#urban fantasy author

[writerdgabrielle]

I feel like I am in a perpetual state of planning and not writing with this new series. Last night, just out of the clear blue, my brain says, without provocation, "You know . . . all of those TV sleuths have a counter character in law enforcement. Shawn had Juliet, Jessica had Sheriff Tupper, Dr. Sloane had his son, Steve . . . you need a cop character." I had not planned for a cop character. I hadn't even considered a cop character. But Brain is correct; the trope calls for a cop character so make one, I shall.

[twbmagazine]

From Felines to Fables: Inside the Mind of Urban Fantasy Author Mark J. Engels

“Considering media portrayals featuring the unpredictable and deadly nature of shapeshifters, werewolves especially, was the origin of my werecat family saga series. However, rather than succumbing to their feral natures as commonly depicted in such portrayals, I had in mind for my characters to come to grips with them.”Mark J. Engels Mark J. Engels creates enticing worlds in the genre of urban…

[chrismsbooks]

—My mother needs me here.— —What for?—Sarah asked.—She doesn’t need any extra money, Liah. She’s always working.— —But what would she do without me here?— —Psh, I don’t know.—Sarah said sarcastically.—Go to the movies, have dinner, get some drinks, find a boyfriend. She would move on, Thalia.—

Sarah is Liah’s best friend, and I’ll tell you once and for all, she’s hard to write. Ambitious, stubborn, determined, very feminine too. She’s more or less a catalyst to many of the plot points of this story. So I hope you like her as much as I do.

You can Find my book here!

[selenekallanwriter]

Me, reviewing the half-assed outline I wrote a while ago for my next WIP:

[sometimesraven]

Unpopular writing opinion:

We need more absolutely vile, unlikeable villains. There’s a place for villains you can "babygirl" but I’m bored of it. Give me the most nasty disgusting villains that will make me cringe into the earth you cowards.

There's this entire thing that's cropped up around 'likeable' or 'relatable' villains where, instead of being a cautionary tale about how we can all end up there or how people who seem lovely can actually be vile, it's become "uwu babygirl isn't evil after all"

And like there's a place for it! I like my fair share of babygirl villains! Hell I was there all the way back when Thor was released and Loki kicked off the popularisation of this trend!

I'm just,,, bored of it now. Especially when I'm seeing people do the whole babygirlification process on real-ass human beings???? It's gone too far.

Give me vile.

Give me the eugenicist who wants to eradicate 'imperfections' because he thinks he's an agent of God

Give me an abusive horrible parent but don't tell me they're trying just show me from their kid's eyes the catharsis of getting them the fuck out of their life

Give me the fuckin westboro baptist church for elves or someshit i don't care, just give me something I can hate with my entire being so that I can feel the rush of vindication when they inevitably get defeated.

There's too many irredeemable, vile people in real life. Especially as a trans person right now, it's easy to fall into despair when I see how untouchable those people seem to be, and how many people will defend them based on their motivations or some other "relatable" bullshit.

Give me a story that shows they're not as untouchable as they seem. Give me a story that shows there's always hope for the downtrodden; that the vile, horrible people trying to destroy us are just that, and they don't deserve a single tear. Stop trying to humanise our abusers, because we know they're humans but they don't care that we are too.

Just once, give me someone I can sink my teeth into and tear apart without the slightest touch of empathy. Give me what I can't have in real life.

[idiotvera]

Hey, did you know I'm an endangered artist? I'm writing a series called Sideways, it's a queer urban fantasy following a trans woman who finds herself in a bizarre city where magic and monsters are real. You can support this project on Patreon where I've just posted an update with plans for the series as a whole. I post early access to the chapters I write as they're ready on Patreon too, so please check it out and consider sharing this post.

(You can also buy Volume One on Amazon as a kindle or paperback)

[mxxnlightwriting]

✨ A Spark of Magic Book Cover Reveal ✨

It's finally here! After teasing it for so long and saying how happy I was with the book cover, I finally get to share it with you 🥺 @.catarinabookdesigns did a wonderful job with it, and I couldn't be happier with it!

I'm not kidding when I say this cover has many easter eggs. I love covers that take a new shape once you've read the book, and I wanted to do something similar with this one. A Spark of Magic is a story wrapped in mystery where each answer leads you to more questions, and I wanted that sort of vibe for the cover. Where does this connect to? Whose character is this related to? Oh, so this is what that means!

This is the ebook version of the cover. The paperback has a few other details on its spine and back and I'll show those to you at a later date once I have the physical copy with me.

