So you’re looking for some of the all-time Best Adult Paranormal Romance Books for Adults by some of the genre’s greatest authors? Pow! I’ve scoured a handful of Goodreads listopia lists for the top books voted on by voracious readers like yourself.
Amazingly, my own paranormal romance books are not on this list. The hell, you say? I know. It’s a travesty. Sigh. One day, though.
Is there an Adult Romance book you think should be in the list? Put it in the comments below.
25) Lover Eternal (Black Dagger Brotherhood) by J.R. Ward
In the shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there’s a deadly turf war raging between vampires and their slayers. There exists a secret band of brothers like no other-six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Possessed by a deadly beast, Rhage is the most dangerous of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.
Goodreads List: List: Best ADULT Urban Fantasy, Fantasy and Paranormal Romance
24) One Foot in the Grave (Night Huntress, #2) by Jeaniene Frost
Half-vampire Cat Crawfield is now Special Agent Cat Crawfield, working for the government to rid the world of the rogue undead. She’s still using everything Bones, her sexy and dangerous ex, taught her, but when Cat is targeted for assassination, the only man who can help her is the vampire she left behind.
Goodreads List: List: Best ADULT Urban Fantasy, Fantasy and Paranormal Romance
23) Shadowfever (Fever Series) Karen Marie Moning
“Evil is a completely different creature, Mac. Evil is bad that believes it’s good.” — MacKayla Lane was just a child when she and her sister, Alina, were given up for adoption and banished from Ireland forever. — Twenty years later, Alina is dead and Mac has returned to the country that expelled them to hunt her sister’s murderer.
Goodreads List: List: Best ADULT Urban Fantasy, Fantasy and Paranormal Romance
22) Dragon Bound (Elder Races, #1) by Thea Harrison
Half-human and half-Wyr, Pia Giovanni spent her life keeping a low profile among the Wyrkind and avoiding the continuing conflict between them and their Dark Fae enemies. But after being blackmailed into stealing a coin from the hoard of a dragon, Pia finds herself targeted by one of the most powerful—and passionate—of the Elder Races.
Goodreads List: List: Best ADULT Urban Fantasy, Fantasy and Paranormal Romance
21) Succubus Blues (Georgina Kincaid) by Richelle Mead
When it comes to jobs in hell, being a succubus seems pretty glamorous. A girl can be anything she wants, the wardrobe is killer, and mortal men will do anything just for a touch. Granted, they often pay with their souls, but why get technical?
Goodreads List: Best Paranormal Romance Series
20) Beyond the Highland Mist (Highlander) by Karen Marie Moning
He would sell his warrior soul to possess her…
An alluring laird…
He was known throughout the kingdom as Hawk, legendary predator of the battlefield and the boudoir. No woman could refuse his touch, but no woman ever stirred his heart—until a vengeful fairy tumbled Adrienne de Simone out of modern-day Seattle and into medieval Scotland.
Goodreads List: Best Paranormal Romance Series
19) Fantasy Lover (Hunter Legends Series) by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Being trapped in a bedroom with a woman is a grand thing. Being trapped in hundreds of bedrooms over two thousand years isn’t. And being cursed into a book as a love-slave for eternity can ruin even a Spartan warrior’s day.
As a love-slave, I know everything about women. How to touch them, how to savor them, and most of all, how to pleasure them. But when I was summoned to fulfill Grace Alexander’s sexual fantasies, I found the first woman in history who saw me as a man with a tormented past. She alone bothered to take me out of the bedroom and onto the world. She taught me to love again.
Goodreads List: Best Paranormal & Fantasy Romances
18) Pleasure Unbound (Demonica) by Larissa Ione
In a place where ecstasy can cost you your life . . .
She’s a demon-slayer who hungers for sensual pleasure-but fears it will always be denied her. Until Tayla Mancuso lands in a hospital run by demons in disguise, and the head doctor, Eidolon, makes her body burn with unslakable desire.
Goodreads List: Best Paranormal Romance Series
17) Slave to Sensation (Psy-Changeling) by Nalini Singh
Nalini Singh dives into a world torn apart by a powerful race with phenomenal powers of the mind-and none of the heart.
