Urban Shaman, C.E. Murphy. Another surprisingly satisfying novel from the Luna imprint. It has a similar feel to both the Weather warden series, and Luna's Laura Ann Gilman. Plucky girl-heroine with powers gets to save the world while making cynical observations on the modern way of life.

The Store by Bentley Little.. More pulp-shlock than anything truly horrifying, Little's thriller offers a tale of a Wall-Mart like entity gone evil. (If you can find anyone who doesn't believe that's already the case.) It's even worse than some of King's lazier endeavors, and rather easy to see what the author's squick factors are by their repetition.

Angel Cafe by Jill Morrow.

Angel Cafe is that strange sort of book that's marketed as a paranormal, but more at home on the shelf next to the Frank Peretti's of the writing world. The plot circles around a lawyer with a dead fiancee, and the brand new New Age eating establishment that offers table readings. Several characters are drawn into the personality cult of the local medium, who's channeling something otherworldly and rather demonic. Something that wants Kat, of course. Good creepy fun, if a bit overly religious for my tastes.

Vicious Circle

by Mike Carey. Carey's second Felix Castor novel ups the ante while providing greater hints to Castor's life before The Devil You Know. In another tale with multiple twists, Felix is juggling a kidnapped ghost, a possessed church, and the demon that holds one of his oldest friends hostage – all while dealing with succubus apprentice Juliet, and a city gone mad with a very Big, very Old Bad Thing. Felix and his London still bear a not-so-surprising resemblance to Constantine and the Hellblazer series, but I prefer to think of that as a good thing, given my affection for the vertigo line. It's a strong second entry to what's becoming a very solid series.

The Intruders by Michael Marshall. Marshall's latest horror-thriller isn't a direct sequel to the fantastic Straw Men trilogy, but it does bear some of the same hallmark themes. Like the earlier titles, he takes three separate threads and weaves them together with a Finney-esque “you are not who you are” premise. A former cop with an erratic wife is drawn in to a potential murder investigation that began with a strange bequest, while a 9 year old girl that's acting much too old runs away from home after an encounter with a strange man on the beach. Secret precolonial cabals, a 'ghost machine' and a pervasive paranoid streak make this a compelling supernatural secret history. It's a solid tale, and reminded me quite fondly of a Tim Powers short called “The Way Down the Hill” that can be found in the excellent collection Strange Itineraries .

The Devil You Know by Mike Carey.  

When browsing the horror section of the Chester library, I was surprised to see two paranormals penned by Mike Carey – Carey's one of my favorite comics authors, and I've picked up just about everything by him that came across the library shelves so far. A little investigation revealed that his Felix Castor series doesn't seem to have been published in the States beyond this first title. Which is a shame because it's quite a good otherwordly exorcist book; Carey's Castor is equal parts John Constantine and Phillip Marlowe in a thoroughly creepy London. The plot of the novel follows Felix as he attempts to find the source of a haunting in a local archive, while thwarted by a demon, a were, and a succubus. Fans of Carey's tight plotting on Lucifer and Hellblazer will recognize similar ingenious twists that made his run on the titles so good. I for one, am looking forward to reading the next entry in the series.

A Stroke of Midnight , Laurell K. Hamilton. If you're buying a Laurell K. Hamilton novel by this point in the game, you know not to expect too much in the way of plot. I was pleasantly surprised to find an actual mystery making up a decent portion of the book, but it's still mostly sex, talk about sex, and inter-court politics. The murder mystery is poorly resolved, and as several reviewers point out, the entire novel takes place in a single evening, which means that the plot twists from the prior novel aren't tied up either. Still, I'm far more likely to forgive Hamilton for this, as this series has been mostly about sex and politics from the beginning. It's quite an improvement on Incubus Dreams.

  Bag of Bones by Stephen King.  I've been reading a fair bit of Stephen King lately, mostly because of it's easy availability and the lack of mental effort required to follow it in comparison to other genre horror. It's a longterm project of mine to read all the books tied in with his 'Dark Tower' oeuvre, and Bag of Bones is one of the earliest tie-ins according to darktower.net, to be read alongside The Gunslinger. It's also, in my opinion, one of King's subtler and more emotionally effective horrors, at least partially because of the attention paid to classic antecedents. This is a novel that owes atmosphere and loss to DuMaurier's Rebecca – a work the protagonist writer-hero continually references, echoed by King in his misty Sara Laughs, and the 'white nana' that looks like Manderly's housekeeper. Ostensibly about a child custody battle, Bag of Bones is about mortality, loss, ghosts, and collective sin, and for all the depth of subject, King manages to pull out a story without screwing up the ending. Definitely one of the better 90's novels, and one I'd recommend for anyone in the mood for a creepy noirish saga.

Thinner, by Stephen King. One of King's books written as Richard Bachman, Thinner is a lot lighter on the pages than most of his opuses, and nearly as empty as the title suggests. A quick run-down of the dustjacket announces that its a potboiler about a fat lawyer under a gypsy curse that makes him lose weight, and when it sticks to the advertising, it's quite an entertaining potboiler. The disappointment, as with most King novels, lies in the last couple of pages, which manage to be both inconclusive and anticlimactic. Quite palatable for a time waster, provided you're not looking for depth.

The Good, the Bad, and the Undead, Kim Harrison.  This second installment in Harrison's fun little series is heavy on the vampires and reminiscent of early Anita Blake, when Hamilton valued plot above porn. Extra brownie points for a glowing description of pizza, and why humans distrust tomatoes.  The whole series is one well worth checking out, and one of my favorites in the growing paranormal field.