Urban Fantasy: 32 Notable Women Authors

Celebrating authors who write about fantasy creatures—and have them show up in your neighborhood. 

Check out a list of notable female authors whose fiction combines a realistic urban setting with far-out elements like vampires, werewolves, and faeries.

Here at Monster Complex, lots of our readers are regularly checking in for the next great urban fantasy series. Does that include you?

For us, “urban fantasy” means any stories that combine magic or the supernatural with a modern day look at the otherwise real world. Urban fantasy can mean anything from mysteries to paranormal romances. But unlike regular fantasy fiction—which is generally set in lands completely separate from ours—urban fantasy fiction sets its stakes in the ground in places that feel more regular.

It’s like looking out your own window. Now imagine that you look out there and also see werewolves or gods or dragons—but out in an otherwise normal location.

Here at Monster Complex, we regularly share lists of urban fantasy authors you ought to know—and lots of those notable authors have been women. But given that March is Women’s History Month, it seems like a good time to focus specifically on those female authors. Here are 32 women who’ve made an impact on urban fantasy fiction.

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List Urban Fantasy: 32 Notable Women Authors


Seanan McGuire

When not writing urban fantasy (as herself) and science fiction thrillers (as Mira Grant), Seanan McGuire likes to watch way too many horror movies, wander around in swamps, record albums of original music, and harass her cats.

McGuire’s fiction includes the InCryptid series, featuring an eccentric family of cryptozoologists who act as a buffer between the humans and the magical creatures living in secret around us. She also writes the urban fantasy October Daye series, the Wayward Children magical portal series, the Newsflesh political zombie trilogy (as Mira Grant), and the paranormal Ghost Roads series. Her comics work includes writing Spider-Gwen stories (from the larger Spider-Verse), the special event Fearless (starring the fiercest ladies of the Marvel Universe), and the fantasy Magic books.

In 2010, McGuire was awarded the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer by the 2010 World Science Fiction Convention. Her novella “Every Heart A Doorway” received a Nebula Award, Hugo Award, and a Locus Award. In 2013, McGuire received a record five Hugo nominations in total, two for works as Grant and the other three under her own name.

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Jessica Cage

Award-winning and USA Today bestselling author, Jessica Cage dabbles in artistic creations of all sorts but at the end of the day, it’s the pen that her hand itches to hold. Her books include the series Scorned by the Gods, Djinn Rebellion, High Arc Vampires, the Alphas werewolf series, and Siren. “My dream is to write the stories I grew up loving with characters who look like me,” she says on her website homepage. “I can remember as a little girl wondering why there were no black vampires, werewolves, and fairies in the stories I read. Well, now there are because I’ve written them! This is my passion and I’m overjoyed to be able to share it with the world.”

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Dana Fredsti

The Spawn of Lilith series by Dana Fredsti stars stuntwoman and struggling actress Lee Striga, who works with and deals with the monsters that secretly run Hollywood. Vampires, succubae, trolls, elementals, goblins—studios hire anyone and anything that can take direction, be discreet, and not eat the extras. To bring a level of credibility to the world of the series, the author calls upon her real-world experiences working in Hollywood: She has been a producer, director, and screenwriter. She is also trained in theatrical combat, as she demonstrated in the film Army of Darkness.

She is also the author of the Ashley Parker zombie adventure series.

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Kiran Manral

Based in Mumbai, Kiran Manral is an award winning Indian author, TEDx Speaker, columnist, mentor and feminist. She has written books across genres in both fiction and nonfiction. Her first novel was the sleuth story The Reluctant Detective in 2011. She turned to horror fiction for her novels The Face at the Window and More Things in Heaven and Earth, but the shift in creative direction is not as drastic as it seems:

“I’ve always been a great fan of good horror writing in fiction and film,” she told DESIblitz. “I think the inexplicable is always something that has interested me. We live in a world where we experience just one of the dimensions. There are so many more levels of consciousness lying unexplored.”

