Urban Fantasy Comedy

My name’s Bill Ryder. Five years ago, I helped banish magic and monsters to the shadows. I thought it was over, that I was finished with all that supernatural crap. Turns out I was dead wrong. Now the impossible has happened. My goddaughter is conjuring fireballs, I’m seeing ghosts, and two vampires have shown up at my doorstep looking to kick my ass. Seems a group of deranged wizards are hell-bent on reopening the doorway between worlds, once more unleashing unspeakable horrors upon humanity, and they think I hold the secret for how to make it happen.

Dave Marwood is trapped in a soul-crushing dead-end job. He's in love with his work colleague Melanie and his only friend Gary is a conspiracy theory nut. His life is going nowhere until he has a Near Death Experience—though Death thinks of it as a Near Dave Experience. He discovers gifts he never knew he possessed and a world he never dreamed existed. A world where the Grim Reaper is a hard-drinking, grumpy Billy Joel fan and the undead are bored, lonely, and dangerous.

The wizard Margle the Horrendous takes special pride in never killing his enemies. Instead, he transforms them into various accursed forms and locks them away in his castle. It's Nessy's duty to tend this castle. Its a lot of work, but she manages, taking pride in housekeeping talents that keep the castle from collapsing into chaos. But when Margle suddenly dies, everything begins to unravel.

Dustin Graves has three days to live. The darkling mage has found himself in the company of scoundrels. Maybe that’s what Dustin deserves: a werewolf, a vampire, and a talking sword for teammates, and a rogue sorcerer as his mentor and master. But a doomsday cult has surfaced. Twelve mutilated bodies are found drowned in blood and in wine. The massacre stinks of both the divine and the supernatural. Worst of all, an ancient god sends Dust on a lethal mission, one he must complete in three days. The reward? He gets to live. Well...maybe.

When the Supreme Being and his son decide that being supreme isn't for them any more, it's inevitable that things get a bit of a shake-up. It soon becomes apparent that our new owners, the Venturi brothers, have a very different perspective on all sorts of things. Take Good and Evil, for example...

When the members of Witches Incorporated receive a visitor from an alternate reality, they are shocked to discover that Gerald Dunwoody is responsible for the chaos in this parallel world. This evil Gerald has turned into a raving tyrant whose use of black magic has made him unstoppable. Unfortunately for them, this problem is about to cross over to their world very quickly because evil Gerald is searching for new worlds to conquer.

"It's okay to love me, Joey. But don't be in love with me." New York, 1941. Joey El Bueno is just a smart-aleck kid, confounding the nuns and bullies at St. Stephen's School on East 28th Street, when he first meets Jane Bent, a freckle-faced girl with red pigtails and yellow smiley-face barrettes, who seems to know him better than he knows himself. A magical afternoon at the movies, watching Carey Grant in Gunga Din, is the beginning of a puzzling friendship that soon leaves Joey baffled and bewildered.

Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny have been despatched to assist a group of scientists who are investigating a mysterious black hole which has appeared on a Somerset hillside. Could it really be a doorway to another dimension, an opening into another world? When one of the scientists disappears into the hole - with fatal consequences - Ishmael must prove whether it was an accident - or murder. But with no clues, no witnesses, and no apparent motive, he has little to go on. Is there an alien predator at large, or is an all-too-human killer responsible?

A corrupt police chief is on the loose, and it falls to Bailey and Quinn to put an end to him before he finds some way to weaponize the spreading rabies virus, create yet another batch of potent gorgon dust, and otherwise wreck Bailey’s happily ever after.

Here’s a little secret: Reality is insane. A death cult led by a box of Kraft mac and cheese. The Bermuda Triangle. Lizard people walking among us. When every conspiracy theory, urban legend, and fever-dream headline is true, someone has to keep it all cataloged, contained, and out of sight. That someone is the Bureau of the Bizarre. John Doe always thought his paranoid father was crazy, then the crazy showed up on his doorstep with a job offer. Now, he’s a Collector for the Bureau, partnered with Edith Sinner, a metanatural vampire with a murder glare and a past that refuses to stay buried.

