It's dragons vs firefighters vs the Phoenix in the scorching fantasy sequel to Smoke Eaters.

With ex-firefighter Cole Brannigan in command of the Smoke Eaters, the dragon menace is under control. Thanks to non-lethal Canadian tech, the beasts are just tranquilized and locked up. But for Tamerica Williams, a job filled with action and danger has become routine. She's so bored she nearly gets her whole team killed, and Brannigan has to step in. When a new threat emerges, the legendary bird of fire - the Phoenix - spreading fire like a plague and whipping dragons into a frenzy, it's a perfect task for Williams, but killing the Phoenix just brings it back stronger. Is that too much excitement, even for Williams?

The day she killed her boss... 

Everything changed. 

She never laid a hand on him to take his life. She didn’t have to. 

As her boss lies on the floor with a dozen witnesses staring and paramedics working in a futile effort to save him, a mysterious stranger approaches Angie with a bizarre offer. 

It’s a job with the ExtraTerrestrial Protection Agency, a secret organization. Can Angie trust a group whose very existence is ultra classified? 

She has to decide in a hurry because her newly released power starts drawing attention from life-draining, telepathic, Mindworms and alien scientists obsessed with abducting humans. Most terrifying of all, she’s stalked by one of the most fearsome predators in the galaxy. 

If you loved Men in Black or Ilona Andrews’ Innkeeper Chronicles series, buckle up for a wild ride with Angie Faust in Cursing. Get it now!

Vain Lily Blackwood and her shy brother Silas wonder if their family will ever settle in one place long enough to lead a normal life. When a mysterious stranger arrives claiming to be their uncle, they discover their parents have been hiding a secret that turns their world upside down. 

The two are kidnapped to Nightfall Gardens, the family’s ancestral home, a place shrouded in ancient mystery, where they meet their dying grandmother and learn of an age-old curse placed on Blackwood females. 

Lily must take over as protector of the house and three haunted gardens that hold mythical beasts, fairy-tale nightmares and far worse. If she doesn’t, the evil trapped there will be unleashed and bring on a new dark age. 

While she deals with malevolent ghosts inside the house, Silas is put to work in the gardens, where one wrong step means death. 

Along the way, they search to unlock the secrets of the house and to stop the creatures in the gardens before time runs out and the world is destroyed.

Goodreads/Amazon

Why Did I Pick This Book?

Um, that cover of course! That cover says dark, gothic fiction. I didn't even realize that it was a MG book. I came for the cover, but I stayed for the story. Curses, fairy-tale nightmares, mythical beasts, ghosts? Yes, please! 

What About the Characters? 

I loved Silas' bravery. Lily was a bit stuck on herself but she grew on me. The "monsters" were creepy and splendid. The house was it's own deadly being — constantly morphing to the surprise of everyone. The staff was fantastic. I loved the housemaid. She was gross and funny all at once. 

Should you read it?

Did you like The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney or Coraline by Neil Gaiman? Then you should definitely read it!

Roman Toguri finds himself burying the body of a nun in Boone, North Carolina. As the skies darken and it begins to 
storm, he is forced to shove the corpse into his trunk and take it home for the night, unaware of the torment that playing God will bestow upon him.

What if a single act of rebellion had the power to change your fate?

Rowan and Abel Hayes’ birth ended a centuries-old family curse, but being a curse breaker has its drawbacks. Now they live a life full of rules.


When Rowan breaks a rule, she sets a powerful chain of events into motion that she never could’ve imagined. Abel is kidnapped, and it’s up to Rowan to save her twin. Can she rely on the aid of an old friend who once betrayed her? Or will new enemies prove too strong for her to handle?


(New Adult, contains language and sexual content. 18+)

A distant daughter. 

A peculiar device.

A family lineage full of secrets.

When werecat Pawlina Katczynski finally resurfaces, her location previously unknown to anyone close to her, the reunion is short of welcomed. Instead, she finds herself thrust tooth and nail—tooth and claw—into a feud between opposing werecat clans as her family and their enemies reignite a battle that has raged for years.

