Dark Secrets:
A Paranormal Noir Anthology
Rachel Caine, Cynthia Eden,
Megan Hart, Suzanne Johnson, Jeffe Kennedy, Mina Khan
Genre: Paranormal Noir,
Romance, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy
Date of Publication: September 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-942840-05-3
ASIN: B0147D7JTU
Number of pages: Approx. 350
Word Count: Approx. 150,000
Cover Artist: Robin Ludwig Design
Book Description:
Six award-winning authors bring you this spellbinding collection of stories about dark desires, mysterious worlds, and danger that lurks in the shadows of the night. Where nothing is black and white; where things might not be as they seem; where magic and mayhem rule.
MARION, MISSING by Rachel Caine
Valentine is a detective with two major problems: he's been offered a kidnapping case that will probably get him killed, and his partner won't let him turn it down. He owes her that much … since his partner's a ghost, and he's the one who killed her. A dark, haunting noir mystery of love, hate and loss.
FEMME FATALE by Cynthia Eden
PI Mick Swayne has seen it all—his clients have included liars, thieves, and even killers. He thinks he can handle anything and anyone. Then she walks into his office. Savannah Moreau is beautiful, seductive, and…a vampire? The gorgeous vamp hires Mick to help her track down a killer who is hunting in Chicago, but as Mick slips deeper into Savannah’s paranormal world, he wonders if he can really trust his new client…
DANCE WITH THE DEVIL by Megan Hart
When the devil starts the music, you'd better get ready to dance.
Kathleen Murphy has sold her soul to the devil. Fame, fortune, success...everything she's ever dreamed of is hers, and all she has to do is the devil's bidding. When love comes knocking, the last thing in the world she wants to do is involve Jake in her twisted world, but the devil's started up the jukebox and Kathleen has no choice but to learn the steps.
THE CONSORT by Suzanne Johnson
Faulkner Hearne, the captain of the ruthless Fae Hunters, finds his duty at odds with his heart when he’s ordered to capture the consort of Faerie’s cruel Prince of Summer when she flees across the veil into modern New Orleans. Can Faulk turn Liandra over to a certain death at the hands of the prince, or will he risk a war with Faerie in order to save her? An all-new novella set in the Sentinels of New Orleans multiverse.
HEART’S BLOOD by Jeffe Kennedy, a Twelve Kingdoms novella
A dark fairytale retelling of a princess robbed of rank, husband and even her name.
Nix is nothing. The Princess Natilde—her former waiting woman—attacked her on the journey to wed Prince Cavan, stripping her of everything and taking her place. With no serving skills, Nix becomes a goose girl. Perhaps if Nix keeps her promise never to reveal who she really is, Natilde won’t carry out her vile threats. Prince Cavan entered his arranged marriage determined to have a congenial, if not loving relationship with his future queen—for the sake of both their kingdoms. But, his wife repels him more each day and he finds himself absurdly drawn to the lovely Nix....With broken vows, anguish and dark secrets between them, Cavan and Nix struggle to find the magic to restore what’s gone terribly wrong... if it ever can be.
THE DJINN IN THE MIRROR by Mina Khan, a Djinn World novella
A paranormal Cinderella story with a young witch as the heroine and a wicked, sexy djinn instead of a fairy godmother....Dahlia, the step-daughter of a power hungry wizard, promises to free a djinn trapped in a mirror if he rescues her from impending death. But Ashmael the djinn has his own agenda: to trick & seduce his way to freedom. The only problem is he ends up falling for Dahlia. Can he win his freedom and save the girl?
About the Authors:
Rachel Caine is the New York Times, USA Today, and #1 internationally bestselling author of more than 45 novels that span the categories of horror, suspense, urban fantasy, science fiction, media tie-in, historical, and young adult. She’s also the author of more than 100 short stories.
Twitter: @rachelcaine
Award-winning author Cynthia Eden writes dark tales of paranormal romance and romantic suspense. She is a New York Times, USA Today, Digital Book World, and IndieReader best-seller. Cynthia is also a three-time finalist for the prestigious RITA® award. Since she began writing full-time in 2005, Cynthia has written over fifty novels and novellas.
