If you love urban fantasy or paranormal, you’ll want to check out the Riftsiders series by Paul A. DeStefano.
Title Riftsiders: Unlawful Possession
Author Paul A. DeStefano
Genre Urban Fantasy
Publisher The Wild Rose Press
Book Blurb
The lead couple meets at a support group for the possessed.
Enrique Marin wants a quiet life after the death of his wife. Just one problem stands in the way—he's possessed by the misanthropic English demon, Tzazin. A violent night under demonic influence accidentally leads Enrique to love, and it's anything but quiet. Shy, autistic yoga instructor Elle thought allowing herself to be possessed by the very-not-shy sex demon Key would help her find love. She finds Enrique, but she didn't count on coping with the anti-demon bigotry of society. Fate—and AA meetings for the possessed—brings them together, but hostile forces, demonic and human, fight to keep them apart. It might cost them everything to keep their love alive.
Excerpt
Enrique approached the church feeling more like a lost tourist from the Dominican Republic than someone on national watchlists. Peering up at the untended vines coating the wall, he ran a hand through his short black hair. He glanced back at the street and then followed Ebbs down the stairs to the basement side entrance.
“I don’t even think he’s a real priest,” came the familiar British tones in the back of Enrique’s mind. “He’s not wearing a collar. This is bollocks. He can’t teach you anything about controlling me you don’t already know, and I’m certainly not going to listen to some pudgy little unshaven monk or whatever he is. Don’t go in.”
Enrique stopped halfway down the cracked steps and bent, turning his back to Ebbs to tie a shoe that wasn’t untied. Ebbs waited by the door, gently humming to himself.
“Shut up, Taz,” Enrique said, barely above a whisper. “If you would behave in the first place, we wouldn’t have to be here.”
“Still bollocks,” Taz said.
Enrique stood and wiped his hands on his jeans before descending. At the base of the stairway, he stomped his work boot into the puddle that reflected a third figure only he could see pacing behind them.
Ebbs fished for keys in the pocket of his beaten brown leather jacket. He unlocked a door barely held together by decades of flaking paint. It swung open smoothly and silently. Stepping aside, he extended a hand and indicated Enrique should enter before him.
Enrique didn’t move.
“It’s a safe place,” Ebbs said, scratching the mottled gray of his unshaven neck.
Enrique had heard that before.
“Sometimes, that first step through the doorway is the hardest.”
Enrique looked to the source of the voice, a silhouette up the hallway that nearly reached the ceiling.
“I’m Dante Serrano,” the deep calming voice continued. “I moderate the group. Father Clancy here told me you would be coming. Enrique, right?”
Dante’s head nearly grazed the hanging fluorescents as he approached, extending a massive hand in greeting. Enrique nodded and stepped in, trying not to stare too obviously at Dante’s dark eyes, nearly a foot above his own.
“Tell you what,” Dante said with a bright grin. “I’ll answer your questions first, make you more comfortable. Come on, follow me. The answer to your first question, seven-foot one. Second question, no, I never played pro, got some bum knees. You know everyone sees a black man a head and shoulders over them, and they think, damn, that guy shoot some hoops. What you don’t hear is how much a damn problem it can be being so tall. Sure—never need a step stool, get to help all the shorter folk reach that top shelf in the grocery store. I’m not saying there are no perks. I’m saying there’s sometimes a hidden price. Considering where you are, I’m guessing you know that all too well.”
“You mean considering what I am?” Enrique said, following the giant man through a doorway.
Dante turned, shaking his shaved head. “No, man, no. Who you are. You got a problem? Okay. But that does not define you. A man is a lot of things—a plumber, a mechanic, a husband, a father. But you are never less a person before that. You are always you. Good man. Bad man. That’s not my job to tell you. But you. No matter what your problem. You are a who. Never a what. Just because a taxi picks up a bad passenger, that does not make that taxi’s a bad taxi. You get me?”
“Actually, you’re a pretty awful taxi,” Taz said.
“I get you,” Enrique said, shrugging and looking around. He stepped into the center of the circle of empty chairs in the small room. Beyond a table of coffee and doughnuts, a young woman with long blonde hair over a tight-fitting outfit standing with her head down and her hands clasped by her waist. She pushed dark glasses farther up the bridge of her nose but didn’t speak. Enrique looked to the ceiling. The lights were no brighter where she stood, and certainly not bright enough to warrant sunglasses.
“Well, hello, hello, what do we have here?” Taz said. “Perhaps this group isn’t complete bollocks after all.”
“That’s Elle,” Dante said softly. “Yoga teacher. She’s one of our members. She’s on the autism spectrum and sometimes needs a little time to adjust to new people in the group. She’ll warm up to you.”
“Hi, Elle,” Enrique said with a small wave. “I’m Enrique.”
