The Reckoning of Asphodel, by Celina Summers, is traditional high fantasy, with chivalric knights and wood-wise elves, beautiful princesses and wise female seers, good and evil sorcerers and magicians. It's written in the language typical of the genre. It is, however, much better written, with more complex characters and situations, than many similar books. This is a serious fantasy novel, not the verbal equivalent of a computer game.

In the craft of writing, the short story form is considered among the most difficult to master. It is also a form that many a young writer is forced to confront in school for stories, and creative writing classes. In short form you must established the character, the events, the environment, and come to a conclusion of some kind. You must grip people as you would in a novel, but without the space and pace a novel provides. Few are able to do this well.

In ten years you can get to know a person pretty well. Especially college buddies whom you partied with, and watched fall in and out of love. You get to know them almost better than your own kin. Unless they are aliens with a secret so deep, they do not even know it themselves. Gilded Folly is the story of three people, or beings from another place or world. A world where nanobots help keep people youthful, healthy, and in control.

I have read a tale by Kate Steele before – To Trust A Wolf – which I absolutely adored. Alas, whilst I have been eagerly awaiting the promised sequel it has not yet made its appearance. Surprisingly, for an author who is a very good writer, Ms Steele has few titles currently available, to my everlasting regret. I hope that she will continue to write for many years to come, and I beg her: please put a coming soon/works in progress page up on your website.

What two things do all men love? Fighting and that other thing that starts with a F.... Ares, the God of War, is no exception. Over time however, where women are concerned, he has become jaded. Make no mistake he still enjoys them, but his heart has grown cold. Looks like a good time to become involved in the latest conflict between the ever warring humans.

June 6, 1944 . . . D-Day . . . Belle is a member of the French Resistance, fighting against the Germans who have taken her country and her parents lives. Now it is D-Day and the Americans are arriving to aid against the Nazi forces. Belle proudly picks up her rifle and heads out to assist in the mission only to run into an Allied soldier with the face of a god.

I don't know how many people remember Maria Muldaur and her song, "Midnight at the Oasis" but I was certainly hearing that in my head as I read Deirdre O'Dare's The Taming of Jaelle'n. Of course, O'Dare's oasis is some place other than earth, a place with comalos instead of camels, a surviving long-lived gray woman of the "elder" races, and a gold skinned hero with powers of psychic magic that does everything from crawling up and down someone's back to heating bathwater.

Nearly always, it is a good thing when a successful author sets up a premise on which a series can be built. Sometimes it is an engaging set of characters who continuously get into a series of adventures (Nancy Drew), or an investigator who investigates the scene of a crime (Sherlock Holmes). In Melissa Schroeder's Sweet Shoppe series, there is a magic candy maker whose confections allow hidden fantasies to be fulfilled. Kind of a high calorie, high carbohydrate fairy godmother.

What does a five hundred year old, incredibly cultured male vampire want? A soul mate! My Fair Pixie is a paranormal romantic comedy by Samantha Winston, that deals with the world trying to make the best of a relationship between the vampires and the pixies--with all the troubles that go with it.

After yet another party with the all vampires whining about their lives, and werewolves going crazy having sex under the table, Sebastian is given a ticket to the game show, The Mating Game. Before going to the show, he stops by the local park for a quick snack: a local jogger. But his snack is a bit off, tainted with red wine and, of all things, Viagra. By the time Sebastian gets to the game show and is mistaken for one of the contestants, he's beginning to feel the effects.

With Rapture's Etesian, Charlotte Boyett-Compo returns to her dark fantasy romance Windworld series, a series full of vampires, werewolves, demons, and wild warrior men and women. Every time I think there is no way Ms. Boyett-Compo can top the last one, she proves me wrong. So sit back, get your loved ones in the house, bon-bons in lap and be prepared for anything.

