617 books tagged "Contemporary"
In a castle adorned with gems, coated in gold, and dusted with luxury, the youngest of the Constantine Family will be introduced to the elite of New York. But the party isn’t all glamor. Villains lurk in dark corners, evil deals are struck, and starcrossed loves are born.
FAIRY TALES INCLUDED:
***The Ugly Duckling*** by CJ Roberts
***<a href="https://openlibrary.org/works/OL41880864W" target="_blank">Beauty and the Beast</a>*** by Willow Winters
***Cinderella*** by Aleatha Romig
***Little Red Riding Hood*** by Karina Halle
***Jack & the Beanstalk*** by Marley Valentine
***Snow White*** by T.M. Frazier
***Rumplestiltskin*** by Celia Aaron
***King Midas*** by Skye Warren
***King Thrushbeard*** by Cora Reilly
***Princess and the Pea*** by Sierra Simone
***Swan Princess*** by Natasha Knight
Attend the ball, wear a red cloak, lose your shoe, spin straw to gold, or fall prey to a witch. In these fairytale retellings from bestselling authors, you will find a prince, but you might choose your happily ever after with the beast.
A Match Made in Hell
The Griffins and the Gallos have been battling for control of Chicago’s underworld for generations.
Their bitter rivalry reignites when Aida, the youngest and wildest Gallo sibling, crashes a party at the Griffin mansion, accidentally setting fire to the library.
To stave off all-out war, her father arranges a marriage with Callum Griffin, eldest son and heir.
Cold, ambitious, and brutal, Callum is determined to tame his headstrong bride. Aida is more than capable of giving as good as she gets – starting with poisoning Callum on their wedding night.
In their struggle for dominance, who will break first?
Wyvern, Lord Highfire of the Highfire Eyrie, is the last dragon on Earth and is hiding out in a Louisiana swamp. He strikes a deal with Cajun swamp rat Squib: Squib will keep him company and fetch supplies for him and Vern will protect Squib from the dirty cop that is chasing him. However, there will be soon be a firery reckoning, in which dragons wither finally become extinct or Ver's glory days are back.
The first LGBTQA+ anthology for middle-graders featuring stories for every letter of the acronym, including realistic, fantasy, and sci-fi stories by authors like Justina Ireland, Marieke Nijkamp, Alex Gino, and more!
A boyband fandom becomes a conduit to coming out. A former bully becomes a first-kiss prospect. One nonbinary kid searches for an inclusive athletic community after quitting gymnastics. Another nonbinary kid, who happens to be a pirate, makes a wish that comes true--but not how they thought it would. A tween girl navigates a crush on her friend's mom. A young witch turns herself into a puppy to win over a new neighbor. A trans girl empowers her online bestie to come out.
From wind-breathing dragons to first crushes, ***This Is Our Rainbow*** features story after story of joyful, proud LGBTQA+ representation. You will fall in love with this insightful, poignant anthology of queer fantasy, historical, and contemporary stories from authors Eric Bell, Lisa Jenn Bigelow, Ashley Herring Blake, Lisa Bunker, Alex Gino, Justina Ireland, Shing Yin Khor, Katherine Locke, Mariama J. Lockington, Nicole Melleby, Marieke Nijkamp, Claribel A. Ortega, Mark Oshiro, Molly Knox Ostertag, Aisa Salazar, and AJ Sass.
I AM DARKNESS.
I AM SIN.
I AM YOURS.
A truth imprinted onto my skin—its sharp vines digging into my flesh as our bond strengthens with each shallow intake of breath my love takes. Her life is intertwined with the devil, a man who hungers for depravity and death, and yet, I bend my knee for her.
Only her. Always her.
She is mine and I will kill to protect. Kill to own her.
Gabriella Moore will never leave me. Not by choice or circumstance.
New York Times bestselling authors Roshani Chokshi, Evelyn Skye, and Sandhya Menon craft a spellbinding novel about discovering the magic of true love on one fateful, magical night in Three Kisses, One Midnight.
The town of Moon Ridge was founded 400 years ago and everyone born and raised there knows the legend of the young woman who perished at the stroke of twelve that very same night, losing the life she was set to embark on with her dearest love. Every century since, one day a year, the Lady of Moon Ridge descends from the stars to walk among the townsfolk, conjuring an aura upon those willing to follow their hearts’ desires.