Twitter: @cynthiaeden
Megan Hart is a USA Today, Publisher’s Weekly and New York Times bestselling author who writes in many genres including mainstream fiction, erotic fiction, science fiction, romance, fantasy and horror.
Twitter: @megan_hart
Suzanne Johnson is the author of the award-winning Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series. Writing as Susannah Sandlin, she is author of the award-winning Penton Legacy paranormal romance series as well as The Collectors romantic suspense series, including Lovely, Dark, and Deep, winner of the 2015 Holt Medallion and the 2015 Booksellers Best Award winner for romantic suspense. Her new Wildlife Wardens romantic suspense series begins in 2016 with Wild Man’s Bluff.
Twitter: @suzanne_johnson
Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author whose works include non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, and novels. Her most recent works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion, an erotic contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera, the fantasy series The Twelve Kingdoms, and the erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under. The first of the Twelve Kingdoms books, The Mark of the Tala, has been nominated for the RT Book of the Year while the sequel, The Tears of the Rose, has been nominated for best fantasy romance of the year. Jeffe lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.
Twitter: @jeffekennedy
Award-winning author Mina Khan grew up in Bangladesh on stories of djinns, ghosts and monsters. These childhood fancies now color her fiction. She daydreams of hunky paranormal heroes, magic, mayhem and mischief and writes them down as stories. She is the author of the Djinn World Chronicles, including The Djinn’s Dilemma and A Tale of Two Djinns, as well as Wildfire, a paranormal mystery with cowboys and dragons.
Twitter: @SpiceBites
Guest Post
Please welcome Suzanne Johnson to Diane’s Book Blog.
Meet the Paranormal Noir Heroes by Suzanne Johnson
It was a daunting writing challenge: write a novella that would fit into the category of “paranormal noir.” Of course there is no such category, which left the six authors contributing to DARK SECRETS: A PARANORMAL NOIR ANTHOLOGY a lot of wiggle room in interpreting what, exactly, made a paranormal story qualify as noir.
First, what is noir? In fiction, it usually refers to the hardboiled crime novels that became popular with authors like Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane. In movies, nobody embodies film noir like Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney.
And then there’s paranormal. We each took a slightly different route, some with romance, some without, some with unrequited love, some with a sort-of happily ever after.
RACHEL CAINE, in her novella Marion, Missing, went with the hardboiled private detective, Valentine—who’s being haunted by the ghost of his slain former partner. Is his partner Tilde real, or is she a part of his subconscious working through grief? You decide.
CYNTHIA EDEN brings heat to Femme Fatale, where beaten and battered Mick Swayne has been forced from cop to low-rent P.I. by injuries. Only his newest client, Savannah, isn’t low-rent...or human.
In Dance with the Devil, MEGAN HART’s heroine Kathleen Murphy has no romantic interest in the devil. He’s no sexy, misunderstood antihero. He’s, like, the devil—especially when he gives her an assignment she can’t bring herself to complete.
JEFFE KENNEDY jumps into the fantasy world for Heart’s Blood, a retelling of the Brothers Grimm dark, dark fairy tale “The Goose Girl.” Prince Cavan and his princess bride, Nix—or is it Natilde?—are good people caught in dire circumstances.
In The Djinn in the Mirror, MINA KHAN looks to the djinn world for her noir antihero, with sexy Ashmael determined to follow his own path rather than the bidding of the young witch who releases him. (That never works, of course, when love gets in the way.)
And in The Consort, my own contribution to the anthology, Faulkner Hearne is the mighty Captain of the Fae Hunters, the ruthless bounty hunters charged with tracking down members of the fae who escape into the human world. Happy with his solitary life in New Orleans, Faulk quickly learns that sometimes the heart is, indeed, a lonely hunter.
In the end, we all interpreted our “noir” world and characters in different ways, but the dark spirit of film noir is there...with a side dish of paranormal.
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