A Second Chance at Life

In a single night, Kalila lost everything—her wife, their son, and even her life. Now, forced to live as the very monster she despises, she’s hunting down the vampire responsible, no matter how long it takes, or how many other vampires she has to kill along the way.

Dorenia is all too familiar with Kalila’s story. Her own vampiric nemesis has tormented her for over a century as retribution for his mistake in turning her. As an information broker in Toronto, the city of fiends, she’s managed to stay one step ahead by gathering all the intel she can and never staying in the same place long.

When Kalila inadvertently saves Dorenia’s life, the two strike up an unlikely alliance. Maybe together, they’ll have a chance of taking down the vampires who have eluded them all these years. And maybe, in each other, they can find a love worth living for.

Elizabeth Rosseau and Abigail Lester were best friends. At twenty-one, they confess their feelings for each other before leaving for winter break. It should have been a love story, only Abigail never came back.

Six years later, Elizabeth contacts her one last time, and to her surprise, Abigail answers. Their chemistry is undeniable, but Abigail is hesitant to see her in person. She was in an accident that left her a monster, a wendigo. Now she’s in a support group for other inhuman cannibals and is mostly convinced that she could avoid eating Elizabeth, but Abigail doesn’t trust herself, and even more, she’s terrified that if Elizabeth finds out the truth, she’ll never want to see her again.

They want nothing more than to be together, but they belong to different worlds, different lives, and different food groups.

As a doctor, Mick McVey knows what a mental health crisis looks like. Her own still takes her by surprise. When she inherits a house from the grandfather she’s never met, she puts herself on sabbatical and travels to the small hometown of the mother who abandoned her. It’s a temporary solution.

Mick might not be grieving her grandfather, but to her new neighbor Katy, his death is one blow too many. Mick’s arrival feels like Katy’s chance to forget her ex and her struggling cinema and reinvent herself. She’ll finally get her hot rebound and make this year her year.

When the COVID-19 lockdown traps both women in situations they’d convinced themselves were temporary, they’re forced to face what they really want from their lives, and who they want to share them with.

Miss Cassandra Belvedere and Miss Louise Sheffield were once debutantes vying for the same gentleman’s attentions. Bitter rivalry turned to passion—but at the end of the Season, Louise chose the earl instead of the girl.

Fifteen years later, Cass strides back into London Society to demand Louise’s help. After all, it’s the least she can do after destroying Cass’s life. Her family’s glove making business is in peril, and the elegant Louise, now the widowed Countess of Atwater, wields enough power to bring Cass’s gloves into fashion.

But Louise didn’t expect the attraction between them to burn stronger than ever, or that society would turn on her for associating with Cass. Bold, brash Cass has the real power—to unravel Louise’s strait-laced life and show her that their passion is worth fighting for.

Nothing could prepare them for the Season of a lifetime—or a second chance to fall in love.

Eli Thomas is going home for Christmas just like she does every year—only this time it’s different. Her grandmother has died, and she’s forced to reckon with her past, her broken relationships with her remaining family, and Aracely Hernandez, the girl who got away.

A seemingly purposeful error in Grandma’s will keeps Eli in town for longer than she planned and brings all the conversations she’s been avoiding for twenty years to a culmination. While her attraction to Aracely has never faded, Eli remains apprehensive to follow her heart and risk having it broken again.

Now she has to decide if avoiding her hometown forever is worth losing the people who used to mean the most to her.

Suri Daniels, a beautiful and troubled woman, is the descendant of a family of supernaturally gifted women, known as the Blessed, and literally holds keys to gateways between the earthly plane and seven powerful gods. A series of tragic losses and a stipulation in her grandmother’s will has her returning to the family’s home in New Orleans, unaware that she will need to step into the role of Orisha priestess and escape the attention of a powerful demon. To top it all off, she must accept the help of a Cambion—Lyla Jefferies, a dark supernatural being she has spent her life avoiding. What’s worse? She can’t help being drawn to Layla in ways she doesn’t understand.

Being the child of a top-tier demon and a human isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. For the past two hundred years, Layla Jefferies has lived a life of quietude. When an unknown force draws her out of seclusion, the pull is too strong to ignore. Layla is tasked to assist with protecting the gateways and saving Suri from becoming a vengeful demon’s avatar. Falling in love with her is definitely not part of the plan.

Layla and Suri are brought together by fate to defeat the darkness threatening to tear their world apart. What they don’t expect to discover is a love that might set them free.

Content advisory: Opening chapter includes a depiction of sexual violence and rape.

Dear Reader,

I wrote The Blessed to honor the resilience, strength, and faith of my community’s ancestors. To tell a story, in my own way, of their survival in a world that treated them as less than the lowest of creatures. A world that continues to methodically strip away our sense of selves as humans and our culture as a people. Layla is the embodiment of all People of Color, particularly Women of Color, in this country and the suffering they have endured, which was violent, painful, and has lasted for generations. I choose to honor all those women like Layla, her mother, and grandmother who survived and rather than turn to violence themselves, chose to stand tall and lift their community up.

The Blessed begins with an act of physical violence to represent how some People of Color were brought into the world. Just as we survived our violent past, so does Layla. Just as we did not allow what was wrought upon us to break us, to take away our capacity to love and cherish others the way we were not, Layla also does not let her circumstances break her. She turns that violence into the resolve to help her community. In the process, she finds a love that strengthens her even more.

You may feel discomfort when reading Layla’s beginnings as it mirrors the pain of the past. Atrocity and its generational impacts should not feel comfortable or easy. But her story is ultimately an uplifting one of family, faith, culture, and love that I believe you will enjoy. I hope you see The Blessed as honoring the struggles of my ancestors and accepting the blessing of life, faith, and love that they have bestowed upon me as a result of their survival.

Forever thankful, always grateful, abundantly blessed,

Anne Shade