“To summon joy and love in another’s soul
For a connection that makes two people whole
For laughter and a smile that one can never miss
Sealed before midnight with a truehearted kiss.”
This year at Moon Ridge High, a group of friends known as The Coven will weave art, science, and magic during a masquerade ball unlike any other. Onny, True, and Ash believe everything is in alignment to bring them the affection, acceptance, and healing that can only come from romance—with a little help from Onny’s grandmother’s love potion.
But nothing is as simple as it first seems. And as midnight approaches, The Coven learn that it will take more than a spell to recognize those who offer their love and to embrace all the magic that follows.
The only time Eren Evers feels like herself is when she’s on her bike, racing through the deep woods. While so much of her life at home and at school is flying out of control, the muddy trails and the sting of wind in her face are familiar comforts.
Until she rescues a strange, magical bird, who reveals a shocking their forest kingdom is under attack by an ancient foe―the vile Frostfangs―and the birds need Eren's help to survive.
Seventh grade is hard enough without adding “bird champion” to her list of after-school activities. Lately, Eren’s friends seem obsessed with their crushes and the upcoming dance, while Eren can’t figure out what a crush should even feel like. Still, if she doesn’t play along, they may leave her behind…or just leave her all together. Then the birds enlist one of Eren's classmates, forcing her separate lives to collide.
When her own mother starts behaving oddly, Eren realizes that the Frostfangs―with their insidious whispers―are now hunting outside the woods. In order to save her mom, defend an entire kingdom, and keep the friendships she holds dearest, Eren will need to do something utterly be brave enough to embrace her innermost truths, no matter the cost.
Alice Sun has always felt invisible at her elite Beijing international boarding school, where she’s the only scholarship student among China’s most rich and influential teens. But then she starts uncontrollably turning invisible— actually invisible.
When her parents drop the news that they can no longer afford her tuition, even with the scholarship, Alice hatches a plan to monetize her strange new power—she’ll discover the scandalous secrets her classmates want to know, for a price.
But as the tasks escalate from petty scandals to actual crimes, Alice must decide if it’s worth losing her conscience—or even her life.
It's been a wild year for Sideways Pike. After forming a coven with the three most popular girls in school and developing a huge crush on a mysterious stranger named Madeline, Sideways' Halloween was ruined by finding out that Madeline wasn't trying to make out with her, but to steal Sideways' specter, the force that gives witches the ability to cast magic spells. From Madeline's perspective, it's not her fault: after a doomed relationship with one of the creepy near-identical Chantry Boys turned into a witch hunt, they took her specter, so, really, she's only borrowing Sideways' until she can recover her own and punish the Chantrys.
The specter-less Sideways is in a horrid, distracted mood, unable to do magic and with part of her consciousness tied to Madeline's, on the lam as she uses Sideways' specter to hunt Chantrys. The other Scapegracers are much jollier, heading into the winter holidays having set up shop as curse crafters for girls in their school who've been done wrong by guys. When Sideways—through Madeline—gets a flash of how to track down both her foes at once, she asks the Scapegracers to help entrap them, only to be told her plan is unsafe and unwise. So if she's going to find Madeline, her only ally is Mr. Scratch, the inky book demon currently inhabiting her as life support until she gets her spectre back.
Sideways is used to being an outcast loner, and is desperate to do magic again, so she's not going to let little barriers like facing an betraying crush and a family of six demented witch hunters practically alone stop her. But she and her trusty stolen bike are in for a bumpy ride...
**Run.**
In a world where unbonded omegas are worth their weight in gold, running is the only thing Silas Wright knows. Run from the criminal alpha pack hunting him. Run from the dark secrets haunting his nightmares. Run from himself.
Stumbling in the dark down a twisting mountain road, Silas is on the run when a stranger comes crashing into his life. This alpha is dangerous, but Silas is out of options. Forced to accept help, Silas finds himself holed up in a lonely mountain cabin. Cornered and desperate, Silas must quickly decide: Can I trust this alpha? Can I let him know my secret?
*“My handsome rescuer may be an alpha…but I am no beta.”*
**I thought I could escape the Beast … but he already devoured my heart.**
When the Beast took me and dragged me back to his cell, I thought my life was over.
