Home of the Alpha Showdown, and one-stop shop for urban fantasy, paranormal romance and fantasy news and reviews.
As you may have gathered from my early review of Karina Cooper’s All Things Wicked (which hits stores today), I’m a bit enamored with her Dark Mission series. She has the attributes I look for in all my favorite authors: precise writing, remarkable character development worth getting invested in and both creative and gritty world-building. So, of course, I had to pick her brain on just how New... 
When I saw a unicorn on the back cover of Allison Pang’s A Brush of Darkness, I though it wasn’t going to be dark enough for me. I was wrong. Not only is Allison’s series featuring fae brilliant and dark urban fantasy, I ended up adoring the miniature unicorn. I loved the book so much it made the VBC Best Books of 2011 list.
Allison brings a clever plot, unique world, fascinating... 
Katie MacAlister writes about sexy vampires… and sexy dragon shifters… and her characters have a wicked sense of humor. (You quit reading after “sexy vampires,” didn’t you?) I love her sense of humor and her ability to keep the wry wit in her paranormal novels. With her ninth Dark Ones novel Much Ado About Vampires just hitting shelves, it was time to corner the super busy... 
I fell in love with the vivid world Kevin Hearne creates in his Iron Druid series. From early in Hounded, I wanted to hang out with the characters …and was a little jealous I couldn’t read my dogs’ minds. While I can’t sit a spell with Atticus or the widow MacDonagh, Kevin was kind enough to indulge my questions. Read on to hear his thoughts on friends for Atticus, getting inside... 
We may talk about the sexy vampires here quite a bit at VBC, but sometimes you long for the vicious, the horror-style vampires. Ellen Datlow has put together a collection of short stories focused on the predatory side of vampires, as well as those being that feed off souls and leech life. The authors in Blood and Other Cravings (pre-order, releases Sept. 13) are some great names in horror, and we...
I’ve made no secret of my love for Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress novels. It has a strong woman, an alpha male and vampires — so, it’s no surprise it’s up my alley. But it’s more than that. Jeaniene is one of those authors who makes the fantastic real, makes the impossible plausible. Not only do you get great paranormal romance, urban fantasy and bit of mystery in her... 
There are times when I finish reading a book and can’t stop the questions from bubbling. That’s what happened when I finished reading Melissa Marr’s adult paranormal novel Graveminder. It was creepy, a bit romantic and had a world it was easy to fall into. You can read my spoiler-free review to hear me gush and to enter to win a copy (today’s the last day to enter), but today is a... 
Chris Farnsworth’s Nathaniel Cade series is a refreshing take on vampires and espionage. In our review of his latest The President’s Vampire we even liked it to the the supernatural equivalent to 24. And we loved it.
Chris was kind enough to take the time to answer our questions about his patriotically-inclined vampire assassin, creating lizard-human hybrids and how the most evil people usually... 
Colleen Gleason knows how to merge sexy and scary in her novels. We like that. Today the first in her Regency Draculia series, The Vampire Voss, hits shelves. The first of a rapid release of three novels set in 1800s London featuring dark vampires, lords and ladies, balls, murder and teeming with romance. Tomorrow we’ll post our review of The Vampire Voss, but today Colleen was kind enough to indulge... 
When we first started Claudia Gray’s Evernight we didn’t know what we were getting into. With the series getting stronger and more complex as it progressed, we found ourselves needing more of Bianca (not a vampire, but very close to them) and Lucas (part of a long line of vampire hunters). The books are engaging and got under our skin.
The final novel in the Evernight series hit shelves... 
