Larcout (Fire Born, Blood Blessed #1) by K.A. Krantz

SPFBO Finalist

Blood-beings can be chattel or char. Fire seethes through the veins of every Morsam, demanding domination and destruction. Combat is a hobby. Slaughtering the inferior blood-beings is entertainment. Life is a repetitious cycle in the prison fashioned by the gods. But mix-race abomination Vadrigyn os Harlo suspects the key to freedom lies with safeguarding the blood-beings; until her blood-born mother uses foreign magic to turn the Morsam against Vadrigyn. Betrayed, bound, and broken, Vadrigyn struggles against the dying of her essential fire. Yet the ebbing flames unleash the dormant magic of her mixed heritage… The magic to destroy free will. Seized by the gods and dumped in the desert nation of Larcout to stop history from repeating, Vadrigyn discovers her mother’s legacy of treason and slaughter still festers. To survive the intrigues of the royal court, the roiling undercurrents of civil war, and the gods themselves, Vadrigyn must unravel the conspiracy behind her mother’s banishment. But manipulating free will unleashes a torrent of consequences. If she fails the gods, she will return to the Morsam prison, stripped of all magic and all hope. If she succeeds, she can rule a nation. Kasthu. Roborgu. Inarchma. Live. Learn. Burn.

The Burned Spy (The Immortal Spy Book 1) by K. A. Krantz

Gods. Always ready to screw you. When Bix the Gatekeeper is summoned from exile a hundred and seventy years early by the goddess of the Norse Under World, the former Dark Ops agent knows there's a catch. On the surface, the terms of the deal are simple. Someone attacked the pantheon's ambassador to the Mid Worlds and left the ambassador in a coma. In exchange for early parole, Bix must identify the perpetrator and drag their soul to Hel. It'd be a sweet contract, if not for the details. The ambassador is Bix's ex-girlfriend, the lead suspect is the key witness from Bix's trial, and the organization leading the official investigation is the same intelligence guild that disavowed Bix when a covert op went pear-shaped. Undeterred, Bix returns to her old stomping grounds where clues in the smoldering woods of Centralia, Pennsylvania, lead to the waterfront of Washington, DC, and Worlds beyond. Once valued for her skills creating passageways as small as a capillary or as large as a continent, Bix's success now depends on the relationships she was forced to abandon. As she squares off against friends who betrayed her and enemies keen to destroy her, Bix follows a trail of secrets, torture, and treason that leads to the very superpowers who banished her. With her freedom on the line and revenge within reach, this highly-trained operative will take on Fates, dragons, angels, and gods to get exactly what she wants. Hel hath no fury like a burned spy.

After the Devil by Kayla Krantz

It’s our darkest parts that know us best. Alex Alpine is unhappy with her life—a dead-end job, a marriage that’s falling apart, and a failed string of self-published books. In an effort to better her life for her and her daughter, she makes the decision to quit writing in order to get a second job. Jamie, a recovered addict and Alex’s only fan, can’t bring himself to accept her decision. Convinced he can fix her, he kidnaps her and holds her hostage in his home in the woods. As Alex’s captivity extends from weeks to months, Alex finds herself torn between her duties to the daughter she left behind and the life Jamie has made for her. To figure out where her true priorities lie, she must dive into not only her own past traumas but Jamie’s as well.