This Rec League request comes from Reader Karoline and it’s full of my catnip. I’m sure many members of the Bitchery feel the same way. Here’s Karoline’s email:
I am looking for what I would basically call “detective paranormal” romances. I started reading this series by Diana Rowland that was all about demons, and the heroine was a police detective and she solved crimes, but with a paranormal element. Her love interest was another detective. It was all of my catnip forever. That series took kind of a weird turn but I would like more that are like that, basically like an episode of CSI, but with sexy times.
Amanda: Most of the recommendations I thought of are more along the lines of urban fantasy, but here’s what I’ve got.
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton ( A | BN | K | AB ). This is the first book in the Anita Blake series and the first few books start off great and have a good balance of sexiness and suspense. However, the later books get a little weird and the sexy-times are front and center. You have been warned.
I just read Burn For Me by Ilona Andrews, which is currently on sale! The heroine is a P.I. and there’s a scarred, magic-wielding billionaire. There are some romantic elements and dear god, the sexual tension is off the charts. But like I said earlier, more urban fantasy than straight paranormal romance.
Lastly, I think the Alien Huntress series by Gena Showalter might qualify. The heroine works with the NYPD, hunting aliens. And of course, the hero is an alien. Like most Showalter books, it’s over-the-top bonkers with an Alpha hero. The first book is Awaken Me Darkly. ( A | BN | K | AB )
Do you have any recommendations for sexy, paranormal, police procedural romances?
Also Devon Monk’s Allie Beckstrom series about a Portland, OR, “hound” who can track magic spells. Love that series.
Seconding The Dresden Files, I’ve been following that series since the second book. I liked The Hollows series but was disappointed in the final book somewhat.
Paige Tyler has two series with shifter/human partners in a special law enforcement, I believe the first series is called x-ops and the second is SWAT. I’ve read a few from x-ops and enjoyed them.
If you like MM, I recently read a book called Hell & High Water by Charlie Cochet that was pretty good, though it’s left in a HFN and the couple’s story continues into the next book
Shelly Laurenston’s Pride series has an overall mystery/catch the bad dude arc to it, with many characters either actively in law enforcement or former military. These are a bit more lighthearted.
Burn for Me has a less than steller cover, but it’s a great fast paced story with some great characters. The next one comes out 5/30, and I’m excited to see what happens next.
Kim Harrison’s Hollows series. Follows a witch that leaves the equivalent of the supernatural police force to go private with a pixie and a vampire. Really interesting, creative, and complex world building.
A 90s old school Linda Howard but one of my faves Dream Man features a psychic heroine and a detective who doesn’t believe her at first. The hero was a huge alphahole but this was one of my first romances and I have a soft spot for it.
I adore the Harper Hall Investigations series by Isabel Jordan. It’s sweet, and sexy, and absolutely hilarious. Each book gets better than the previous one, too. They’re all nice, easy reads. Fans of the Charley Davidson series will love Harper Hall. Highly recommend!
A lot of my favorites are already listed here! But I’ll throw in the following, if they haven’t already been mentioned:
J.C. Daniels’s Colbana Files.
Hannah Jayne’s Underworld Detection Agency. I never finished the series, but it may be a YMMV thing.
Jess Haines’s H&W Investigations and E.J.Stevens’s Ivy Granger, Psychic Detective (both series are in my TBR pile so I can’t vouch for them).
There are so many UF series that kinda sorta fit in this category but may be too much in the vein of bounty hunter/vampire slayer/etc. to really work for the asker.
Cynthia Eden’s paranormals almost always have a suspense element. Her first few from Kensington starting with HOTTER AFTER MIDNIGHT are basically just what you ask for: paranormal police procedurals.
Erica Spindler has a newish paranormal procedural SERIES (The Light keepers) set in New Orleans, the first one is THE FINAL SEVEN. It was a little too woo woo for me but she’s a solid writer.
This category is also catnip to me, however, as I’m a mystery reader, I’ve also come across a lot of books in this category I disliked.
My favorite in this category is Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series. I ADORE this series. (I did NOT like her Rogue Mage at all, but am enjoying her Soulwood series. So if you don’t like one, you might like another.)