In a world that denies emotions, where the ruling Psy punish any sign of desire, Sascha Duncan must conceal the feelings that brand her as flawed. To reveal them would be to sentence herself to the horror of “rehabilitation” – the complete psychic erasure of everything she ever was…
Goodreads List: Best Paranormal Romance Series
16) Once Burned (Night Prince, #1) by Jeaniene Frost
She’s a mortal with dark powers…
After a tragic accident scarred her body and destroyed her dreams, Leila never imagined that the worst was still to come: terrifying powers that let her channel electricity and learn a person’s darkest secrets through a single touch. Leila is doomed to a life of solitude…until creatures of the night kidnap her, forcing her to reach out with a telepathic distress call to the world’s most infamous vampire…
Goodreads List: List: Best ADULT Urban Fantasy, Fantasy and Paranormal Romance
15) First Grave on the Right (Charley Davidson Series) by Darynda Jones
This whole grim reaper thing should have come with a manual.
Or a diagram of some kind.
A flow chart would have been nice.
Charley Davidson is a part-time private investigator and full-time grim reaper. Meaning, she sees dead people. Really. And it’s her job to convince them to “go into the light.” But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (like murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice.
Goodreads List: List: Best ADULT Urban Fantasy, Fantasy and Paranormal Romance
14) Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter) By Laurell K. Hammilton
Anita Blake is small, dark, and dangerous. Her turf is the city of St. Louis. Her job: re-animating the dead and killing the undead who take things too far. But when the city’s most powerful vampire asks her to solve a series of vicious slayings, Anita must confront her greatest fear—her undeniable attraction to master vampire Jean-Claude, one of the creatures she is sworn to destroy…
Goodreads List: Best Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Books
13) Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse) by Charlaine Harris
Sookie Stackhouse is just a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. Until the vampire of her dreams walks into her life-and one of her coworkers checks out….
Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn’t such a bright idea.
Goodreads List: Best Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Books
12) Kiss of Midnight (Midnight Breed) by Lara Adrian
He watches her from across the crowded dance club, a sensual black-haired stranger who stirs Gabrielle Maxwell’s deepest fantasies. But nothing about this night—or this man—is what it seems. For when Gabrielle witnesses a murder outside the club, reality shifts into something dark and deadly. In that shattering instant she is thrust into a realm she never knew existed—a realm where vampires stalk the shadows and a blood war is set to ignite.
Goodreads List: Best Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Books
11) Cry Wolf (Alpha & Omega) by Patricia Briggs
Anna never knew werewolves existed, until the night she survived a violent attack… and became one herself. After three years at the bottom of the pack, she’d learned to keep her head down and never, ever trust dominant males. Then Charles Cornick, the enforcer—and son—of the leader of the North American werewolves, came into her life.
Goodreads List: List: Best ADULT Urban Fantasy, Fantasy and Paranormal Romance
10) Angels' Blood (Guild Hunter) by Nalini Singh
Nalini Singh introduces readers to a world of beauty and bloodlust, where angels hold sway over vampires.
Vampire hunter Elena Deveraux is hired by the dangerously beautiful Archangel Raphael. But this time, it’s not a wayward vamp she has to track. It’s an archangel gone bad.
Goodreads List: List: Best ADULT Urban Fantasy, Fantasy and Paranormal Romance
9) Magic Bites (Kate Daniels Series) by Ilona Andrews
Atlanta would be a nice place to live, if it weren’t for the magic…
When the magic is up, rogue mages cast their spells and monsters appear, while guns refuse to fire and cars fail to start. But then technology returns, and the magic recedes as unpredictably as it arose, leaving all kinds of paranormal problems in its wake.
Goodreads List: List: Best ADULT Urban Fantasy, Fantasy and Paranormal Romance
8) The Darkest Touch (Lords of the Underworld) by Gena Showalter
Fierce immortal warrior. Host to the demon of Disease. Torin’s every touch causes sickness and death—and a worldwide plague. Carnal pleasure is utterly forbidden, and though he has always overcome temptation with an iron will, his control is about to shatter.
