Indie Urban Fantasy
The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust Book 1) by Craig Schaefer
Amazon: 4.4/5
Goodreads: 3.92/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: Nobody knows the seedy underbelly of Las Vegas like Daniel Faust, a sorcerer for hire and ex-gangster who uses black magic and bullets to solve his clients’ problems. When an old man comes seeking vengeance for his murdered granddaughter, what looks like a simple job quickly spirals out of control.
Soon Daniel stands in the crossfire between a murderous porn director; a corrupt cop with a quick trigger finger; and his own former employer, a racket boss who isn’t entirely human. Then there’s Caitlin: brilliant, beautiful, and the lethal right hand of a demon prince.
A man named Faust should know what happens when you rub shoulders with demons. Still Daniel can’t resist being drawn to Caitlin’s flame as they race to unlock the secret of the Etruscan Box, a relic that people all over town are dying — and killing — to get their hands on. As the bodies drop and the double-crosses pile up, Daniel will need every shred of his wits, courage and sheer ruthlessness just to survive.
Daniel Faust knew he was standing with one foot over the brink of hell. He’s about to find out just how far he can fall.
Nice Dragons Finish Last (Heartstrikers Book 1) by Rachel Aaron
Amazon: 4.6/5
Goodreads: 4.12/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: As the smallest dragon in the Heartstriker clan, Julius survives by a simple code: keep quiet, don’t cause trouble, and stay out of the way of bigger dragons. But this meek behavior doesn’t fly in a family of ambitious magical predators, and his mother, Bethesda the Heartstriker, has finally reached the end of her patience.
Now, sealed in human form and banished to the DFZ–a vertical metropolis built on the ruins of Old Detroit–Julius has one month to prove he can be a ruthless dragon or kiss his true shape goodbye forever. But in a city of modern mages and vengeful spirits where dragons are considered monsters to be exterminated, he’s going to need some serious help to survive this test.
He only hopes humans are more trustworthy than dragons…
Zero Sight (Zero Sight Series Book 1) by B. Justin Shier
Amazon: 4.5/5
Goodreads: 4.04/5
Kindle Unlimited: No
Authors Website
Amazon Description: Meet Dieter Resnick. Dieter is the sole child of an abusive single father, a perennial schoolyard brawler, and Ted Binion High’s number one academic prospect. Dieter is terrified of staying poor. He has few friends and is absolutely obsessed with earning a college scholarship. He’s also a latent mage–one of the few humans left that can bend the manaflows to their will.
Too bad no one told him. Now a boy is dead.
Meet Rei Acerba Bathory. Rei is a second year student at Elliot College, the premiere magical training academy in North America. She’s also on an all-liquid diet. Rei acquired her odd speech and mannerisms living among her centuries-old kin–strange vampiric creatures that have carved out the Midwest as their playground. She can kill a man without blinking, but has a serious weakness for puppies. Thanks to a childhood spent living cloistered from the public, Rei knows little of modern society. She’d do well to make some friends, but her fellow trainees despise her. Rei is the first of her kind to be admitted, and many hope to make her the last.
Dieter was raised in the grimy outskirts of Las Vegas. Rei was homeschooled in a Chicago mansion. Both are on their way to Elliot College. Both believe the other is a creature of idle fantasy. In ten hours, they’re going to be at the center of a war fought by shadow actors. In eleven hours, they’re going to become a weft-pair, bound together by the most sacred spell in the magic canon. And in twelve hours? Well, in twelve hours, they’ve got to get to class…
Zero Sight is a full-length contemporary fantasy novel, 107,000 words or about 350 pages. The entire novel is provided DRM-free based on reader requests. Because of foul mouths and graphic situations, Zero Sight is only recommended for readers 16 years and older.
A Prison of Worlds (Chained Worlds Book 1) by Daniel Ruth
Amazon: 4.6/5
Goodreads: 4.3/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: His friends are dead and now Derek is trapped as a human and branded by magic. Not that he has anything against humans, after all, some of his best friends were human, however, it’s just not for him. Now thrown out of his own reality he has to find a way to break his bindings and find a way home. Although he is an accomplished psychic Derek realizes that perhaps this may be the wrong skill set to bring to bear on ancient magics and devilish dragons. Now he has to explore the very building blocks of magic to take control of his destiny. Unexpectedly, while he’s taking control, events occur that may lead to the end of the world as we know it. Mad mages, hordes of demons and unfortunate explosions follow him as he attempts to save the world. Which begs the question, what does happen after the apocalypse?
