she hasn’t been able to forget?

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Of Auras and Shadows

By Jennifer Karter

Friends & Community
Magic
Close Quarters
Bodyguard/Protection Romances
Military
Other Worlds
Ghosts

Eryn is the greatest hero the Community has ever trained. When a priest foresees that she and her guardian will save the Community, it seems like Eryn’s future is assured. But when she loses her guardian on their first mission to gather the ichor that maintains the life-preserving dome over the Community, Eryn is stuck with Rina, the worst-ranked guardian. Things get harder as Eryn’s resentment turns to love. Heroes don’t fall in love with their guardians. It’s supposed to be the other way around.

Rina has spent her entire life trying to prove that shadows don’t always lie. She fights her unconditional love for her hero rather than accepting it as she is supposed to. When Rina discovers that the corruption of the Dark Lands may not just be outside the dome but also in the Community’s system itself, Eryn is the only person who might listen. But will Eryn accept that the Community she loves so dearly is causing the destruction Eryn was prophesied to fix?

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Haunted by Myth

By Barbara Ann Wright

Age Gap
Celebrity
International Setting
Magic
Close Quarters
Ghosts

Chloe knew her future would be boring. Every job pales in comparison to the family legacy: hunting monsters and banishing ghosts. But that birthright belongs to her mother and sister, leaving Chloe forever outside looking in. Until her sister dies without warning. Chloe gets the family magic, a lack of self-confidence, a grieving mother, a sarcastic spirit guide, and room for nothing else, especially love. And lately, someone seems to be summoning ghosts and protecting monsters, and all clues point to one very famous face: Helen of Troy.

Helen has spent hundreds of years running a sanctuary and rehab for the last mythical creatures on earth. And she has a huge chip on her shoulder about that whole Trojan War thing. Neither she nor Chloe has time for the other’s philosophy or to see if their growing attraction is more than skin-deep, not when there are some monsters that won’t be sent to the Underworld without a fight.

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A Talent Ignited

By Suzanne Lenoir

Financial gap/Class disparity
Magic
The Valmoran Series | Book 2
Other Worlds

Evelyne, a disowned noblewoman, and Annika, a peasant girl with unusual powers, made the choice to be together in a kingdom where men make the rules. Now the Temple elders want Annika for murder and mercenaries want Evelyne for theft. But when Evelyne is abducted and Annika believes she has been abandoned, they must risk everything to find each other again.

Annika discovers the Temple has imprisoned children with abilities like hers, and she alone stands between them and death. She’s forced to face her fear of her own powers and soon learns to use them with the help of Zuri, a former slave who is also gifted with magic. Evelyne, no longer entitled to the favors and respect bestowed on the nobility, must convince her beautiful captor to help her return to Annika. 

Doubt and questions plague them both, but one thing is for certain. The Temple has a long memory, and a familiar foe is coming for them.

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Proximity

By Jordan Meadows

Dystopian
Virgins/First Love
Children / Families

The only thing keeping Joan’s dangerous powers under control is her cousin Sabrina's rare ability to counteract them. Luckily, they've got the support of their powerful Family, they're best friends, and they've managed to build a life around each other’s constant presence. But now they’re seventeen, and things are changing. They don’t want to study the same things in college, not to mention neither of them has been on a single date.

When Joan meets the lovely and witty Ellie, she talks Sabrina into trying a group date. That only makes Joan desperate for more time with Ellie. With more proximity comes more risk and the fear that Ellie will eventually notice that Joan and Sabrina are weirdly codependent. Important secrets will be put at risk, which may incur the Family's wrath. Someone could get hurt and not just emotionally. When things inevitably go wrong, Joan is sure Ellie won’t stick around, but learning to control her powers without Sabrina by her side is almost impossible

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Gimmicks and Glamour

By Lauren Melissa Ellzey

Friends to Lovers Romance
Other Worlds
Young Adult
Magic
People of Color
Bisexual
California

Ashly Harris has a secret she’s been keeping all her life.

To everyone else she’s just a seventeen-year-old party girl and problem senior at Hackley High School. She has always felt alone, and not just because she’s biracial and openly bisexual. Ashly sees faeries all around her, all the time. She has learned to hide her Sight, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is constantly taking the blame for the havoc that the faeries wreak. The only person who knows about Ashly’s ability is her eccentric, yet level-headed best friend, Caris, who might be playing along while also playing with Ashly’s feelings.

As Ashly speeds toward graduation with few future prospects on the horizon, she must protect the classmates she claims to hate from an evil that no one else sees.