In 2013, she was awarded the Young Environmentalist’s Women Achievers Award, and in 2016, the WOW, Women of Worth awards for Creative Writing. She was among the six women authors shortlisted for the Femina Women Awards for Literature in 2017. The Indian Council of UN Relations (ICUNR) supported by the Ministry for Women and Child Development, Government of India, awarded her the International Women’s Day Award 2018 for excellence in the field of writing.

Considered a social media influencer, she was part of the core founding team of Child Sexual Abuse Awareness Month and Violence Against Women Awareness Month, two social media initiatives that ran for four years. She also initiated India Helps, a volunteer network to help disaster victims which worked on the rehabilitation of 26/11 attack victims. She is the anchor for the monthly talk series, Bombaywaali, from SheThePeople.tv and a mentor with Vital Voices Global Walk 2017.

She lives in Mumbai with her family.

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D.M. Guay

D.M. Guay writes the hilarious horror stories in the 24/7 Demon Mart horror-comedy series, which is for fans of David Wong, Terry Pratchett, Tom Holt, Christopher Moore, and A. Lee Martinez. If you love Exorcist-level demon vomit, brooding Lovecraftian hell monsters, and plenty of laughs, these novels are for you.

“I love horror. I love supernatural monsters. I love stories about normal people interacting with big, supernatural things, and I really love campy low budget B movies,” Guay told Monster Complex. “My goal is to successfully mishmash all of that into book form, and then hope like hell it will make readers laugh. If people laugh, I have succeeded.”

A horror fan who loves stand-up comedy, Guay mish-mashes her love of all that’s scary/gory/geeky/funny into stories about creeps and critters, ghouls and ghosts, and all of the unseemly things that go bump in the night.

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Kenesha Williams

Kenesha Williams is an independent author, speaker, and founder/editor-in-chief of the speculative fiction literary magazine Black Girl Magic Lit Mag. Her own work spans many genres from mystery to romance, but always with a dark twist. Her book Blood Debt: The Daywalker Chronicles is an inventive novel about a natural daywalker on a mission to find the murderer of a Master Vampire. She was also a contributor to Boneyard of Lost Dreams and Black Magic Women: Terrifying Tales by Scary Sisters.

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Charlaine Harris

Charlaine Harris’ urban fantasy novel series The Southern Vampire Mysteries—AKA the True Blood Novels and The Sookie Stackhouse series—revolves around a world inhabited by supernatural characters, including vampires, werewolves, and magical beings. The first book, Dead Until Dark (2001), won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Mystery in 2001. The books were adapted into the the HBO drama True Blood (2008–2014).

The author explained what made her approach to vampires unique: “I think of them as adventure novels. Maybe the difference in my approach is the humor, and the fact that my protagonist has no increasing supernatural powers and has trouble paying her bills. (The telepathy? It's up in the air in the books as to where that came from.)”

Charlaine HarrisGunnie Rose series follows a young gunslinging mercenary on deadly mission through the American Southwest. The Gunnie Rose series mixes the wild west, magic, and Russian influence. Gunslingers help keep the peace in a no longer united country.

Harris also writes the Midnight, Texas paranormal mystery series; the paranormal Harper Connelly mystery series; the Lily Bard mysteries; and the Aurora Teagarden mysteries.

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Lindsay Buroker 

Lindsay Buroker is a full-time independent fantasy and science fiction author who has written more than sixty novels, appeared on the USA Today bestseller list, and has been twice nominated for a Goodreads Readers’ Choice Award. Her current urban fantasy series Legacy of Magic features adventure, snarky humor, and slow-burn romance stories with badass elf assassins. She also has books in the urban fantasy Death Before Dragons series; the mystery, magic, slow-burn romance A Witch in Wolf Wood series; the epic fantasy Dragon Gate series, which pits a small band of mercenaries and archaeologists against the wizard rulers who are oppressing humanity; the Star Kingdom science fiction series, a mix between Star Wars and Big Bang Theory where the smart geeky heroes get to save the day; and lots more.

