I'm a part-time author working from home while keeping my toddler from fiddling with every switch in the house. I published my first work, Russian Roulette, in 2016. I never imagined that thousands of people read my work. It made me beyond happy to receive emails from sick readers who were entertained by my books and could escape into my worlds from their hospital beds. I think each author grows with every book we write. Each character is a piece of the writer’s soul that has finally managed to escape into the real world through words on paper. When I get to know my characters and see them develop it's almost the same as seeing your child grow.
Unlike many authors I know, my reading picked up when I was a teenager. I grew up in Ukraine, in a town where the library wasn’t close to us. My mother couldn’t afford to buy books for my sister and me as gifts because the country struggled greatly after the fall of the Soviet Union. Most of our school books were free. They were hand-me-downs from previous students. I still remember having to mend a lot of the pages and spines to be able to use most of my books. When I moved to Ireland to join my parents after three years of separation, I had to learn English. This drastic change in my environment and lifestyle eventually led me to reading to escape the difficulties I faced at the time.
Guilty Pleasures is the book that got me into the genre of Urban Fantasy. It has many charms; among them are a fun mystery, fantastic characters that pull you in, and a storyline that had my nose stuck to the book from page one to the very end. I’m sure I finished reading that novel within a day and kept on reading the books that were available at the time.
Meet Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, in the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series that "blends the genres of romance, horror and adventure with stunning panache"(Diana Gabaldon).
Laurell K. Hamilton's bestselling series has captured readers' wildest imaginations and addicted them to a seductive world where supernatural hungers collide with the desires of the human heart, starring a heroine like no other...
Anita Blake is small, dark, and dangerous. Her turf is the city of St. Louis. Her job: re-animating the dead and killing the undead who take things too far. But when the city's most powerful vampire…
If you haven’t guessed yet, I’m a fanatic for a bit of mystery in fiction. I often get bored when there is nothing for the characters to learn or discover. If it’s a story about detectives, murder, and magic, I’m 100% there! Grave Witch is a wonderful mix of witchcraft, romance, and mystery. The chemistry between the characters is sizzling and too enticing to say no.
The first book in the Alex Craft urban fantasy series about a Grave Witch who can talk to the dead. Perfect for fans of Charlaine Harris and Cassandra Clare.
Just because Grave Witch Alex Craft can speak to the dead, doesn't mean she has to like what they have to say . . .
As a private investigator and consultant for the police, Alex has seen a lot of dark magic. But even though she's on good terms with Death himself, nothing has prepared her for her latest case. Alex is investigating a high-profile murder when she's attacked by the…
Just like the other novels on the list, Halfway to the Grave is a bit old but hard to ignore. I have loved vampires and stories about the undead since Buffy The Vampire Slayer was popular in the 90s. I’m sure that it was one of the few TV shows on television that I did my best not to miss as a kid. This book features a kick-ass heroine and a vampire bounty hunter, Bones, who is her perfect match in every way. I think the chemistry between these characters was the main reason why the story was so enjoyable. I’m forever a Kat X Bones fan.
Kicking off the sexiest, smartest, most badass paranormal romance series out there. You won't be able to stop turning the pages.
Half-vampire Catherine Crawfield is going after the undead with a vengeance, hoping that one of those deadbeats is her father - the guy responsible for ruining her mother's life.
But when she's captured by Bones, a bounty hunter and a vampire, she finds herself forced into an unholy partnership.
In exchange for his help in finding her father, and still astonished she hasn't ended up as his dinner, Cat agrees to train with the sexy night stalker until her…
City of Bones is among my “recent” favourites. There is hardly a still moment for the female MC (Clary) in a story that seems to be going 200-miles an hour at times. It’s a fitting read as a coming-of-age book where the world around you suddenly changes and not all of it is pretty. Clary has to adapt fast to an environment where she is a blank sheet of paper and knows almost nothing about demons and shadow hunters. I think the MC is a good portrayal of a strong teenage girl in YA Urban Fantasy.
Discover this first installment of the internationally bestselling Mortal Instruments series and “prepare to be hooked” (Entertainment Weekly).
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…
Undead and Unwed is one of my favourites in UF. Its humorous tone and main character, Betsy, had me laughing a bunch of times, which is rare in books these days. I can’t help but keep seeing typos everywhere since becoming an author. I think it’s an occupational hazard.
Unlike previous books in this list that take everything seriously, this undead comedy can easily bring a smile to your lips while still keeping you spellbound to the vampire world. I’m sure Betsy will grow on you as a character.
First Betsy Taylor loses her job, then she's killed in a car accident. But what really bites is that she can't seem to stay dead. And now her new friends have the ridiculous idea that Betsy is the prophesied vampire queen, and they want her help in overthrowing the most obnoxious power-hungry vampire in five centuries.
Russian Roulette is an award-winning novel in Young Adult Urban Fantasy. Vampires, demons, angels, magic—the world is full of them. Helena made the mistake of getting involved with the darkness, and now she is knee-deep in trouble. Worst of all, her guardian angel has given up on her…literally.
"I couldn't put it down! Every chapter left me wanting more!" - Readers' Favourite Review.
Historical fiction inspired by the story of Mary Leakey, who carved her own path to become one of the world's most distinguished paleoanthropologists.
It's 1983 and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an archeological dig at Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti plains of Tanzania. Here, seventy-year-old Mary Leakey enlists Grace to sort and pack her fifty years of work and memories.
Their interaction reminds Mary how she pursued her ambitions of becoming an archeologist in the 1930s by sneaking into lectures and working on excavations. When well-known paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey…
Historical fiction inspired by the story of Mary Leakey, who carved her own path to become one of the world's most distinguished paleoanthropologists.
It's 1983 and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an archeological dig at Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti plains of Tanzania. Here, seventy-year-old Mary Leakey enlists Grace to sort and pack her fifty years of work and memories.
Their interaction reminds Mary how she pursued her ambitions of becoming an archeologist in the 1930s by sneaking into lectures and working on excavations. When well-known paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey…