 

"This is an accessible story with an interesting premise: The fantasy metaphor for Ashly’s adolescent alienation and despair works well and livens up the plot, especially when a revelation draws Ashly into the throes of a faerie war as well as a rewarding queer romance. A relatable fantasy weaving in real-life issues." –Kirkus Reviews, 08/15/2023

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Heart of Stone

By Sam Ledel

Other Worlds
Financial gap/Class disparity
Magic
Royalty

Maeve’s quiet life of isolation has kept her from the outside world—as a gorgon, she has to protect herself and others. Princess Keeva Glantor is proud to be a member of Uterni’s royal family. But her mother’s health is failing quickly, and Keeva’s life of ease is turned upside down.

On a hunt for the key to keeping Uterni’s queen on the throne, Keeva meets Maeve. The princess is intrigued by the lone woman in the fen, but she has her own mission to complete and no time for anything, or anyone.

Maeve yearns to believe she has a chance at a regular life and is curious enough to push the boundaries of what she’s always known, revealing a deception that has kept her a pariah in a world she fears as much as it fears her.

Both must unravel lies and come face-to-face with the truth to create a future they can call their own, perhaps even one that includes each other.

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Digging for Heaven

By Jenna Jarvis

Women in Uniform
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Financial gap/Class disparity
Good girls/Bad girls
People of Color
Military
Royalty
Rivals
Non-Binary Gender
Asexual/Aromantic
Bisexual
Other Worlds
Magic
Dragon Circle Series | Book 1
Children / Families

The lands of Jeenobi and Aelshia are separated by hundreds of miles of dangerous desert, and antithetical views on dragons. Now, under a tenuous new peace agreement, Jeenobi has agreed to ban dragon slaying within its borders.

As a visiting ambassador to Jeenobi and a rider to the dragon Loren, Litz expected to meet resistance to all she represents. She did not expect Kella, the kingdom’s most famous living dragon slayer, and she certainly didn’t expect to find her attractive.

When Litz is forced into extraditing Kella to Aelshia for trial, they’ll discover more monstrous things in the wilds of the desert than each other, and they’ll need to put aside their differences if they want to survive. The future of both nations may hang in the balance.

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A Talent Within

By Suzanne Lenoir

Young Adult
Financial gap/Class disparity
Other Worlds
The Valmoran Series | Book 1
Magic

Evelyne, born into nobility, and Annika, a peasant girl with a deadly secret, struggle to change their destinies in Valmora, a medieval world controlled by religion, magic, and men.

If only she’d been born a boy, Evelyne could fight with her brothers and fulfill her dreams of glory. Instead, her father has arranged her marriage. Annika knows she’s different. She has gifts the Valmorans call talents, and she’s waited too long to turn herself over to the Temple for training. If she tells anyone now, she will burn as a heretic.

Their blossoming love changes everything.

Both are forced to confront who they are when saving an innocent life exposes Annika’s talent and she’s held prisoner by the unforgiving Temple Paladin. Saving Annika will cost Evelyne all she’s ever known, but her sacrifice may lead them on a path to love and a destiny that will change Valmora forever.

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Three Wishes

By Anne Shade

Other Worlds
New York City
Magic
People of Color

Since she took her first trip to the little island of Nosy Bé off the coast of Madagascar, Elise Porter has been drawn back to it time and again. When a mysterious vendor sells her an antique, jewel-encrusted oil lamp, Elise is thoroughly surprised by the mystical appearance of a beautiful and scantily clad woman offering to grant her three wishes. Naima is a Jinni, and she has a wish of her own. A cursed princess’s spirit, who also happens to be the Jinni’s wife Aliya, has taken residence within Elise and needs to be brought forth to free them from their curse.

When Naima is summoned by a human who not only possesses her lamp but also the spirit of her long-lost wife, she can’t believe her luck. After centuries dreaming of the moment when she and Aliya would be reunited, the reality of what freeing her could mean for Elise has Naima wondering if the price of freedom is worth the sacrifice.

Elise and Naima must fight their growing feelings for each other as Elise wages an internal battle with Aliya, and they receive assistance from a very unlikely source.

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Hero Complex

By Jesse J. Thoma

Close Quarters
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Other Worlds

Being labeled a mad scientist doesn’t faze Bronte Scales. Accidentally gaining superpowers didn’t even seem that strange. It’s not until she realizes someone is out to get her and her do-it-yourself super tech invention, that she reluctantly becomes one part of a superpowered crime fighting team. Then things really get out of hand. And somewhere along the way she accidentally kidnaps a nurse—a smart, kind, and beautiful sort of nurse. Bronte’s screwed.