After a childhood incident leaves Lady Kynthia Ancaeus an unwilling bride, she makes the decision to never let anyone have power over her again. With that decision she agreed to become a Reaper, a creature that is both a vampire and werewolf like creature. A creature destined to live alone with no mate for hundreds of years. Or is she?

Fairies, elves, warriors and wild cowboys; with these as our tour guides Cheyenne McCray has taken us on a tour of her many worlds. Now with Forbidden Magic, she will take us on another trip into a new urban fantasy world. A world where white is white, black is black and gray can turn deadly. A world where not everything is as it appears to be and you must learn to look beneath appearances.

I'm sure people marry for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the people they are going to marry turn out to be someone they shouldn't have married. For those fortunate enough to realize their mistake before they get married and call the wedding off, they receive a second chance to make the right decision. This is the situation Cynthia Harrison finds herself in.

Cynthia Harrison is about to walk down the aisle when she realizes that she doesn't want to marry her fiancé. He just doesn't light her fire. Standing at the altar, Cynthia debates on calling off the wedding. Life with Jack would be "yawn inducing and predictable." She is wishing that she were marrying the stranger from the diner when the minister asks if there is anyone present who objects. Cynthia knows there is going to be no objection when a voice speaks up saying, "I certainly do."

Rhyannon Byrd is the author of five erotic romances, two of which are a part of the Magick Men series. A Bite of Magick is the second book in the series. With this installment, Ms. Byrd not only brings us a romance between Kieran McKendrick and Bronté Hayes, but we also get to revisit Lachlan McKendrick and Evan Hayes from A Shot of Magick, who are now married.

Once again, these old warlocks are up to no good. They place a 'mating' curse on Kieran and his beast. The only way to end it is for him to find his soul mate. Since the curse reared its ugly head, Kieran compulsively searches the British Isles, unable to find a single woman who tempts him. Until, that is, Té Hayes shows up to visit her sister. It's sheer hell as Kieran tries to control his beast; not to mention finding himself in danger of falling in love with the sharp tongued shrew.

Imagine you're an angel in Heaven. One day one of your fellow angels gets an idea in his head that humans are getting too much attention and decides to challenge the powers that be. You make a decision to follow the dissenters only to find yourself kicked out along with all the others. Imagine the feeling to beg for forgiveness only to be denied. To be sentenced to spend eternity living forever with the consequences of the wrong choice made.

Rainek was a thirty year old virgin, tormented by faceless dreams of his unknown mate. Like his two siblings, there was a dragon inside him, but it was that dragon that preached patience to him and refused to let him settle for less than the perfect partner. He had traveled to see if one of six daughters of Queen Leika of the Matriarchy was his intended.

When Rainek woke chained in a dungeon, naked and bound to a wall, he seemed helpless against the legendary beautiful Princess Merena--Queen Leika's sixth daughter--a woman who came to him promising that he would never leave. It was her scent that entrapped him, made him excited for her, made his inner dragon triumphant; he'd found the scent of his mate. But when she came close, he realized the woman whose scent he found irresistible was not this one but some other.

I love a good fairy tale.

Once upon a time, there was a series of reference books titled the Book of Knowledge. Not the 2005 Book of Knowledge you find in the library or the one you might upgrade on CD every year to keep a current information library to satisfy your academic needs or your intellectual curiosity. No, this Book of Knowledge was put together early in the 20th century and bought by my grandparents for my mother and uncle. It had a few academic references which are charmingly out of date, and some historical data which has a different slant than what you read today. But what made it so different is that this edition had quaint folk trivia about what people ate in different countries, quirky articles like how to prepare lunch for a toddler...and fairy tales. Inside the black and gold leather bindings of that old book of knowledge were various ancient traditional fantasies that today's children never see--variations of knights and royalty and magic and princesses and fairy godmothers that bear no resemblance to anything we know now. I cut my teeth on these stories where good sometimes triumphed but always a moral followed. So it is with fondness that I see Kai Anderson's Question of Royalty.