Goodreads List: 2014 Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy (July – December)
7) Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows) by Kim Harrison
All the creatures of the night gather in “the Hollows” of Cincinnati, to hide, to prowl, to party… and to feed.
Vampires rule the darkness in a predator-eat-predator world rife with dangers beyond imagining – and it’s Rachel Morgan’s job to keep that world civilized.
Goodreads List: List: Best ADULT Urban Fantasy, Fantasy and Paranormal Romance
6) Lover Awakened (Black Dagger Brotherhood) by J.R. Ward
In the shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there’s a deadly war raging between vampires and their slayers. And there exists a secret band of brothers like no other – six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Of these, Zsadist is the most terrifying member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.
Goodreads List: Bad Boy or Tortured Hero
5) Moon Called (Mercy Thompson) by Patricia Briggs
Mercedes Thompson, aka Mercy, is a talented Volkswagen mechanic living in the Tri-Cities area of Washington. She also happens to be a walker, a magical being with the power to shift into a coyote at will. Mercy’s next-door neighbor is a werewolf. Her former boss is a gremlin. And she’s fixing a bus for a vampire. This is the world of Mercy Thompson, one that looks a lot like ours but is populated by those things that go bump in the night. And Mercy’s connection to those things is about to get her into some serious hot water…
Goodreads List: Best Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Books
4) A Hunger Like No Other (Immortals After Dark #2) by Kresley Cole
After enduring years of torture from the vampire horde, Lachlain MacRieve, leader of the Lykae Clan, is enraged to find the predestined mate he’s waited millennia for is a vampire. Or partly one. Emmaline Troy is a small, ethereal half Valkyrie/half vampire, who somehow begins to soothe the fury burning within him.
Goodreads List: Best Paranormal & Fantasy Romances
3) Darkfever (Fever Series) by Karen Mari Moning
When MacKayla’s sister was murdered, she left a single clue to her death, a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone. Journeying to Ireland in search of answers, Mac is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to master a power she had no idea she possessed – a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae.
As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho…while at the same time, the ruthless V’lane – an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women – closes in on her. As the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac’s true mission becomes clear: to find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book – because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control both worlds in their hands.
Goodreads List: Best ADULT Urban Fantasy, Fantasy and Paranormal Romance
2) Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood) by J.R. Ward
In the shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there’s a deadly turf war going on between vampires and their slayers. There exists a secret band of brothers like no other-six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Yet none of them relishes killing more than Wrath, the leader of The Black Dagger Brotherhood.
The only purebred vampire left on earth, Wrath has a score to settle with the slayers who murdered his parents centuries ago. But, when one of his most trusted fighters is killed-leaving his half-breed daughter unaware of his existence or her fate-Wrath must usher her into the world of the undead-a world of sensuality beyond her wildest dreams.
Goodreads List: Best Paranormal Romance Series
1) Halfway to the grave (Night Huntress) by Jeaniene Frost
Flirting with the Grave…
Half-vampire Catherine Crawfield is going after the undead with a vengeance, hoping that one of these deadbeats is her father – the one responsible for ruining her mother’s life. Then she’s captured by Bones, a vampire bounty hunter, and is forced into an unholy partnership.
In exchange for finding her father, Cat agrees to train with the sexy night stalker until her battle reflexes are as sharp as his fangs. She’s amazed she doesn’t end up as his dinner – are there actually good vampires? Pretty soon Bones will have her convinced that being half-dead doesn’t have to be all bad. But before she can enjoy her newfound status as kick-ass demon hunter, Cat and Bones are pursued by a group of killers. Now Cat will have to choose a side . . . and Bones is turning out to be as tempting as any man with a heartbeat.
Goodreads List: Best ADULT Urban Fantasy, Fantasy and Paranormal Romance
Ready For Something New?
All this month, I’m giving away a FREE copy of my most popular paranormal romance book THE DEMON’S POSSESSION.
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Don’t want the freebie just yet? Check out my other paranormal romance books here!
