BLAST, BLITZ, PROMOS, REVEALS, & TOURS . . . : SPOTLIGHT w/EXCERPT - URBAN FANTASY - PERSONAL DEMONS (Rifter, #2) by L.R. Braden

Dark, quirky, urban fantasy with a mystery plot, a dash of social commentary, and a sprinkling of slow-burn romantic potential.

Personal Demons
Rifter, #2
by L.R. Braden
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Suspense

Protecting her secret and hunting demons is a matter of survival for possessed-practitioner Mira Fuentes. She's spent years learning to work with the snarky demon housed in her body, and it hasn't always gone smoothly. Nor has her recent partnership with an agent of the Paranatural Task Force. Ty Williams—uncomfortably-attractive and overly-protective—may never fully accept that his partner has a literal inner demon.

But work-life-demon balance is the least of Mira's problems when a figure from her past drags her back to the hometown she's avoided for nearly a decade to investigate a string of potentially-magical disappearances. Someone or something is snatching teens from the local high school.

Emotionally off-balance in a city full of old ghosts and new dangers, Mira will have to confront her past to discover what is hunting the innocent.

Praise for L. R. Braden:

"My new 'auto-buy' author. I love everything this woman writes."—J.D. Brown, award-winning author of the Ema Marx Series

"A fast-paced, engrossing, unexpected, and tension-filled magical work…A great read for every female lead Urban Fantasy enthusiast."—The Queen of Swords, NetGalley reviewer on Demon Riding Shotgun

"I LOVED this book. It's got fun. It's got depth. It's definitely going to stick with me."—Lydia R, NetGalley reviewer on Demon Riding Shotgun

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Excerpt from Personal Demons

Energy surged through Mira. The old man’s blood trickled over her fingers where they gripped the knife hilt. She dared not remove the blade even now, with the demon sufficiently entangled. He’d surprised her with his power. Most demons grew stronger the longer they were in the mortal realm, kind of like the buildup to one last, grand finale before they burned out their host and were pulled back to the Rift to wait for another likely target. This one must have been within a day or two of its end, and pretty damned strong to start with.

As the dark, copper-tinged tendrils of the demon’s essence were pulled from the old man’s body and absorbed into hers, she felt the demon within her swell beyond the boundaries of their usual arrangement. Mira’s consciousness was pushed further back, to a corner of her mind where she would remain while the demon was in the driver’s seat. She imagined this was how most rifter hosts lived while possessed, a passenger in their own body. She only had to deal with it after a feeding, when the demon’s energy was too much to contain, or when they needed to call directly on the demon’s powers.

The demon continued to drain the screaming rifter. Even if the old man wasn’t aware of what was happening, he’d regain consciousness the moment the last of the Rift energy was extracted. He’d be himself for a moment, just long enough to realize what was happening. Then he’d die. They always died.

Mira looked away from the twitching, flailing, soon-to-be corpse in her hands. She still had enough physical control for that.

Ty was watching her from a crouched position on the floor. The rich brown of his irises seem almost black in his narrowed eyes. A deep frown pursed his thick lips, masked slightly by his short goatee. The sepia tones of his skin blended with the shadows of the room as the small fires caused by her fight with the rifter died down. He seemed to be studying her, examining the way the old man’s demon was pulled out of his body and into hers. His expression flickered between fear and admiration. His gaze met hers for an instant, then he turned away.

He’s freaked out to be working with a monster.

<Relax. He probably just doesn’t want to watch this guy die.>

Mira gave herself a mental hug. Her body was now being controlled entirely by the demon. He’s been a soldier, a PTF agent, and a cop. He’s seen plenty of people die.

<Doesn’t mean he enjoys it.>

But he wasn’t looking at the rifter when he got disgusted, Mira insisted. He was looking at us.

<Fine, so maybe watching us eat another demon freaks him out. So what?>

Yeah, thought Mira. So what? Why should I care what he thinks about me anyway? Everyone else is afraid of me. Why would Ty be any different? I am a monster after all.

Demon Riding Shotgun
Rifter, #1

Possessed by a demon since she was eleven years old, Mira Fuentes maintains a fragile alliance with the snarky soul who shares her body. Together they hunt down unstable Rifters-- demon-controlled humans bent on causing chaos in the mortal realm. But when a routine hunt leads to a powerful Rifter with plans for Baltimore, Mira quickly finds herself in over her head and at the top of the city's Most Wanted.

Recently retired from the PTF after losing his partner, Ty Williams now works for the Baltimore PD and keeps his distance from cases involving magic. But when a person dies of clearly magical causes and the PTF doesn't have any agents to spare, Ty is the closest thing the department has to an expert. Saddled with a new partner he doesn't want and a mountain of self-doubt, it's his job to track down a suspect who looks suspiciously like the one-night-stand he brought home from the bar last night.

Mira will have to set her trust issues aside and enlist the help of a man determined to uncover her secrets if she hopes to learn the identity of the demon's host and prevent the human race from becoming meat puppets for the denizens of the Rift.

On COURTING DARKNESS: "This book was a fantastic second installment to the Magicsmith series… Truly brilliant writing!"--Richelle Rodarte, NetGalley Reviewer

"The plot was engrossing, fascinating and action-filled."--Pam Guynn, NetGalley Reviewer on Faerie Forged

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L.R. Braden is the bestselling author of the Magicsmith and Rifter urban fantasy series, as well as several works of short fiction. Her writing has won the Eric Hoffer Book Award for Sci-fi/Fantasy, the First Horizon Award for debut authors, the Imadjinn Award for Best Urban Fantasy, and the Colorado Authors League Award for writing excellence in multiple categories. She was also honored as a finalist for the 2023 Colorado Book Award in Sci-fi/Fantasy and for Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ Writer of the Year award in 2021 and 2023.

While she loves to travel, she’s always happy to come home to Colorado, where she lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with her wonderful husband, precocious daughter, and two quirky cats. When not writing, she spends her time playing games, enjoying the great outdoors, and weaving metal into intricate chain mail jewelry that she sells in her Etsy shop, WimsiDesign.

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