In the darkness, he watched me.
Yearned for me.
Tasted me.
He loved my scars, called me a beauty …
Made me irrevocably his.
Until his owner finally let him out …
And his final task was to destroy my father.
The only thing that stood between them was me.
Faced with an impossible choice, I run.
But even the beauty can’t escape the claws of the Beast.
From USA Today & International bestselling author, Veronica Eden, comes an all-new standalone reverse harem paranormal romance with a headstrong heroine and twisted demons who left their morals in the last century.
Open the gate...if you dare.
The first thing I’m warned about when I arrive at the girls’ home is to stay away from the abandoned graveyard. Local urban legend claims it’s host to a gate to Hell.
Then I was dared…
The legend is as real as the monsters I’ve summoned by activating the gate. Demons guard it, waiting for skeptical idiots like me to do the ritual. Three sinfully hot, dangerously powerful demons.
Valerian.
Matthias.
Alder.
Ruthless.
Deadly.
Terrifying.
The gate’s three wicked protectors won’t let me get away without paying their price.
I’m at their mercy, fighting to survive them and the supernatural world they drag me into.
But none of us are prepared for what is awakening within me.
A long buried secret and hidden ancient magic will change everything.
The match is lit and together we’re all going up in flames.
*Hell Gate is a standalone PNR reverse harem romance. Due to dark themes, strong language, and graphic violent/sexual situations it is recommended for mature readers.
I’m a prisoner in a prestigious world.
A perfect princess locked in a tower.
My father will never let me go.
Not that I could leave. I would never abandon my little sister. Hope comes in the form of a devilishly handsome man with dark eyes and darker secrets.
With each encounter, I’m lured deeper into the labyrinth. The danger lurking beneath his surface calls to me, even as it warns me away.
Except there’s a new side of him every time we meet. A different danger each time we touch. It’s as if three different men want to devour me.
He’s not just one villain. He’s three.
Margaret Killjoy's Danielle Cain series is a dropkick-in-the-mouth anarcho-punk fantasy that pits traveling anarchist Danielle Cain against eternal spirits, hypocritical ideologues, and brutal, unfeeling officers of the law. The story continues with The Barrow Will Send What it May. Now a nascent demon-hunting crew on the lam, Danielle and her friends arrive in a small town that contains a secret occult library run by anarchists and residents who claim to have come back from the dead. When Danielle and her crew investigate, they are put directly in the crosshairs of a necromancer's wrath -- whose actions threaten to trigger the apocalypse itself.
***THE BEASTS OF ELECTRA DRIVE*, a novel by Rohan Quine**
http://www.rohanquine.com/the-beasts-of-electra-drive/
**From Hollywood Hills mansions and Century City towers, to South Central motels and the oceanside refinery, *The Beasts of Electra Drive* by Rohan Quine spans a mythic L.A., following seven spectacular characters (or Beasts) from games designer Jaymi’s game-worlds. The intensity of those Beasts’ creation cycles leads to their release into real life in seemingly human forms, and to their combative protection of him from destructive rivals at mainstream company Bang Dead Games. Grand spaces of beauty interlock with narrow rooms of terror, both in the real world and in the incorporeal world of cyberspace. A prequel to Quine’s existing five tales, *The Beasts of Electra Drive* is a unique explosion of glamour and beauty, horror and enchantment, exploring the mechanisms and magic of creativity itself.**
Jaymi is an independent games designer living on Electra Drive in the Hollywood Hills. Opposed to him are his former colleagues at Bang Dead Games. Their mounting competitiveness regarding his own extravagant game-creation reaches a point where they attack him physically with a flying drone.
Bang Dead is preparing the global release of a game called *Ain’tTheyFreaky!*, centring on five tabloid-flavoured social-media “Newsfeeds” for the victimisation of certain people by others—the “Gal Score”, “Guy Score”, “Trivia Score”, “Arts Score” and “Cosy Score”. Jaymi decides to fight back, for self-protection and to counteract this game’s destructive effects.