“I’m still writing the kind of stories I love,” Buroker told The Creative Penn, “even if that means genre-hopping…but I really like to follow my muse and then worry about marketing afterward.”

Buroker explained to New In Books what inspired her new Legacy of Magic series. “I wrote ten books in my Death Before Dragons urban fantasy series with a talented, tall, and beautiful half-elf heroine. Elves are always popular in fantasy! But dwarves are usually the sidekicks. When it was time to write a spinoff series, I thought, Let’s do a half-dwarf this time. She’s stout, strong, and attracts all the wrong guys (some with tusks). She’s been a fun departure from those elfy types.”

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Moni Boyce

Moni Boyce is a writer, filmmaker, poet and award-winning author of contemporary and paranormal romances. Ms. Boyce spent 15 years in the film industry, and now creates characters of her own and brings them to life on the page. Her books include the paranormal romance series Oracle Chronicles and urban fantasy romance series the Curse of the Wolf. She also won two awards from the RSJ 2020 Virtual Romance Book Con, in the categories of Debut Author, and Best Commercial Romance for Redemption of the Heart.

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Patricia Briggs

Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson Series in Order

Patricia Briggs was writing fantasy when her editor suggested she try her hand at urban fantasy—and is now the #1 New York Times best selling author of dozens of novels, short stories in several anthologies.

She writes the Mercy Thompson series (starring a shapeshifter raised by werewolves) and the Alpha and Omega series (set in Mercy Thompson’s world, but with rules of its own)—plus a series of comic books and graphic novels based on her Mercy Thompson and Alpha and Omega series.

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Roshani Chokshi

Roshani Chokshi is the author of commercial and critically acclaimed books that draw on world mythology and folklore. Her work has been nominated for the Locus and Nebula awards, and has frequently appeared on Best of The Year lists from Barnes and Noble, Forbes, Buzzfeed and more.

Her fiction includes The Last Tale of the Flower Bride, a gothic magical realism story about a marriage unraveled by dark secrets, a friendship cursed to end in tragedy, and the danger of believing in fairy tales.

She also wrote the Pandava series, an Indian-mythology infused adventure published by the Rick Riordan Presents imprint, plus the Star-Touched Queen books and The Gilded Wolves series.

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Jennifer Estep

Jennifer Estep is a New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author who prowls the streets of her imagination in search of her next fantasy idea.

Estep has written like 50 books, along with lots of novellas and stories. Her fiction includes the Gargoyle Queen series, the Galactic Bonds series, the Section 47 series, the Elemental Assassin series, the Black Blade series, Crown of Shards series, Mythos Academy, Mythos Academy spinoff, and the Bigtime superhero series.

In her spare time, Jennifer enjoys hanging out with friends and family, doing yoga, and reading fantasy and romance books. She also watches way too much TV and loves all things related to superheroes.

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N.D. Jones

N.D. Jones, Ed.D. is a USA Today bestselling author who wanted to see more novels with positive, sexy, and three-dimensional Black characters as soul mates, friends, and lovers—so set out to write them herself.

Her books include the Fairy Tale Fatale series, which are urban fantasy stories that reimagine fairy tales. She also wrote the urban fantasy duology Feline Nation, the paranormal romance Death and Destiny trilogy, the paranormal romance series Winged Warriors and the Dragon Shifter Romance series. Her novel A Queen’s Pride: An African American Shapeshifter Urban Fantasy (Feline Nation Book #1) was a U.S. Selfies Book Award 2021 Adult Fiction finalist and a Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2021 Adult Fiction finalist.

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Debra Dunbar

Author Debra Dunbar writes urban and dark fantasy, paranormal romance—and fiendishly fun fiction. After majoring in English Literature with a concentration in Medieval and Folklore studies, Dunbar sold out to the corporate world—occasionally dabbling in writing marketing copy and op/ed articles for a local city paper. By day, she designs compensation programs, after dark she stuffs her nose into obscure mythology, and feverishly writes her novels.

