Tough women and hot men populate this deliciously sensual anthology. In Laurenston's “The Wolf, the Witch, and Her Lack of Wardrobe,” Smithville's werewolf mayor, Tully Smith, and coven leader, Jamie Meacham, have to stop butting heads and acknowledge their mutual attraction to save themselves and the town. When Sadie James, a wereleopard FBI agent, tracks a shape-shifting killer into a vampire bar in Eden's “In the Dark,” she's shocked to see her supposedly dead lover, Liam Sullivan. In Quinn's “City of the Dead,” witch Dori Falcon searches New Orleans for her brother, only to be helped and distracted by former lover Det. Jake Boudreau. Each compulsively readable story is well-paced and filled with steamy, graphic sex. Laurenston's characters shine with wit and depth, and Eden and Quinn deliver nonstop action. (Sept.)

A prickly, independent witch causes problems for a shape-shifter mayor trying to keep her and his territory safe from predators in Laurenston's "The Wolf, the Witch, and Her Lack of Wardrobe"; a vampire-hating leopard-shifter FBI agent and her ex-lover-turned-vampire deal with blazing passion and a vicious killer in Cynthia Eden's "In the Dark"; and a witch on a mission to rescue her errant brother and save her race finds love and acceptance in the arms of a New Orleans cop in Sherrill Quinn's "City of the Dead." VERDICT Three sizzlers combine hot, explicit sex with chills and thrills, for readers who like their paranormals with some spice.