Out for Blood

Born into a life of secrets and service, Chrysabelle's body bears the telltale marks of a comarre - a special race of humans bred to feed vampire nobility and control their hungers. When her patron is murdered, she becomes the prime suspect, which sends her running into the darkness of the mortal world . . . and into the arms of Malkolm, an outcast vampire cursed to kill every being from whom he drinks.Chrysabelle's secrets, though, are about to put her life - and those around her - in even greater jeopardy. She possesses a powerful ring, the key to unlocking an ancient prophecy destined to merge the mortal and supernatural worlds. A chaos unlike anything anyone has ever seen threatens to reign unless she and Malkolm can stop the noble vampire behind the merciless plot.

Charles Cornick is his pack's enforcer and lives a harsh life, doing jobs other wolves can't - or won't. And his most recent task was rescuing Anna Latham from a life of brutality. This leaves him shot and wounded, but he's happy to pay the price. Charles is strongly drawn to Anna, and her growing 'Omega' powers will see his people through dangerous times. Anna desperately needs her new mountainous home to be safer than the life she's left behind. But when a rogue werewolf starts murdering hikers, Charles and Anna are sent into the winter forests to investigate. Charles is still weak and will need Anna's strength as they discover a web of witchcraft that could drag down the whole pack. Including its leader Bran, Charles's father, head of a vast network of wolves. And if Bran weakens, dark madness could run like a fever through half a continent.

Susannah Leyton has grown up behind the counter of her father's apothecary shop, surrounded by the resinous scents of lavender, rosemary, liquorice and turpentine. More learned than any apprentice, she concocts soothing medicines and ointments with great skill. Content with her life, Susannah is shocked when her widowed father announces his intentions to marry again, and later becomes caught in a battle of wills with her new step-mother. When she receives a proposal of marriage from handsome and charming merchant Henry Savage, she believes her prayers have been answered and resolves to be a good wife to him. But Henry is a complex and troubled man, haunted by his memories of growing up in Barbados. As the plague sweeps through the city, tragedy strikes, and the secrets of Henry's past begin to unfold . . .

Jill Kismet, Dealer in Dark Things. Spiritual Exterminator. Demon Slayer - it's not the type of work you can put on a business card. But every city has people like me. Usually the police have us on payroll as consultants, because what ordinary cop can face down a Were or an ordinary shapechanger, or an Assyrian demon? Not to mention the silvers or the Black Mist, the adepts of Sorrow House or of the Middle Way? What ordinary cop stands a chance against a Trader, even? People disappear all the time, it's an epidemic; some of the disappearances are murder, some are fugitives, some are kidnapped by other human beings. Some of them are even found again. But a good proportion of them are taken by the things that go bump in the night. And then it becomes a hunter's job to bump back. Hard.