Her debut novel is A Demon Bound (Imp Series Book 1). She has also written the Imp World urban fantasy California Demon series, the laugh-out loud antihero Imp urban fantasy series, the paranormal witches & wizards romance series Accidental Witches, the paranormal and urban fantasy The Templar series, and the 9-book Imp World Series.

“I’ve always loved fantasy and the idea that there might be something more behind the very normal world we live in,” Dunbar said when being interviewed by Yasmine Galenorn. “With my novels, I get to bring all my wild imaginings out and share them with readers. A dragon claiming the British Museum as part of his treasure hoard? Mermaids and sirens in Lake Michigan? The most powerful angel in all of heaven falling in love with an imp from Hel? I get to make it all happen!”

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Rebecca Roanhorse

Rebecca Roanhorse is a NYTimes bestselling and Nebula, Hugo and Locus Award-winning speculative fiction writer and the recipient of the 2018 Astounding (Campbell) Award for Best New Writer.

Her fiction includes the Between Earth and Sky series (inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic), and the dark fantasy Tread of Angels (a card sharp with a need for justice defends her sister, accused of murdering a member of the ruling class of the mining town).

The Sixth World books feature monster hunters in an apocalypse. By the way, Sixth World Series #1—Trail of Lightning—won the Locus Award for Best First Novel.

She also wrote the Star Wars book Resistance Reborn and the Marvel Comics mini-series Phoenix Song: Echo.

Roanhorse also was part of the collection New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, the myth retellings collection The Mythic Dream, and the comic book collection Marvel’s Voices: Indigenous Voices (2020) #1.

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Annie Bellet

Annie Bellet is the USA Today bestselling author of The Twenty-Sided Sorceress series, which features a sorceress hiding from her crazy ex-boyfriend in a town with latent magic and supernatural creatures. (Of course, hiding out doesn’t work for long—so she has to come to terms with what she is and figure out how to defeat her ex and keep her friends safe.)

Bellet has also written the Gryphonpike Chronicles series, and Six-Gun Shifters series. An Alfie Award winner and former Hugo Award finalist, she holds a BA in English and a BA in Medieval Studies and thus can speak a smattering of useful languages such as Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Welsh.

Her interests besides writing include rock climbing, reading, horse-back riding, video games, comic books, table-top RPGs and many other nerdy pursuits. She lives in the Netherlands with her husband.

Bellet told SFF World why she loves urban fantasy: “I love that it’s our world, but not quite. There’s all the familiar stuff, but also all the stories humans have told themselves over the millennia can be real, too. So it’s a good blend of fantastic and familiar that I think allows characters and settings to resonate with readers like myself.”

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Nalo Hopkinson

House of Whispers series by Nalo Hopkinson

Jamaican-born Canadian speculative fiction writer and editor Nalo Hopkinson often infuses her fiction with Caribbean history and language, and its traditions of oral and written storytelling. Her books include the novels Brown Girl in the Ring (a young woman must solve the tragic mystery surrounding her family and bargain with the gods to save her city and herself), Midnight Robber (a man commits an unbelievable crime—and his daughter must fight to save her own life), The Salt Roads (which blends fantasy, women’s history, and slavery), and The Chaos (a blend of fantasy and Caribbean folklore that navigates between myth and chaos).

She also wrote the collections Falling in Love with Hominids and Skin Folk. She was the curator of Six Impossible Things, an audio series of Canadian fantastical fiction on CBC Radio One. She is also one of the Black authors involved with the SF Black Stars books.

