BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Stacia Kane's City of Ghosts. ENEMIES DON’T NEED TO BE ALIVE TO BE DEADLY. For Chess Putnam, finding herself near-fatally poisoned by a con psychic and then stopping a murderous ghost is just another day on the job. As an agent of the Church of Real Truth, Chess must expose those looking to profit from the world’s unpleasant little poltergeist problem—humans filing false claims of hauntings—all while staving off any undead who really are looking for a kill. But Chess has been extra busy these days, coping with a new “celebrity” assignment while trying on her own time to help some desperate prostitutes. Someone’s taking out the hookers of Downside in the most gruesome way, and Chess is sure the rumors that it’s the work of a ghost are way off base. But proving herself right means walking in the path of a maniac, not to mention standing between the two men in her life just as they—along with their ruthless employers—are moving closer to a catastrophic showdown. Someone is dealing in murder, sex, and the supernatural, and once again Chess finds herself right in the crossfire.

The shadows have eyes. Returning to Luma after being promised their records would be wiped clean had been a no-brainer for Harlow and company. Especially when the only requirement for hub society reintegration was to meet with Sorceress Rhiannon at the Collective’s Tower to share intel about vampires, ferals, and Lachlan Shade’s potential master plan. Yet within minutes of crossing the veil, Rhiannon postpones their appointment due to a brewing faction war among the sorcerers. This welcome reprieve is dampened by a pack of werecats barricading Harlow, Caspian, Camila, and the sword in Caspian’s house until the foursome is given the all-clear to visit the Tower. Worried their side won’t win the war—thereby landing Harlow and Caspian back on Luma’s Most Wanted list—the pair is determined to prove they’re worth more to the Collective outside a jail cell. They believe the key to the worrying surge in portal activity and a window into Lachlan’s schemes both lie somewhere near Lake Nacimiento—the same lake connected to the sword’s dormant twin. Their impending escape only grows more complicated when Zander Welsh drops the bomb that his days-old bite from a hybrid is infected. Rumors are already swirling that hybrid vampire bites have begun turning fae—a feat previously thought impossible. In the rare instances that a fae survives the transition, their magic mutates into something unholy. Harlow and Caspian must find a cure for Welsh’s blood-poison before it kills him—or, perhaps worse, turns him into a monster unable to discern friend from foe.

Enter a world of danger, ghosts and magic in the fantastic Downside Ghosts series. With characters as compelling as 50 Shades of Grey, Downside Ghosts will not disappoint.

In this study, which is first of all a folk-lore study, we pursue principally an anthropo-psychological method of interpreting the Celtic belief in fairies, though we do not hesitate now and then to call in the aid of philology; and we make good use of the evidence offered by mythologies, religions, metaphysics, and physical sciences.