God Touched (The Demon Accords Book 1) by John Conroe
Amazon: 4.3/5
Goodreads: 4.15/5
Kindle Unlimited: No
Authors Website
Amazon Description: Book 1 of the Demon Accords. Chris Gordon is a rookie with the NYPD – one with a secret. In his spare time Chris is an exorcist without equal with a gift from God. But when he saves a beautiful girl from a demonic attack, he discovers there is more to fear than just demons. Finding himself surrounded by vampires, were weasels, and facing a giant short-faced bear, Chris struggles to stay alive, all while protecting his deadly new girlfriend. And then there’s her over protective vampire mother!
Demon Inside Me by Christopher Nelson
Amazon: 4.5/5
Goodreads: 4.11/5
Kindle Unlimited: No
Authors Website
Amazon Description: When a half-human, half-demon is forced into a contract with an amateur demon hunter, he finds her goal of revenge is the least of his problems. Isaiah Bright’s contract places him at the center of a conspiracy to destroy the Gates of Purgatory – a conspiracy that may end the uneasy peace between the Infernal Host and Angelic Choir. Is the power of a halfblood all that stands in the way of another Celestial War?
The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant by Drew Hayes
Amazon: 4.4/5
Goodreads: 3.87/5
Kindle Unlimited: No
Authors Website
Amazon Description: Some people are born boring. Some live boring. Some even die boring. Fred managed to do all three, and when he woke up as a vampire, he did so as a boring one. Timid, socially awkward, and plagued by self-esteem issues, Fred has never been the adventurous sort.
One fateful night – different from the night he died, which was more inconvenient than fateful – Fred reconnects with an old friend at his high school reunion. This rekindled relationship sets off a chain of events thrusting him right into the chaos that is the parahuman world, a world with chipper zombies, truck driver wereponies, maniacal necromancers, ancient dragons, and now one undead accountant trying his best to “survive.” Because even after it’s over, life can still be a downright bloody mess.
Indexing (Indexing Series Book 1) by Seanan McGuire
Amazon: 4.2/5
Goodreads: 3.87/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: Good advice…especially when a story can kill you.
For most people, the story of their lives is just that: the accumulation of time, encounters, and actions into a cohesive whole. But for an unfortunate few, that day-to-day existence is affected—perhaps infected is a better word—by memetic incursion: where fairy tale narratives become reality, often with disastrous results.
That’s where the ATI Management Bureau steps in, an organization tasked with protecting the world from fairy tales, even while most of their agents are struggling to keep their own fantastic archetypes from taking over their lives. When you’re dealing with storybook narratives in the real world, it doesn’t matter if you’re Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, or the Wicked Queen: no one gets a happily ever after.
Indexing is New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire’s new urban fantasy where everything you thought you knew about fairy tales gets turned on its head.
Junior Inquisitor by Lincoln Farish
Amazon: 4.5/5
Goodreads: 4.37/5
Kindle Unlimited: No
Authors Website
Amazon Description: Brother Sebastian is halfway up a mountain in Vermont, hell-bent on interrogating an old woman in a
shack, when he gets the order to abandon his quest for personal vengeance. He has to find a missing
Inquisitor, or, more likely, his remains. He’s reluctant, to say the least. Not only will he have to stop
chasing the best potential lead he’s had in years, this job—his first solo mission—will mean setting foot
in the grubby black hole of Providence, Rhode Island. And, somehow, it only gets worse…
If he’d known he would end up ass deep in witches, werewolves, and ogres, and that this mission
would jeopardize not only his sanity but also his immortal soul, he never would’ve answered the damn
phone.
Imperium: Caulborn Book 1 by Nicholas Olivo
Amazon: 4.0/5
Goodreads: 3.63/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: Vincent Corinthos has two things going for him: he’s a top operative of a secret agency tasked with handling paranormal threats, and he’s half-god. Normally that’s a combo that leaves him well-equipped to handle any problems that come his way.
Until now. Something is snatching Boston’s most powerful paranormal entities right off the streets. Vampires, lycanthropes, fae, gremlins – no one is safe. No ransom notes, no bodies, no witnesses. Rumors swirl about a secret project that’s experimenting on paranormals. Then a fellow agent disappears and things get personal.