Hopkinson entered Neil Gaiman’s Sandman universe with the comic book limited-series House of Whispers (DC Comic), taking readers from the bayou to the Dreaming. “What’s wonderful is that Neil and the artists who did the original Sandman series wrote the roads into to inclusivity,” Hopkinson told Gizmodo. “I want to bring in a diverse diversity of African-ness. Our skin colors are different, we speak different languages, we have different socioeconomic backgrounds. I have so far used at least three languages. I’m hybridizing our existing mode. Yoruba is a religion that has numbers of different versions of it, and I’m hybridizing those. There’s a feel of kind of breaking orthodoxy that sort of gives me pause, but I need to do it to make the story go where I want.”

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C. Gockel 

C. Gockel has been writing stories for her friends and family for years. Her fiction includes the I Bring the Fire series—starring Loki, Norse God of Mischief and Chaos. She also writes the cosmic sc-fi series Archangel Project.

In an interview, the author said that in her Norse-mythic-urban-fantasy series I Bring the Fire, the hardest character for her to write is Odin. “Loki is my hero, and Odin is the antagonist,” Gockel said, “but Odin is more moral than Loki. Odin is so much better than what was before him, but so terrible by our modern values and incapable, or unwilling, to change. He wants to be good; and fails so horribly.”

However, she says that Odin is actually not her most difficult character to write. “That distinction goes to Professor James Sinclair in the Archangel Project, my sci-fi series,” Gockel says. “He thinks he is one thing, but is something else. Since half of the series is from his point of view I had to make him convincingly ‘other’ and yet not turn audiences off. It was a tightrope walk from the get-go, but peeling back the layers has been fun, and allowed me to explore what it means to be human and alive.”

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Fonda Lee

Fonda Lee is a Canadian-American author of speculative fiction. She is best known for writing The Green Bone Saga, the first of which, Jade City, won the 2018 World Fantasy Award and was named one of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time by TIME magazine.

She is also the author of the science fiction novels Zeroboxer, the Exo books, and two novellas—the Green Bone Saga prequel The Jade Setter of Janloon and Untethered Sky.

Fonda is a winner of the World Fantasy Award, the Locus Award, and a four-time winner of the Aurora Award (Canada’s national science fiction and fantasy award), as well as a multiple finalist for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Oregon Book Award.

She has also written acclaimed short fiction and been an instructor at writing workshops including Viable Paradise and Clarion West. Fonda is a former corporate strategist and black belt martial artist who loves action movies and Eggs Benedict. Born and raised in Canada, she currently resides in the Pacific Northwest.

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Sarah J. Maas

A #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling author, Sarah J. Maas’ books have sold millions of copies and are published in 37 languages. Her fiction includes the Throne of Glass series, which reimagines Cinderella as an assassin who went to the ball to kill the prince; the A Court of Thorns and Roses series, which is a loose retelling of Beauty and the Beast; and the Crescent City series, where half-Fae and half-human Bryce Quinlan seeks revenge in a contemporary fantasy world of magic, danger, and searing romance.

There are plans to adapt A Court of Thorns and Roses as a TV series for Hulu.

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Alicia Ellis

Who will survive the war between man and machine? Alicia Ellis’ Flesh and Metal series about a cyborg woman combines action movie energy with classic story ideas and mystery solving.

Alicia Ellis decided to write books about ten minutes before graduating from law school. Now, she’s an Atlanta attorney moonlighting as an author, electronics junkie, and secret superhero. With two degrees in computer science and an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction, she loves creative problem-solving, especially as it relates to high-tech things.

Alicia writes mysteries, sometimes for young adults, sometimes in fantasy or science fiction settings, and sometimes in the real world. Her debut novel, Girl of Flesh and Metal, a young adult sci-fi mystery, was the first self-published book ever to make the American Library Association’s LITA Excellence in Children’s and Young Adult Science Fiction Notable Lists.

Alicia Ellis writes sci-fi, contemporary, and fantasy mysteries. She is the author of the sci-fi action mysteries “Girl of Flesh and Metal,” the supernatural mystery Blood Spells and the “Gray Girls” mystery. Ellis told the GIRL MEETS MONSTER site that her love for SF and Fantasy came because her father raised her on Star Trek and Star Wars.

