In the aftermath of her mother's murder, Paige Winterbourne broke with the elite, ultraconservative American Coven of Witches. Now her goal is to start a new coven for a new generation. But while Paige pitches her vision to uptight thirty-something witches in business suits, a more urgent matter commands her attention.

Someone is murdering the teenage offspring of the underworld's most influential cabals - a circle of families that makes the mob look like amateurs. And none is more powerful than the Cortez Cabal, a faction Paige is intimately acquainted with. Lucas Cortez, the rebel son and unwilling heir, is none other than her boyfriend. But love isn't blind, and Paige has her eyes wide open as she is drawn into a hunt for an unnatural-born killer. Pitted against shamans, demons, and goons, it's a battle chilling enough to make a wild young woman grow up in a hurry - if she gets the chance.

Due to a mix-up, Oliver August stumbles onto the hunt for China's most wanted man, Lai Changxing, an illiterate tycoon on the run from corruption charges. Sensing something emblematic in this outsized tale of rise and fall, August sets out to find the self-made billionaire, in the hope that if he can understand how Lai reinvented himself, he will also better understand the tectonic forces transforming modern China ...

"Breakneck action . . . intense sensuality and considerable humor."

November 1, 2004
Set in a supernatural but credible underworld of industrial baron sorcerers and psychologically crippled witches, the fourth novel in Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series (after Dime Store Magic
) follows young renegade witch Paige Winterbourne as she pitches a group of uptight business-suited witches to join her alternative coven, which she claims will re-empower the new generation. It's a task made nearly impossible by Paige's romantic association with sorcerer/lawyer Lucas Cortez; in Armstrong's world, witches and sorcerers are bitter enemies. Lucas aims to bring down the mafia-like cabal to which he's heir apparent, but this goal and Paige's are put on the back burner when someone starts murdering the children of rival cabal leaders. In their hunt for the killer, Paige and Lucas must rely on a number of unpromising allies: a vicious aging vampire, a TV celebrity necromancer and the ghost mom of an adolescent witch who may be the murderer's next victim. As in the author's first book, Bitten
(which introduced the world's only female werewolf, Elena, who also figures in this plot), breakneck action is tempered by deep psychological insights, intense sensuality and considerable humor. Agent, Helen Heller.

Meet the smart, sexy -- supernatural -- women of the otherworld. This is not your mother's coven...

Kelley Armstrong returns with the eagerly awaited follow-up to Dime Store Magic. Paige Winterbourne, a headstrong young woman haunted by a dark legacy, is now put to the ultimate test as she fights to save innocents from the most insidious evil of all.. . .

In the aftermath of her mother's murder, Paige broke with the elite, ultraconservative American Coven of Witches. Now her goal is to start a new Coven for a new generation. But while Paige pitches her vision to uptight thirty-something witches in business suits, a more urgent matter commands her attention.

Someone is murdering the teenage offspring of the underworld's most influential Cabals -- a circle of families that makes the mob look like amateurs. And none is more powerful than the Cortez Cabal, a faction Paige is intimately acquainted with. Lucas Cortez, the rebel son and unwilling heir, is none other than her boyfriend. But love isn't blind, and Paige has her eyes wide open as she is drawn into a hunt for an unnatural-born killer. Pitted against shamans, demons, and goons, it's a battle chilling enough to make a wild young woman grow up in a hurry. If she gets the chance.

From the Paperback edition.