When Marty Andrews gets bitten by a mangy mutt while walking her teacup poodle, her blond hair darkens, the hair on her legs starts growing at an alarming rate, and her mood swings put her dream job as a sales rep for Bobbie-Sue Cosmetics in serious jeopardy. Then a drool-worthy man shows up at her door claiming that he accidentally bit Marty. And since he's a werewolf, she is now, too. Thinking Keegan Flaherty is clearly insane, Marty refuses to believe a word until a kidnapping makes her realize there's more at stake than just her highlights.

Katie Woods never thought that she'd be forty-one, divorced, and thrust back into the dating world. To start fresh, Katie uproots her veterinary practice to upstate New York - not exactly the hottest dating scene on the planet. But when an unconscious cougar appears at her clinic, Katie's newly single life gets a much needed jolt of the supernatural kind. After Katie examines the cougar and leaves him caged overnight, she's shocked to find a big strapping specimen of young, hot man in its place.

Get four complete stories in Frank Kurns: Tales of the Underworld: You Don't Touch John's Cousin, Bitch's Night Out, Bitch's Night Out, and Challenges.

Matt Richter may be dead, but he'll still crack ths case. His mean streets are the city of the dead, the shadowy realm known as Nekropolis. This place has always been ruled by the vampire overlords. Now they're plotting to destroy the city. Over my dead body. Tim Waggoner is a novelist and college professor.

No stranger to fear since meeting the unhuman Inspector Hobbes, Andy Caplet fears getting fired from his reporting job (again). His main concern, though, is a shady property developer who has designs on Sorenchester Common, and more annoyingly on his wife. Perhaps a trip to the mountains will help him relax, but this proves even more perilous with foul weather, inedible food, brigands, and a terrifying cruise. Fortunately, mountain leopards, Yetis and Flossy, the yak, take a shine to Andy.

Love is a hex of a thing. Former childhood sweethearts fake a relationship in this charming, witchy romcom. There’s nothing wrong with being a wallflower. Not to Emmaline Bluewater, anyway. Emma may have been born into witch society, but her days of trying to fit in where she doesn’t belong...

A month ago, twenty-four-year-old Clark Crane would have attested his new job as an assistant to fashion titan Charisma Saintly was a dream come true. But he soon found himself ensnared in an honest-to-goddess coven in which power is currency, spilled blood is routine, and failure means death. Now, Clark must help his celebrity clients—an A-list popstar and a scandal-ridden comedienne—escape a witch's contract, a supernatural conservatorship, and a fate that demands their lives (or his) as sacrifices.

Veranix Calbert is the Thorn - the street vigilante who became a legend to the people of Maradaine, especially the gangs that run the neighborhood of Aventil. The Thorn continues to harass Willem Fenmere, the drug kingpin of the Dentonhill neighborhood. Veranix is still determined to stop Fenmere and the effitte drug trade, especially when he discovers that Fenmere is planning on using the Red Rabbits gang to bring the drug into Aventil. But it’s also Exam Week at the University of Maradaine, where Veranix is a magic student.

A very modern vampire, Betsy Taylor is facing some formidible challenges. She is getting ready to negotiate her way through a highly political meeting with powerful European vampires. She just found out her best friend, Jessica, may have a fatal illness. And her fiance, Eric, continues to evade every wedding plan. What to do? Put on high heels, hug her friend, and splash on something special for Eric, of course.

It's festival time! All would be perfect, fun, competitive. Well, try telling the vampires not to crash the damn party. January's volume arrives, a fourth book containing Clyde and his amazing party, humor and ass-kicking, happy and sad moments. While Clyde continues to strengthen himself so he wouldn't die to the Viper, figures and organizations move in the background.