Urban Contemporary

In the twelve unforgettable tales of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, the strange is made familiar and the familiar strange, such that a girl growing wings on her legs feels like an ordinary rite of passage, while a bug-infested house becomes an impossible, Kafkaesque nightmare. Each story builds a new world all its own: a group of children steal a haunted doll, a runaway bride encounters a sea monster, a vendor sells toy boxes that seemingly control the passage of time, an insomniac is seduced by the Sandman.

On a quest to find her sister's killer, Mac is a major player in a deadly game, but with one great advantage: she knows how to find the Sinsar Dubh, an ancient book of magic so dark it corrupts anyone who touches it. What Mac soon discovers is worse than she had imagined. Surrounded by treachery, her enemies indistinguishable from her allies, she can be certain of only one thing: as All Hallows' Eve approaches, her time is running out.

Entre l’entité qui menace d’engloutir la ville et des loups-garous furieux, mon quotidien est loin d’être tranquille... Depuis que j’ai plongé dans le monde des surnaturels, il semble que les catastrophes s’enchaînent à un rythme effréné. Si je pensais enfin pouvoir respirer, c’était sans compter sur les rebondissements de ma vie "normalement calme". Nikolas, le novice d’Alexander, subit le rejet de ses anciens amis magiciens, Zéphira, la directrice de l’académie, s’effondre sous le poids de ses responsabilités, et Ivan, notre magicien maladroit, découvre qu’il a un dangereux don de persuasion.

Noel is desperate for cash. So PA for the mafia boss it is, or he risks losing his childhood home. Too bad the job also comes with a grumpy vampire boss. Family has been Fernando's priority for centuries, so why does his adorable PA suddenly stir long-forgotten feelings? Killing anyone who endangers Noel counts as a romantic gesture, right? Asking for a vampire.

À la suite de la crue catastrophique qui a frappé l'expédition vers la cité légendaire des Anciens, les survivants se retrouvent et s'efforcent de reconstituer un groupe cohérent, malgré les disparitions ; de nouvelles relations se forment, inattendues ou inespérées, d'autres poursuivent une évolution cahoteuse et malaisée, comme les dragons malformés qui continuent de grandir et de rêver de devenir un jour les maîtres du ciel, de la terre et de la mer.

Kate Daniels cleans up the paranormal problems no one else wants to deal with - especially if they involve Atlanta's shapeshifting community. And now there's a new player in town - a foe that may be too much for even Kate and Curran, the Lord of the Beasts, to handle. Because this time, Kate will be taking on family.

Sage Flores has been running from her family—and their “gifts”—ever since her younger sister Sky died. Eight years later, Sage reluctantly returns to her hometown. Like slipping into an old, comforting sweater, Sage takes back her job at Cranberry Rose Company and uses her ability to communicate with plants to discover unusual heritage specimens in the surrounding lands.

A unique blend of espionage thrills and Lovecraftian horror, Hugo Award–winning author Charles Stross's Laundry Files continues with Quantum of Nightmares. It’s a brave new Britain under the New Management. The avuncular Prime Minister is an ancient eldritch god of unimaginable power. Crime is plummeting as almost every offense is punishable by death. And everywhere you look, there are people with strange powers, some of which they can control, and some, not so much.

I don't publicly advertise that I'm a mage, but I don't exactly hide it either, and one of the odd things I've learnt over the years is just how much you can get away with if you're blatant enough. Hide something behind smoke and mirrors and make people work to find it, and they'll tear the place down looking for what's there. Alex Verus is a diviner who can see probable futures-a talent that's gotten him out of many a tough scrape. But this time, he may be in over his head. Alex was once apprenticed to a Dark mage, and in his service he did a lot of things he isn't proud of.

It would be an understatement to call Trevon Beaumont an accomplished monster slayer. He's traversed the European countryside upholding the legacy of his clan one completed mission at a time for the whole of his adult life. Now he's on his most perilous quest yet: slay the cruel but beautiful Countess Dracula. Just as the two of them seem ready to conclude their final battle, however, an unexpected act of betrayal sends them hurtling together through time—bloodbonding them, thus entwining their fates.