Aided by a new partner and a hyperactive gremlin with an appetite for junk food, Vincent must find the missing paranormals before everything he cares about falls under the control of Project Imperium.
The Demon’s Apprentice by Ben S. Reeder
Amazon: 4.4/5
Goodreads: 4.03/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: At fifteen, Chance Fortunato has seen more evil than most people ever will. Indentured by his father to the demon count Dulka, he’s been taught dark magick and forced to do his Infernal master’s dirty work for eight years. But now Chance has figured out a way to defeat his master and free himself.
His new life with his mother and sister is far from easy, and freedom has its own perils. Normal life is hard enough, but even in a mundane looking high school, there are paranormal threats from both sides of the mystical fence. When his new mentor is murdered, Chance knows he is the only one who can track the killer down. To bring his mentor’s killer to justice, Chance will have to fight evil on its own terms, and discover if that makes him a hero…or a monster.
Off to Be the Wizard (Magic 2.0 Book 1) by Scott Meyer
Amazon: 4.2/5
Goodreads: 3.98/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: Martin Banks is just a normal guy who has made an abnormal discovery: he can manipulate reality, thanks to reality being nothing more than a computer program. With every use of this ability, though, Martin finds his little “tweaks” have not escaped notice. Rather than face prosecution, he decides instead to travel back in time to the Middle Ages and pose as a wizard.
What could possibly go wrong?
An American hacker in King Arthur’s court, Martin must now train to become a full-fledged master of his powers, discover the truth behind the ancient wizard Merlin…and not, y’know, die or anything.
Dead of Night (Ghosts & Magic Book 1) by M.R. Forbes
Amazon: 4.5/5
Goodreads: 3.96/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: For Conor Night, the world’s only surviving necromancer, staying alive is an expensive proposition. So when the promise of a big payout for a small bit of thievery presents itself, Conor is all in. But nothing comes easy in the world of ghosts and magic, and it isn’t long before Conor is caught up in the machinations of the most powerful wizards on Earth and left with only two ways out:
Finish the job, or be finished himself.
Contractor (The Contractors Book 1) by Andrew Ball
Amazon: 4.6/5
Goodreads: 4.3/5
Kindle Unlimited: No
Authors Website
Amazon Description: The Earth is under siege – and no one knows about it, because the invaders erase those whom they consume.
A handful of men and women stand on the border between the mundane and the magical. They have a special spark of soul; not quite enough to be naturally gifted in spellcraft, but greater than the average person, a tiny flame that can ignite incredible potential. They possess the ability to fight back against the Vorid; the ability to become a Contractor.
Daniel Fitzgerald is one of those people, but when duty comes calling, he promptly slams the door in its face. He has no illusions of grandeur. He is not someone special. He wants to go to school and study law. And frankly, he doesn’t really like people, and he doesn’t want anything to do with magic. He just wants to be left alone.
But when the entire planet is a battlefield, there is no place to run.
Tombyards & Butterflies (Montague & Strong Case Files #1) by Orlando A. Sanchez
Amazon: 4.7/5
Goodreads: 4.3/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: An emissary from the Dark Council has just materialized in the office of the Montague & Strong Detective Agency, and makes Simon Strong an offer he can’t refuse. Charon is missing. The legendary ferryman responsible for transporting sorcerer souls across the river Styx hasn’t been seen in days. And with each passing hour, those unable to cross the river are left to walk among the living, tilting the world further out of balance.
Meet Simon Strong, an immortal, who is also the best private detective in New York City. Together with his surly partner-Tristan Montague, a mage of indeterminate age, they must find the Ferryman and get him back to work before another Supernatural War ravages the earth, destroys humanity, and Simon’s local coffee shop.
Time is running out. His landlord wants the rent and Karma with a capital K is paying him a visit, and she can be a real…
Join the Montague & Strong Detective Agency and help them locate Charon, so he can restore balance to the universe, put the dead sorcerers to rest, and maybe solve the age old conundrum-coffee or tea?
Fat Vampire (Fat Vampire Book 1) by Johnny B. Truant
Amazon: 4.4/5
Goodreads: 3.75/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: When overweight treadmill salesman Reginald Baskin finally meets a co-worker who doesn’t make fun of him, it’s just his own bad luck that tech guy Maurice turns out to be a two thousand-year-old vampire.