He takes an irrevocable step: after creating Amber, the most dangerous of the characters (or Beasts, as he calls them) who will populate Jaymi’s project *The Platinum Raven*, he releases Amber from that game, such that Amber slithers out of Jaymi’s computer monitor. Appearing human, this now-incarnated Beast is sent to stalk *Ain’tTheyFreaky!*’s creators in real life—developer Dud Guy, visual designer Kelly, IT boss Ashley and programmer Herb.
While Amber terrorises them, Jaymi creates a second Beast, Evelyn, a woman of ease and freedom, from his project *The Imagination Thief*. Incarnated too, she joins Amber in sabotaging a Bang Dead venture in the physical world.
As Jaymi’s output spawns three more titles—*The Host in the Attic*, *Apricot Eyes* and *Hallucination in Hong Kong*—he jumps into the creation cycles and subsequent incarnations of five more varied and human-seeming Beasts. These are Shigem, Kim, the Platinum Raven, Scorpio, and his own simulacrum the Jaymi Beast.
Targeted by a more lethal drone attack than the first one, he decides that his Beasts’ missions must escalate: they will infiltrate the very substance of *Ain’tTheyFreaky!*. Evelyn, Shigem and Kim therefore sneak into one of the game’s visual environments (a mythically seedy Downtown L.A.), where they try to put an end to some of the casually-programmed cruelty in the game. Shigem shames one Bang Dead programmer into secretly working for Jaymi instead; and Kim persuades another high-ranking Bang Dead employee to join Jaymi likewise.
Five of the Beasts proceed to sabotage *Ain’tTheyFreaky!* at code level, turning its own server farm into a radically different kind of environment from before. Their sabotage takes aim at the game in such a way as to break it down into its constituent glyphs and pixels—then electrifies these, recombining them into brand-new forms of such enchanted love and wickedness and originality that they’d certainly have been forbidden by Bang Dead.
Amid the resultant conflict, a Beast is sent to kill a human; a Beast is arrested, before escaping and wreaking revenge; and another human is lashed to the top of the transmitter tower above the Hollywood Sign, where…
After the ensuing convulsions of destruction and violent creation have run their course, Jaymi’s Beasts slip away to their appointed onscreen destinations, one by one; and he is left alone again, just as he was before he brought them into being. As he fires up his newly-completed game *The Imagination Thief* for the first time, however, it is clear that neither he nor the world around him will ever quite be as before.
Zora Novak has been framed.
When someone burns down the home of the school janitor and he dies in the blaze, everyone in Addamsville, Indiana, points a finger at Zora. Never mind that Zora has been on the straight and narrow since her father was thrown in jail. With everyone looking for evidence against her, her only choice is to uncover the identity of the real killer. There’s one big problem—Zora has no leads. No one does. Addamsville has a history of tragedy, and thirty years ago a similar string of fires left several townspeople dead. The arsonist was never caught.
Now, Zora must team up with her cousin Artemis—an annoying self-proclaimed Addamsville historian—to clear her name. But with a popular ghost-hunting television show riling up the townspeople, almost no support from her family and friends, and rumors spinning out of control, things aren’t looking good. Zora will have to read between the lines of Addamsville’s ghost stories before she becomes one herself.
In this town, I’m free from shame
A place where everyone knows my name
Glamorizing corpses to feed a need
That’s why they call me Skeleton King
They all worship me, but they don’t know the real me
All they see is my painted face
Truth is, I’m terrified, all the hope inside me died
Death and cold will forever be my morbid fate
Then she showed me something more
Somehow stealing deaths allure
After years on the run, a woman sacrifices her soul to a demon who has long hungered for all of her in this dark romantic thriller by TikTok sensation Harley Laroux.
Juniper
After a cult tried to sacrifice me to their wicked God, I went on the run, doing whatever was necessary to survive. Until a demon offered me a give him my soul and he'll help me claim the vengeance I seek. Blood will be spilled, and the monsters I once ran from will soon be running from me. But damning my soul was just the beginning—it’s my heart the demon wants next.
Zane
I’ve been hunting souls for centuries, but she’s the ultimate prize—vicious and feral with a broken soul as dark as my own. I thought claiming her would be a simple game, but Juniper is far from simple. I chose to follow her on a path drenched with the blood of her enemies, but it’s our blood that may be spilled next. As an ancient God wakes from its slumber, neither of us may survive.
