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This is Feature Shelf, a series that provides book recommendations based on theme or title suggestion. This week’s shelf was requested by Joseph, and apparently requested more than once and I missed it. Sorry about that Joseph. This is Feature Shelf #41: The Paranormal Edition.

I know that Joseph likes The Name of the Star. We’re both excited for the third book in the series, The Shadow Cabinet, which came out on February 10th. But what to do after The Shadow Cabinet? Here are five other paranormal books you might enjoy.

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake. Anna the ghost that Cas Lockwood has been sent to kill. Cas is newly armed with his father’s athame and with his mother and his cat with powers that aren’t as cool as Saga’s lying cat, but that serve Cas well, it seems. They traipse about the country killing ghosts and other already dead things that threaten to kill other people. Killing Anna, however, won’t be a walk in the park.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black. Vampires exist. Coldtowns are gated cities that keep the vampires, and anyone else who decides to venture through their gates, in.  After a party in which a lot of drinking happened, Tana wakes up to find that just about everyone is dead. The only people left alive are Tana, her ex, and some mysteriously secretive guy. It turns out that the only way to save them is by going to a Coldtown. But once Tana enters the town, she’ll never be able to leave.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. In the interest of full disclosure, I love this series so much I named my guitar after the protagonist. Karou is an artist with blue hair. She draws sketches of monsters that seem real, but that couldn’t possibly exist. Except that they do. She is a messenger for a demon who makes magic with human teeth. When black handprints start to appear on doors, put there by people with wings, things on Karou’s world change drastically. If you’re a fan of angels vs demons type stories, this is a great paranormal pick for you.

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. Blue Sargent is the only non-psychic in a household of clairvoyant women. She’s always been told that she’ll kill her true love if she ever kisses him. Richard Gansey, III is an Aglonby Raven boy. He is searching for the mythical King Glendower along ley lines in Henrietta, Virginia aided by his friends Ronan, Adam and Noah. This is an ensemble piece built around the relationships of Blue and her Raven Boys — so while Blue and Gansey sometimes feel like the main characters, each of the boys has his own story and his own demons he’s trying to fight.

Last on the shelf this week is Croak by Gina Damico. Lex is a troublemaker.  In fact, she’s so much of a troublemaker that she is being shipped off to live with her uncle, the farmer, for the summer to see if he can’t straighten her out. Except that Lex’s uncle Mort isn’t a farmer, he’s a reaper and he’s recruited her to become a reaper as well. Turns out that Lex is good at it.  So she’s doing her grim reaper thing and discovers people dying under mysterious circumstance.  She and her fellow junior grims start to investigate and Lex gets caught up in her desire to go after people who may be, quite literally, getting away with murder. The question is, will she decide  break one of the cardinal grim rules and take vengance into her own burning hands?