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Connie Suttle 

Connie Suttle lives in Oklahoma with her patient, long-suffering husband and three cats. Suttle’s fiction includes her new Lotus series, kicking off with Black Skies, an urban fantasy crime book about kidnapping and the threat of murder; the wedding murder mystery urban fantasy The Dragon and Mrs. Muir; the Future Wars series; the Black Rose Sorceress series; the Blood Destiny series; the BlackWing Pirates series; the First Ordinance series; the Seattle Elementals series; the R-D Series, featuring a supernatural mystery with a woman sleuth; and more.

“I love writing about strong women,” Suttle told Authors Interviews. “The ones who start out as the underdog, and through determination and a never-give-up attitude, achieve great things.”

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Marjorie Liu

A lawyer who switched to writing full-time, Marjorie Liu is a New York Times bestselling novelist and award-winning comic book writer. Her novels include the urban fantasy series Hunter Kiss, and the paranormal romance series Dirk & Steele.

In an interview about Hunters Kiss, Liu told this to Fantasy Literature:

“I was sitting there, thinking about the book I wanted to write, which did have zombies in it — and what would be the worst, weirdest thing that could happen to a mother and her child. Losing a kid to zombies, in a game of cards, just came to me.”

Her comics writing includes the creator-owned title Monstress (with Japanese artist Sana Takeda), a series with girls and monsters set in an alternate, matriarchal Asia that follows a girl’s struggle to survive the trauma of war. The Monstress series has won more than one Hugo Awards, British Fantasy Awards, the Harvey Award, plus multiple Eisner Awards. In fact, Liu was the first woman (and woman of color) to receive the Eisner for Best Writer in its 30 year history. At Marvel Comics, Liu’s writing has included X-23, Black Widow, Han Solo, Dark Wolverine and Astonishing X-Men.

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Karen Marie Moning

Karen Marie Moning is a paranormal romance author whose novels have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. She is a winner of the prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA award for Best Paranormal Romance. Her fiction includes the Highlander series, the Fever series, and the graphic novel Fever Moon. “The only other calling I ever felt was an irrepressible desire to be Captain of my own Starship,” Moning says on her author website. “I was born in the wrong century and it wasn’t possible, so I chose to explore the universe by writing fiction instead. Books are doors to endless adventure.”

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Nnedi Okorafor

Nnedi Okorafor is an international award-winning New York Times bestselling novelist who has won LOTS of awards for her science fiction and fantasy for children, young adults and adults. Born in the United States to Nigerian immigrant parents, she is known for drawing from African cultures to create captivating stories with unforgettable characters and evocative settings.

Champions of her work include Neil Gaiman, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, George R.R. Martin, and Rick Riordan. Literary ancestors Diana Wynne Jones, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Nawal El Saadawi also loved her work. She has received the World Fantasy, Nebula, Eisner and Lodestar Awards and multiple Hugo Awards, amongst others, for her books.

Okorafor’s fiction includes:

  • the Binti series (the highly-acclaimed science fiction trilogy that began with the Hugo- and Nebula Award-winning first book);

  • the Nsibidi Scripts series (affectionately dubbed “the Nigerian Harry Potter”);

  • Who Fears Death (now optioned as a TV series for HBO with executive producer George R. R. Martin, this World Fantasy Award-winning magical realism novel follows a remarkable woman in post-apocalyptic Africa);

  • The Shadow Speaker (a CBS Parallax Award winner);

  • Noor (a science fiction novel of intense action and thoughtful rumination on biotechnology, destiny, and humanity in a near-future Nigeria);

  • The Black Pages (part of the epic event Black Stars, featuring several Black speculative fiction authors);

  • Lagoon (a British Science Fiction Association Award finalist for Best Novel);

  • Remote Control (a thrilling sci-fi tale of community and female empowerment for which the audiobook version won the AudioFile Earphones Award);

  • The Book of Phoenix (prequel to Who Fears Death that New York Times called a “triumph”);

  • and lots more.