Always Gray in Winter invites the reader to join the feud and see if blood is truly thicker than water...

An American reporter rides along with a British park ranger through a park filled with multidimensional unicorns. A princess and a poisoned zombie queen must find the queen’s murderer before the queen decomposes...or eats someone. The cutthroat world of competitive unicorn riding gets even more intense after a relationship might end the career of a rider. A man’s life is ruined after he is unjustly accused of defiling a noblewoman, but he is led to the lady by a magnificent beast. A brash bookseller must navigate demons, black market couriers, pretty girls, and gumshoes while searching out a most unusual artifact.

Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good is a horror anthology of dark fiction and darker appetites, edited by Octavia Cade. Containing 22 stories of “bad” women, and “good” women who just haven’t been caught yet, it features 22 fearless writers who identify as female, non-binary, or a marginalized sex or gender identity. It’s the third in the Women Up To No Good series, which can be read in any order.

It includes original stories by Kathleen Alcalá, Betsy Aoki, Joyce Chng, Katharine Duckett, Anahita Eftekhari, Amelia Gorman, Jasmyne J. Harris, A. R. Henle, Erin Horáková, Kathryn McMahon, H. Pueyo, D. A. Xiaolin Spires, Rachael Sterling, Penny Stirling, Sabrina Vourvoulias, and Rem Wigmore, and reprints of stories from Apex, Electric Velocipede, Fantasy, Lightspeed, and Nightmare Magazines by Chikodili Emelumadu, Crystal Lynn Hilbert, Catherynne M. Valente, Damien Angelica Walters, Alyssa Wong, and Caroline M. Yoachim.

Contributors are based in or hailing from Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Nigeria, Singapore, the UK, and all over the United States. Between them, they have won the Andre Norton, Eugie Foster Memorial, Hugo, Lambda, Locus, Mythopoeic, Nebula, Prix Imaginales, Rhysling, Romantic Times’ Critics Choice, This Is Horror, James Tiptree Jr., and World Fantasy Awards, and been shortlisted for the Bram Stoker, John W. Campbell, and Shirley Jackson Awards!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Kathleen Alcalá, “The Doll’s Eye”
Betsy Aoki, “And When We Die They Will Consume Us”
Joyce Chng, “Dear Son”
Katharine Duckett, “Gimme Sugar”
Anahita Eftekhari, “The Fool’s Feast”
Chikodili Emelumadu, “Candy Girl”
Amelia Gorman, “She Makes the Deep Boil”
Jasmyne J. Harris, “What the Bees Know About Discarded Girlish Organs”
A. R. Henle, “Strong Meat”
Crystal Lynn Hilbert, “Soul of Soup Bones”
Erin Horáková, “A Year Without the Taste of Meat”
Kathryn McMahon, “The Honey Witch”
H. Pueyo, “I Eat”
D. A. Xiaolin Spires, “Bristling Skim”
Rachael Sterling, “Alice Underground”
Penny Stirling, “Red, From the Heartwood”
Catherynne M. Valente, “The Lily and the Horn”
Sabrina Vourvoulias, “A Fish Tale”
Damien Angelica Walters, “A Lie You Give, And Thus I Take”
Rem Wigmore, “Who Watches”
Alyssa Wong, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers”
Caroline M. Yoachim, “The Carnival Was Eaten, All Except the Clown”

Charley is a cleaner by day and a professional gambler by night. She might be haunted by her tragic past but she's never thought of herself as anything or anyone special. Until, that is, things start to go terribly wrong all across the city of Manchester. Between plagues of rats, firestorms and the gleaming blue eyes of a sexy Scottish werewolf, she might just have landed herself in the middle of a magical apocalypse. She might also be the only person who has the ability to bring order to an utterly chaotic new world. 

This is the first book in The City Of Magic series.