Athena Papadaki doesn’t have superpowers, but she’s scary good at squeezing everything she can from each waking minute. That feels heroic until she’s kidnapped by a group of knuckleheads who need more rescuing than she does. Once she’s done saving the day, she’ll walk away and most certainly never think about Bronte Scales ever again. Nothing to see here.

Can Bronte and Athena, and their unlikely friends, work together to defeat Bronte’s archnemesis? The fate of love, humanity, and the world might depend on it. No pressure.

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Lines of Love

By Brey Willows

Age Gap
A Memory's Muses Novel | Book 3
International Setting
Small Town Romances

The Muse of Love, Eris Ardalides, is bored out of her mind. Love in this century isn’t real. It has no depth or feeling, and she’s taken herself out of the Muse business altogether. Sex is fine. Love, not so much. As far as she’s concerned, she’s retired. Life is too short for the angst that comes with deep emotion, even for an immortal.

Grace Gordon is an excellent divorce lawyer. She’s trying to save the world, and who has time for frivolity when lives are being torn apart? She’s lonely, yes, but so what? One day she’ll find love and a relationship. But she’ll never settle for anything less than perfect. Surely, it’s out there somewhere…

When Eris finds out she’s being sued by lovelorn victims who believe they might’ve had a chance if the Muse of Love hadn’t been AWOL, it’s Grace who takes the case. Attraction simmers, but there’s no middle ground when Grace wants perfection, and Eris doesn’t believe love even exists anymore.

The lines of love have been drawn. Who will cross them first?

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Drifting

By Lyn Hemphill

Coming Out
Children / Families
Other Worlds
Magic

Tessa has always pushed her emotions away where they can’t hurt her. She always does the right thing, or she tries to. So, when she jumps into the ocean after Jet, she thinks she’s saving her life. Of course, she can’t possibly know Jet is actually a mermaid.

Jet is desperately trying to get her tail back after a devastating battle saw her cast out of the water for her own safety. The last thing she expects is a beautiful human floundering after her determined to get in her way. Jet must work out how to get home to her people before her mistakes cause her clan’s demise.

Tessa wants to help Jet, but how can she if she doesn’t accept the truth? As they fall for each other, they discover that love can teach you what is truly important even when facing the impossibility of blending two very different lives.

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The Mage and the Monster

By Barbara Ann Wright

Virgins/First Love
Enemies to Lovers Romance
The Sisters of Sarras | Book 3
Disability
Other Worlds
Magic

Gisele del Amanecer’s days look the same from the outside: work, home, and the occasional one-night stand that she hides from her nosy older sisters. But Gisele is a mage, and that means pain invisible to outside eyes. Each act of magic can be agony, but she loves the power, the bond with the unseen, and how only her will keeps the magic from consuming her. She can master any task, including saving her family and homeland from Firellian invaders—until she’s ordered to hunt another mage, one who may be her equal in power and commitment. One she might risk everything for.

Vale has been subjugated her entire life—to the point where she thinks she deserves it, but she is determined to save others from that fate. Magic has been her one bright spot, but now she’s forced to use that power to kill in the name of the Firellian Empire. Escape or rebellion is out of the question unless she can guarantee the safety of her fellow captives, but how can everyone make it out alive while surrounded by enemies? Perhaps with the help of another mage, someone who bonds with magic like Vale does, someone who might want her for herself instead of for her power. But war always demands a sacrifice.

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Vision of Virtue

By Brey Willows

A Memory's Muses Novel | Book 2
Big City
Celebrity
Rivals
Enemies to Lovers Romance
Other Worlds

Clio Ardalides loves being in the limelight. As the Muse of History and Virtue, it’s her job to share all the laudable traits and accomplishments of the gods, and she’s turned her work into a national television show. For Clio, the perception of events and highlighting the positive is sometimes a little more important than authenticity. Who wants reality when there’s glamour and beauty in the world?

Kit Kalloway wants the truth. And not the shiny, polished version people are getting from the news or shows like Clio’s. As the headline reporter for Truth Spotter, she uncovers the things not getting done and the people being left behind. To Kit, Clio has sold out. No matter how sexy and vivacious she is, she’s just another self-obsessed influencer only interested in being admired.

When disaster strikes and they must depend on one another, desire and passion are ready and waiting. But will it be enough for them to find a shared vision?

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