When her parents vanish, Cerise's clan's long-time rivals are suspects number one. But all is not as it seems. Two nations of the Weird are waging a cold war, and their conflict is about to spill over into the Edge - and Cerise's life. William, a changeling soldier who left behind the politics of the Weird, has been forced back into service to track down a rival nation's spymaster. When William's and Cerise cross paths, sparks fly - but they'll have to work together if they want to succeed…and survive.

Lorsque Emma Montana intègre le petit lycée de Lylarock pour son passage en terminale, elle n'aspire qu'à deux choses : la paix et la normalité. Cependant, c'était sans compter sur sa rencontre avec Jace Scott, jeune motard ténébreux au regard de braise. Son surnom ? Jace One Time. Très loin des contes de fées, ce brise cœurs en puissance a la particularité de n'accorder qu'une seule nuit à ses conquêtes, tout comme tous ceux qui vivent au sein de la Réserve amérindienne nichée au cœur de la forêt. Ce garçon n'est pas pour elle, Emma l'a bien compris.

Si après s’être débarrassée de l’esprit, Aileen espérait un retour à la normale, c’est râté. Pour protéger son frère, elle doit accepter la présence de lycans grincheux, et c'est loin de lui plaire. Supporter l'attitude prodigieusement agaçante de Lonan n'est cependant pas cher payé pour préserver sa famille et ses secrets. Entre la menace que représentent les sorcières et la certitude que l’ouverture du portail va attirer de nouvelles créatures surnaturelles, Aileen est sur les nerfs. Heureusement pour elle, son Shérif est là pour la détendre.

Penny never had a structured life growing up, so she has lived her whole adulthood according to her life goals and plans. She makes decisions based on thought-out reasoning, and she never ventures out of her comfort zone. All of that changes when she meets Jeremy. Jeremy is rebellious and wild but makes her feel free. She begins to fall for him before finding out that he is a billionaire rockstar.

Many years ago, Claire was named Head Librarian of the Unwritten Wing - a neutral space in Hell where all the stories unfinished by their authors reside. Her job consists mainly of repairing and organizing books, but also of keeping an eye on restless stories that risk materializing as characters and escaping the library. When a Hero escapes from his book and goes in search of his author, Claire must track and capture him with the help of former muse and current assistant Brevity and nervous demon courier Leto.

Chicago wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden is used to mysterious clients with long hair and legs up to here. But when it turns out the long hair covers every square inch of his latest client's body, and the legs contribute to a nine-foot height, even the redoubtable detective realizes he's treading new ground. Strength of a River in His Shoulders is one of the legendary forest people, a bigfoot, and he has a problem that only Harry can solve. His son, Irwin, is a scion, the child of a supernatural creature and a human.

“One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.” With this startlingly bizarre sentence, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young traveling salesman who, transformed overnight into a giant, beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. Rather than being surprised at the transformation, the members of his family despise it as an impending burden upon themselves.

Nola Leary would have been content to stay in Kilcairy, Ireland, healing villagers at her family’s clinic with a mix of magic and modern medicine. But a series of ill-timed omens and a deathbed promise to her grandmother have sent her on a quest to Half-Moon Hollow, Kentucky, to secure her family’s magical potency for the next generation. Her supernatural task? To unearth four artifacts hidden by her grandfather before a rival magical family beats her to it. Complication One: The artifacts are lost somewhere in vampire Jane Jameson’s occult bookshop. Complication Two: Her new neighbor, Jed Trudeau, keeps turning up half-naked at the strangest times....

Bob Howard's career in the Laundry, the secret British government agency dedicated to protecting the world from unspeakable horrors from beyond spacetime, has entailed high combat, brilliant hacking, ancient magic, and combat with indescribably repellent creatures of pure evil. It has also involved a wearying amount of paperwork and office politics, and his expense reports are still a mess. Now, following the invasion of Yorkshire by the Host of Air and Darkness, the Laundry's existence has become public.

Jane Yellowrock is back on the prowl against the children of the night. The vampire council has hired skinwalker Yellowrock to hunt and kill one of their own who has broken sacred ancient rules - but Jane quickly realizes that in a community that is thousands of years old, loyalties run deep.