I also love Mercy Thompson and the Alpha and Omega series, although those are a little less detecting.
I also LOVE Lisa Shearin’s SPI files. It’s got one of my favorite heroines.
“Being able to clear a line of beer cans from an old washer would never save anyone’s life, and I’d never actually heard of a deer taking a hunter hostage and using him as a shield while being hoisted into a helicopter. So I could hit a target. Big deal. That didn’t teach me when to shoot, when to hold my fire; or if I did shoot, the why and how of that decision, a split-second choice that could mean life or death for another SPI agent, me, or a friend who was in the right place but at the worst time.”
I adore this series.
Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series is another Must Buy and Must Immediately Read for me, but it’s far less romance, if that’s a priority.
This might be my favorite quote from that whole series:
” “You can’t die of jazz,” said Dr. Walid. “Can you?”
I thought of Fats Navarro, Billie Holiday, and Charlie parker who, when he died, was mistaken by a coroner for a man twice his real age.
“You know,” I said, “I think you’ll find you can.””
PN ELrod’s Vampire files series is another favorite. It’s set in the roaring 1930s, and although there isn’t a lot of boinking, the main character (a vampire who is also a detective) has a girlfriend who sings and acts.
Someone else mentioned Tania Huff’s Vicki Nelson series, which came out before vampires became The Big Thing.
I don’t think anyone mentioned Carrie Vaughn. Kitty the werewolf is a DJ on a supernatural talk show, and she keeps getting herself involved in other people’s problems. She also wrote one of my favorite short stories, involving a variety of vampire you don’t read about in the US.
Neither a traditional romance nor a traditional mystery, I’d still recommend giving Daniel JosÉ Older a try. His Bone Street Rumba series is fabulous, and he has a YA series that is just as good. I recommend him to absolutely everyone, and am waiting impatiently for the small people in my life to grow old enough to read Shadowshaper.
I’m ALSO a huge fan of short stories, and have found several favorite authors through short story anthologies:
Down These Strange Streets edited by Gardner Dozois
Murder by Magic edited by Rosemary Edghill
Weird Detectives: Recent Investigations edited by Paula Guran
Those Who Fight Monsters: Tales of Occult Detectives edited by Justin Gustanis
Powers of Detection and Unusual Suspects edited by Dana Stabenow
Anne Brooke is a British writer that more people ought to know about. Prolific and eclectic, writing a variety of genres.
One of the first things I read by her is The Paranormal DetectiveAgency
I love tons of the books already mentioned above! Only one I can think to add that hasn’t been mentioned are the Greywalker books by Kat Richardson – urban fantasy with some light romance, the main character works as a PI.
Not romance at all (at least from what I recall), but Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey should fit the bill. It’s a bit gritty, but I really enjoyed the first book, but couldn’t get my hands on the second book through my library so I didn’t continue. My brother has continued to read them and likes the series.
Welp, my summer reading list is going to be robust! Just want to include a plug for the audiobook versions of the Rivers of London books–excellent narrator.
Marjorie Liu’s Dirk and Steele series is about a paranormal detective agency
Seconding the Dirk and Steele series and J.D. Robb’s series – not to be missed.
A couple more series to add to the list:
Ghost Seer series by Robin Owens – set in Colorado about a medium and a detective.
N.E. Conneely’s Witches Path series – where the heroine is a consulting witch for local police departments
Maria Schneider’s Moon Shadow series – about a witch and a shaman/undercover cop in Santa Fe
Pit Perfect (Barkside of the Moon) by Renee George: PNR with mystery series with a rescued pit bull.
Faith Hunter’s Soulwood series is an amazing series about Nell, a character in one of the Yellowrock books, joining a team of investigators with different abilities that work for a federal agency that gets called in for crimes with paranormal elements.
The investigations are central with compelling suspense, intriguing development of our understanding of the characters, and the relationships between the various characters isnt static or formulaic but instead changes over time.
Nell has a slowly building potential love life, so no sexy times yet, but emotionally satisfying and suspenseful.
It’s a relatively recent series with few books yet, and I look forward immensely to the next release.
I read a lot of urban fantasy and paranormal romance and this is one of my absolute favorites.
