Desirée M. Niccoli

They sent her into the desert to be sacrificed. To die upon the sweeping hot sands, torn limb from limb by ghoulish tooth and claw. Devoured. Appease the monsters, and they’ll leave the town alone. Isn’t that how it always went? One had come to devour her. But not like they said in the stories. It wasn’t blood it spilt. That’s not what it wanted. Oh, how the townspeople would clutch their pearls, if they knew the truth.

In the shadows of the forest, he waits…A bloody and bewitching monster romance from Desirée M. Niccoli.  A winter hag in training, Astrid spends her days in the Black Forest sharpening her spell craft and flinging axes at tourists, and her nights leaving offerings to the ancient eldritch monster that guards the woods. She’s one sex ritual away from leaving the last trace of her unwanted humanity behind and stepping into her full power.It’s the perfect life. Until a group of unruly humans brings that same deadly monster to her doorstep. Now, her only hope for survival is a plate of poisoned cookies.Gudariks has roamed the Black Forest since it sprouted its first trees, consuming any who violate his beloved land. Lured to the witch’s gate, he is amused at her attempt to poison him with sweets…but spending time with her awakens millennia of repressed desire. Astrid doesn’t shy away from the gentle caress of his claws or his most ravenous attentions.As witch and monster find long-buried heat in the wintery landscape they call home, signs of a dark, lost magic begin to appear in the forest. When a rising supernatural threat has them questioning not only their ability to protect the forest, but Gudariks’s own immortality, their only solution may be to share their strength and create a union beyond mortal comprehension.  

A mermaid meat cute. As a rescue swimmer for the U.S. Coast Guard, Reid Kruetz has a healthy respect for the ocean and its dangers, but conducting search and rescue operations in heavy seas is just another Tuesday. That is, until two high-profile cases bring him to Haven Cove, Maine, a small coastal town known for its vicious mermaids. While on a case, the crew he’s meant to rescue is yanked into the deep, never to resurface again, and he’s brought face-to-face with an amber-eyed mermaid, her lips red with blood. But there’s more to her than stunning, deadly beauty, and she leaves him alive with a message he can’t ignore: her kind are being hunted to extinction. Nireed and her merfolk kin are fighting for survival. While recovering from the brain virus that ripped apart their community, a new threat dwindles their numbers. A nefarious group of fishermen are targeting their kind, using their favorite delicacy to lure them in. Dead or alive, she will not be captured. Not ever again. And yet, if she’s to protect her own people without destroying the tenuous peace between merfolk and humankind, she will have to learn to work with the infuriatingly handsome human who tried to save her enemies. But it soon becomes clear that there’s another threat to her life at sea, and it isn’t any net, but the surface-dweller seeking to ensnare her heart.

A woman foretells the death of the man she’s destined to love and must defy fate to save him. For centuries, Éireann has traveled alone across Ireland with nothing but visions from Death and a compulsion to warn people of their impending doom. That is, until Death sends her to the English countryside, where she meets Elin, a fellow countryman returning home after fighting in the Napoleonic wars. Both Elin and Éireann are weary of traveling the long road alone and need only reach out to find comfort in each other’s company. But when Éireann receives a startling vision of them kissing beneath a yew tree, followed by a dark omen foretelling Elin’s demise, a heartbreaking truth is unveiled: he might not live long enough to make the journey home. Or for them to fall in love. Death is playing cruel games with their lives and hearts. But there’s a silver lining to seeing his death before it unfolds. If Éireann can stop it before it happens, Elin just might have a chance at love and a life that finally belongs to him. And nothing will stop Éireann from securing their future. Not even Death itself. Follow Me to the Yew Tree is an adult historical romance novella with supernatural and folkloric elements and chronic illness representation that the author shares.