For the time being, I hope you enjoy this cover! If you're curious about what each element connects to/its meaning, you can drop a comment, stop by inbox or reblog with what you'd like to know.

A Spark of Magic is one step closer to being yours. You can pre-order the ebook from most retailers here! (Note: Amazon's link will only be available on release day. I apologise for the inconvenience) Paperback pre-orders coming soon.

allowing me to share each step of this journey with you 💛

✨ About A Spark of Magic ✨

A Spark of Magic is a YA urban fantasy novel, the first in the A Spark of Magic series. If you like witches, merfolk and shapeshifters, and the struggles of having to keep your magic hidden while navigating high school, then this book might be for you.

[poopraven]

Hello! I'd like to tell you about a book I wrote. It'll be coming out on Friday the 26th of May 2023.

I'm extremely proud of this one. I'm proud of them all, of course, but I think in this one I let myself get angry for, well, pretty much the whole book to be honest. Previous books in the series have bursts of queer rage, but this one definitely sustained it.

At its heart, it's a book that demands to know just how long we're supposed to do nothing while fascists kill us.

Now, fair warning, it is book 9 in an ongoing series. It won't make a whole lot of sense if you haven't read the previous eight books. I'll get to that at the end of the post, but for now I want to stick with Runes of Fall.

No storm bows to reason.

Quentin's trip to the desert with his chosen family is supposed to be two days of testing the limits of their powers. Instead, a violent storm looms on the horizon, and nothing will alter its course.

The storm has a name: Nate Anderson. Demigod, supremacist, leader of a neo-Nazi Übermensch cabal... and father to Quentin's latest ward, Mel. He means to take her home, and won't let a ragtag group of "inferior" psychics get in his way.

Besieged and outgunned, Quentin is trapped in a no-win scenario. No matter which way he turns, one fateful night will change him forever.

Inheritance is a series best read in order, so if this is the first you've heard of it I strongly recommend that you start with Jack of Thorns, but keep going and I'll let you know how you can grab that for free. First, let me tell you more about it.

In Jack of Thorns, we meet Laurence and Quentin, two men with astonishing powers but little to no control over them. They are both adrift, traumatised, and doing what they can to get by one day at a time. Laurence is struggling to escape a toxic, abusive boyfriend who refuses to accept that their relationship is over, and Quentin spends as much of his time drunk as he possibly can.

Do they start out likeable? Opinion varies. But they learn, they grow, and they put in the work to improve themselves. They do their best, and sometimes they make mistakes, but the Laurence and Quentin in Runes of Fall are a world away from the Laurence and Quentin you first meet.

Heads up, there are some content warnings to take note of. In random order, they are: sexual intimacy, addiction, drug use, sexual assault, childhood sexual abuse, incest, gaslighting, bullying, coercive control, kidnapping, domestic abuse, bigotry, classism, torture, post-traumatic stress, therapy, violence, peril, and death.

If you're still here, thank you for reading this far. I'd like to give you some links if you're interested in finding out more!

Jack of Thorns: https://books2read.com/jackofthorns

Runes of Fall: https://discoverinheritance.com/books/runes-of-fall

Discord server: https://discord.gg/reYUyTH9DJ

And, if you'd like, you can get all nine books at once - whether as ebooks, paperbacks (signed or unsigned), or audiobooks - from Kickstarter:

Thank you so much for your time. Please feel free to ask questions if you have them!

- AK.

[haveyoureadthispoll]

When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder― much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing―not even a smear of blood―to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy? This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know...

[ahsokatanos-lightsabertechnique]

Girl help, I blinked and now I have 22 urban fantasy novels checked out of the online library

[writerdgabrielle]

Jotting down things to remember

One of my biggest pet peeves is mysteries where the reveal has zero connection to the rest of the plot.

I'm looking at you, Pretty Little Liars.

Full disclosure, I haven't read the books. I want to. They are on my TBR. And I know from other people who have that there are some major differences between the books and the TV show. But knowing how the show ended, the reveal of who A had been . . . Well, no spoilers but there were literally no clues (in the TV show) until the final act. Like five episodes from the end, we meet A. Then we finally get A's connection to the Liars IN MIDDLE OF THE BOND VILLAIN SPEECH! ugh

And that is something I FEAR in writing mysteries. Will the reveal make sense? Will readers be angry about the reveal in all the wrong ways?