@ Christine
OMG I ADORE Kobna Holbrook Smith’s narration of the Rivers of London series. It is absolutely perfect. (swoon)
@NFA
Is the Graywalker series still going on? I got really irritated several books in and stopped reading. (Don’t remember why, because I loved the first couple books.)
The Soulwood series by Faith Hunter. The central character is Nell Ingram, a character from one of the Jane Yellowrock books. In the first book, Nell is recruited to be a consultant to a team of investigators for a government agency that is called in for crimes with paranormal elements.
The development of the various investigators is intriguing, and their characters and lives are not static and unchanging. Nell herself, her understanding of the world, and her beliefs about how she fits in it change as she moves outside her comfort zone working with this team. Nell’s love interest is developing in a satisfyingly slow build, so no full romance yet, and, knowing Hunter’s Yellowrock series, there won’t be any insta-love.
The first book is Blood of the Earth. It’s a recent series so only two so far plus the one I eagerly put on pre-order. Writing this, I’m surprised it’s only two, because these characters are so vivid in my mind.
I read a lot of urban fantasy and paranormal romance and this is one of my favorites.
Sorry for the second post; thought I’d lost the first.
Karen Robards’s series about Dr. Charlotte Stone. Its like Criminal Minds except the lead keeps having sexy times with a ghost. The mysteries are actually super creepy I thought, but I won’t watch Criminal Minds before bed anymore!
lots of my other favorites have been mentioned already! especially McGuirre, Briggs and Andrews.
I second the vote for Jordan Castillo Price’s PsyCop series. It’s M/M romance between a psychic and a non-psychic, both of whom work in a police unit that does paranormal crime fighting. It’s both fun and angsty, and the romance is hot.
I also enjoyed the first few books in Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series, although the later volumes have not held my interest. The main character is a biracial London cop who finds out he’s also a sorcerer. Not much romance, but the narrator is smart and funny.
To these excellent recommendations I add Melissa F. Olson’s Boundary Magic series, though it’s really urban fantasy.
Also, Rhys Ford’s Kai Dracen series, which has elves and dragons!
Craig Schaefer’s Harmony Black series is fun, with an FBI agent heroine.
Rebecca Zanetti has some paranormal romance series that include investigation, if you don’t mind super alpha heroes.
Christine Feehan’s Sea Haven/Sisters of the Heart series that spins off of her Drake Sisters series. The heroes are all specially trained super undercover agents.
Shannon McKenna has paranormal romances as well, with a new series that includes an undercover team working to save the world.
And, for silly/fun and sexy, there is Eve Langlais’s Furry United Coalition, which has shifter investigators.
@ Random Michelle I would listen to that man read just about anything!
If you’re cool with novella length reads, The Sin City Collectors series might interest you. It’s a series of PNR novellas written by Amanda Carlson (odd # installments in the series) and Kristen Painter (even # stories) set in the same world. Each one is a different couple, complete with HEA.
Tag line: What’s collected in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
“Welcome to Vegas. Home of the Sin City Collectors. The job description is easy: Bring the offending supernatural in to the Boss and don’t ask any questions. “
Spellcrackers series by Suzanne McLeod — from her website
‘My name is Genny Taylor. I work for Spellcrackers.com. It’s a great job, pays the rent, lets me do the thing I’m good at – finding magic and cracking it – and the bonus is it’s run by witches, which stops the vamps from taking a bite out of me.
Psychic Eye series by Victoria Laurie
Enjoy!
There was a mention of Laura Anne Gilman upstream which I second – but if you start with the Sylvan Investigations books, you’ll miss two very good prior series set in the same “Cosa Nostradamus” universe. The first of these is/are the “Retrievers” novels featuring Wren Valere (a wizard and retriever-of-lost-objects, not always within the law), and Sergei Didier (her booking agent and owner of a classy New York art gallery). Then there are the “Paranormal Scene Investigations” novels, in which narrator Bonnie Torres is drafted into joining a PI agency specializing in “forensic magic” cases. (Bonnie and Danny, the faun protagonist of the Sylvan Investigations books, are both walk-on characters in the “Retrievers” books.)
100% Kate Daniels. She’s a merc, but it’s just such a great, great series.