And when Maurice turns Reginald to save his life, it’s just Reginald’s further bad luck that he wakes to discover he’s become the slowest, weakest, most out-of-shape vampire ever created … doomed to “heal” to his corpulent self for all of eternity.
But as Reginald struggles with the downsides of being a fat vampire (too slow to catch people to feed on, mocked by those he tries to glamour, assaulted by his intended prey and left for undead), he discovers rare powers in himself that few vampires have … and just in time, because the Vampire Council wants him destroyed as an inferior representative of their race.
Perfect for fans of Rick Gualtieri’s Tome of Bill series or Drew Hayes’ Fred the Vampire Accountantseries, Fat Vampire is the story of an unlikely hero who, after having an imperfect eternity shoved into his grease-stained hands, must learn to turn the afterlife’s lemons into tasty lemon danishes.
Bill the Vampire (The Tome of Bill Book 1) by Rick Gualtieri
Amazon: 4.2/5
Goodreads: 3.82/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: Bill Ryder was a dateless geek, but then he met a girl to die for. So he did. Unfortunately for him, that was just the beginning of his troubles. He awoke as a vampire but, fangs or not, he was still at the bottom of the food chain.
Now he finds himself surrounded by creatures stronger, deadlier, and a lot cooler than he is … and they all want to kick his teeth in.
Bill isn’t exactly average, though. A vampire like him hasn’t been seen in centuries. He’s got a few tricks up his sleeve, unlikely allies, and an attitude that makes him too damn obnoxious to quit.
Join him in this hilarious tale of immortal monsters and the unlikely hero who’s not afraid to tell them off, even if it gets him killed – permanently this time.
Interesting Times (Interesting Times #1) by Matthew Storm
Amazon: 4.5/5
Goodreads: 3.83/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: Oliver Jones is the most dangerous man in the world.
At least, someone out there believes he is. Oliver himself thought he was one of the world’s duller men, working as a financial analyst in San Francisco by day and eating microwave dinners by himself every night. That was until he befriended a stray cat, and then one lonely night the cat began to speak to him.
Now Oliver is on the run, hunted by an inhuman assassin whose client believes Oliver is the “Destroyer of Worlds.” His only hope for survival rests with a trio of unlikely new allies: A werewolf with a fondness for Hawaiian shirts, an emotionless little girl who is much, much older than she appears, and a genocidal gunfighter with a serious anger management problem.
And there’s that talking cat, of course. But that’s a little harder to explain..
Hero Forged (Ethereal Earth Book 1) by Josh Erikson
Amazon: 4.16/5
Goodreads: 4.7/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: Gabe thought he had covered all the angles, but it’s tough to plan a contingency for accidentally trapping an evil god in your brain.
Gabriel Delling might call himself a professional con artist, but when walking superstitions start trying to bite his face off, his charm is shockingly unhelpful. It turns out living nightmares almost never appreciate a good joke. Together with a succubus who insists on constantly saving his life, Gabe desperately tries to survive a new reality that suddenly features demons, legends, and a giant locust named Dale—all of whom pretty much hate his guts.
And when an ancient horror comes hunting for the spirit locked in his head, Gabe finds himself faced with the excruciating choice between death…or becoming some kind of freaking hero.
Slouch Witch (Lazy Girl’s Guide to Magic Book 1) by Helen Harper
Amazon: 4.8/5
Goodreads: 4.0/5
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Authors Website
Amazon Description: Let’s get one thing straight – Ivy Wilde is not a heroine. In fact, she’s probably the last witch in the world who you’d call if you needed a magical helping hand. If it were down to Ivy, she’d spend all day every day on her sofa where she could watch TV, munch junk food and talk to her feline familiar to her heart’s content.
However, when a bureaucratic disaster ends up with Ivy as the victim of a case of mistaken identity, she’s yanked very unwillingly into Arcane Branch, the investigative department of the Hallowed Order of Magical Enlightenment. Her problems are quadrupled when a valuable object is stolen right from under the Order’s noses.
It doesn’t exactly help that she’s been magically bound to Adeptus Exemptus Raphael Winter. He might have piercing sapphire eyes and a body which a cover model would be proud of but, as far as Ivy’s concerned, he’s a walking advertisement for the joyless perils of too much witch-work.
And if he makes her go to the gym again, she’s definitely going to turn him into a frog.