(I mean, it's okay for readers to be angry at the characters when they finish reading. I'm even comfy with some "WHAT KIND OF MONSTER ARE YOU?!" anger directed at me . . . but not "I wasted precious hours of my life for THAT?!" anger. That's the opposite of a goal)

Have I laid out sufficient clues without giving it all away in the first chapter? At the same time, however, I've asked people these questions POINT BLANK and am still not satisfied with their answers. I am not 100% certain I'd be satisfied with anything outside of "No, you need to fix XYZ," so that's a me problem.

I think one of the most critical elements in a reveal at the end of a mystery is that the "bad guy" was visible all along. It needs to be someone the readers know and recognize but without hanging a sign on them that says, "IT'S ME! I DID THE THING!" There needs to be moments all throughout the story where the reader says, "I KNOW WHO IT IS!!" only to have their theory dashed on the jagged rocks below in the next chapter.

And that's where I worry I'm not qualified to do this.

[goodluckclove]

Blind Trust: Coming Soon!

the first Songbird Elegy

Today marks the first day where I launch into overdrive to do a final final edit of Blind Trust and get that shit up in all those groovy, groovy places. I've been saying June 20th but frankly it might be sooner than that - I think as soon as @hoard-sweet-hoard finishes tearing into it I'm going to work with their notes and my notes and then just start those gears turning.

I'll be doing a pre-order, you'll hear about that in the next couple of weeks. There will be a paperback, as well as an e-book, available through Ingram Sparks and Amazon (I think).

Blind Trust is an explicitly asexual romance with elements of urban fantasy and mild cosmic horror. It is book one in the Songbird Elegies, which is currently set to be four books but knowing my luck it might be more. In it you'll find an intersex lead and an additional lead and love interest who doesn't know he's agender yet. There is some disability representation in book one, and far more in the rest of the series for plot reasons I can't explain yet.

But it all starts here! Read below for the plot synopsis and follow for updates!

Edgar Gallows is done with magic.

He left it behind when he left the abuse of the Academy, a deep-rooted institution where anyone can dedicate their lives to tapping into the source of magic – and all the pain that brings. Now he’s found himself a quiet life in nearby New Orleans where he can focus on staying alive, pretty much alone, and relatively happy.

Scott Skylark Kaufner is losing his mind – literally.

Since being born a birthright with innate magic, he has had a dark and screaming void desperate to take over his body. A powerful madness that will render him unstoppable for as long as he is separated from the other half of the soul bond he was born into. Every day the cosmic oil spill swallows up more and more of himself, and there’s nothing he can do but keep travelling from town to town and looking for an indistinct figure he only knows as Eddie.

Edgar and Scott cross paths in the dirty walk-in of NOLA tourist trap. But this has happened before, hasn’t it?

Something about this

feels

familiar.

A tender asexual romance with eldritch undertones. Mental health representation and an intersex lead. Love both romantic and platonic and familial. Intense food service specifics. Jim Jarmusch meets Satoshi Kon meets The Mountain Goats meets comforting soup and most lighter shades of green and yellow.

(thank you so much to @noroomtohatethedevil for the amazing commissioned art of my two dumb children)

[edhelwen1]

Monsters! Incidental Wedding Guests is an Urban Fantasy Romance. What happens when superheroes plan a wedding? Monsters, that's what.

Kennedy and Jason are ready to get married. They just have to deal with evaporating monsters first. Available for pre-order soon!

Sign up for our posts on our website: https://www.jeneric-designs.ca

Cover art by @pinkpiggy93

[selenekallanwriter]

The Muse is at it again.

[thevampireaesthetic]

Did y'all know I write paranormal urban fantasy books?

I will happily send PDF/Epub versions to people for free. I'd appreciate a review in exchange (preferably Goodreads or Amazon), but it's a completely non-conditional offer (so, even if you don't want to review the book, I'll still send it!)

People who enjoyed the Anita Blake, True Blood, and Blood Ties Series would probably like them—they've been likened to True Blood a few times by people.

So far, the first three in the series are out in the wild, but there are more on the way!

If you're interested in reading the Scarlet Cherie: Vampire Series, just send me a message or ask and we can arrange it!

Want to know more? Here are some reviews:

P.s—if you reblog this, I'll give u a lil vampire kiss <3

(They are also all available to purchase as paperbacks or on Kindle and are also on Kindle unlimited)

[noahhawthorneauthor]

for the biters.

We're solving mysteries in all of these, but if you want cozy I recommend How To Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager, and Lore and Lust. The rest are a shade darker, and they're all set in the modern world. And yes, they're all spicy.