The author also writes for comic books and movies. Her writings for Marvel Comics include Black Panther, the Shuri series starring Black Panther’s techno-genius sister, and the Wakanda Forever event.

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Kim Harrison

Complete The Hollows /Rachel Morgan Series by Kim Harrison

Kim Harrison’s urban fantasy The Hollows series is set in an alternate universe where supernatural beings (vampires, werewolves, witches, what have you) live among the human population, and the historical Space Race was replaced by a competition among the nations in genetic engineering. The series stars bounty hunter witch Rachel Morgan, who works with local law enforcement and faces threats both natural and and supernatural.

Harrison is kicking off the new series The Shadow Age with Three Kinds of Lucky. Luck is its own kind of magic, in this first book in an electrifying new contemporary fantasy series from the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Hollows novels.

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Zoraida Córdova

The acclaimed author of more than a dozen novels and short stories, Zoraida Córdova’s fiction includes the Brooklyn Brujas series (which follows three sisters—witches—who develop their powers and battle magic in their hometown and worlds beyond), a few Star Wars novels, the fantasy epic Hollow Crown series (set in a lushly drawn world inspired by Inquisition Spain), and the magical realism novel The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina. She was also the co-editor of the anthology Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with Fresh Bite.

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Kalayna Price

Kalayna Price is an author best known for her Alex Craft novels, an urban fantasy series about a witch who solves crimes by speaking to the dead. She also writes the Haven books, about a werecat named Kita who has escaped her world for a life of exile, living off the streets, and is being tracked by  werewolf hunters. Price was also one of the authors in Kicking It (Chicagoland Vampires), along with Faith Hunter, Rachel Caine, Chloe Neill, and more.

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 L.A. Banks

Author Leslie Esdaile Banks (1959-2011) wrote the Vampire Huntress Legend series under the pen name L.A. Banks. In her career, she wrote more than 40 novels in various genres, including African-American literature, romance, women’s fiction, crime suspense, dark fantasy, horror, and non-fiction.

“I like the good guys to win in the end,” she said. She won several literary awards, including the 2008 Essence Literary Awards Storyteller of the Year.

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Faith Hunter

NYT bestselling urban fantasy writer Faith Hunter writes three series: the Jane Yellowrock series, dark urban fantasy novels featuring Jane, a Cherokee Skinwalker; the Rogue Mage novels, a dark, urban fantasy / post apocalyptic series and role playing game featuring Thorn St. Croix; and the Soulwood series featuring Nell Nicholson Ingram, who wields powers as old as the earth. Her Junkyard Cats series is a “near future” sci-fi series of novellas first released as Audible Originals and later as ebooks, and possibly some day as a print onmibus.

Under her pen name Gwen Hunter, she writes action adventure, mysteries, and thrillers. As Faith and Gwen, she has 40+ books in print in 30+ countries.

Born in Louisiana and raised all over the south. Hunter fell in love with reading in fifth grade, and best loved sci-fi, fantasy, and gothic mystery. She decided to become a writer in high school, when a teacher told her she had talent. Now, she writes full-time, tries to keep house, and is a workaholic with a passion for RV travel, Japanese maples, orchids, white-water kayaking, and writing. She and her husband love to RV to whitewater rivers all over the Southeast.

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 More from Monster Complex

Chris Well

Chris Well been a writer pretty much his entire life. (Well, since his childhood.) Over the years, he has worked in newspapers, magazines, radio, and books. He now is the chief of the website Monster Complex, celebrating monster stories in lit and pop culture. He also writes horror comedy fiction that embraces Universal Monsters, 1960s sitcoms, 1980s action movies, and the X-Files.

https://chriswell.substack.com/
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