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub)
Amazon: https://a.co/d/1AkWYR1
Author Biography
Paul A. DeStefano, voted Best Author on Long Island 2025, has been writing in fantasy and worlds not quite our own for decades. Moving from his usual playground of tabletop and role playing gaming, including the award winning Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood, the Riftsiders urban fantasy series is grand worldbuilding of his own design.
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Title Riftsiders: Identity Theft
Author Paul A. DeStefano
Genre Urban Fantasy
Publisher The Wild Rose Press
Book Blurb
Enrique thinks he's probably innocent.
Enrique and the demon inside him didn't kill a man in New Mexico. No. No way. Did they? His possessed autistic girlfriend, Elkie, doesn't think so either. Probably. Even with all that evidence. Guidry the Technomancer isn't so sure, but he'll do what he can to help Enrique reveal the truth before Memphis "Witchkiller" Aldrain, the Shotgun Sorcerer, catches up. It's going to take help from their friends, demonic and otherwise, to unravel the mystery of how Enrique didn't or did commit murder. On the run, they'll find hidden Riftsider towns, demonic night clubs, and unworldly ways to get around--a necessary precaution once a hellhound gets on their trail. The clock is ticking. Will they find the truth before bounty hunters - or worse - find them?
Excerpt
Enrique flinched behind the train seat, more from the tiny puff of cushion that bounced off his temple than the crack of the gunshot. The train hadn’t started moving yet, and the shot echoed back from tiled tunnel walls. He looked to the blonde and black leather curl of Elkie across the aisle, trying to wedge herself under one of the seats. Someone rushed by outside the window over her, ducking and dodging, not realizing the shooter was in the next car over from them, not out on the platform.
“Elkie. Elkie!”
“Too loud, too loud, too loud,” Elkie said, shaking her head.
Another gunshot.
“Elle,” Enrique said. “Please, calm down. We have to figure this out. Don’t be afraid.”
“Not afraid. Too loud.”
“Elle. Let me talk to Key. Where’s Key?”
Elkie looked up at him, a single metallic green eye glinting between the fingers covering her face. “You’re kidding, right? What makes you think demon Key is any more willing to get her head blown off than autistic Elle? I’m in here trying to hide behind Elle. Do you not know us?”
“We need a plan or we’re dead.”
The rubber gasket sound of the train door opening at the far end of the car was more chilling than the missed shots. Elkie buried her head under her hands. Heavy boots crunched the shattered plexiglass on the floor.
“Elkie!” Enrique hissed. “Key. Keostapholese!”
She glared up at him. “Don’t you dare use my summon name, or so help us, if we get out of here, you’re never getting laid again, and we don’t just mean with this body, because we will tear that thing right off.”
Enrique grimaced at the sound of a gun being reloaded. The normal Penn station crowd was gone from the platform. He tried to look out the window next to him without leaving cover, hoping to see some form of transit police or security on the way. The huge figure that had chased them into the train hummed softly to himself.
“Key, you have to drown him or something.”
“We can’t direct water where we can’t see and we’re not going to stand up.”
“Don’t need you to stand,” came an accented voice not unlike the sound of the shattered plexiglass. “It’s not you I’m after, pretty lady.”
“Great, we’re getting killed by Crocodile Dundee,” Elkie whispered to Enrique.
“I’m from New Zealand,” the man said.
“Key, he won’t shoot you,” Enrique said.
“Didn’t say that,” the man chuckled. There was the sound of a crunching footstep. “Said I’m not after her. Not aiming to kill her. Doesn’t mean I won’t. Before you, if I have to. Afterwards, if she gets in the way. Much rather just zip tie her hands to a seat and leave her.”
“Under what condition do you walk out of here?” Enrique called.
“With your body over my shoulder.” “Enrique didn’t do anything,” Elkie said.
Enrique huddled further down, watching Elkie try to scrunch even smaller across the aisle. Then came the crisp sound of paper being unfolded rather than gunfire and footsteps. Elkie looked to Enrique questioningly. Enrique tried to look under the seats to judge just how far the man was.
“Enrique Marin,” the man drawled. “You certainly look like this picture here. Taken escaping custody in New Mexico. Dark eyes, Dominican, broad shouldered. You a model in skivvy ads?”
“Sounds like a good picture,” Elkie said. “Wonder if we can get a copy.”
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub)
Amazon: https://a.co/d/43mLTfs
Author Biography
Paul A. DeStefano, voted Best Author on Long Island 2025, has been writing in fantasy and worlds not quite our own for decades. Moving from his usual playground of tabletop and role playing gaming, including the award winning Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood, the Riftsiders urban fantasy series is grand worldbuilding of his own design.
Social Media Links
Title Riftsiders: White Collar Crimes
Author Paul A. DeStefano
Genre Urban Fantasy
Publisher The Wild Rose Press
Book Blurb
The third book of the Riftsiders series follows Enrique's first official field assignment leading a team of demonically possessed agents investigating remains found in the New Orleans bayou that fit in a shoebox. Elkie insists they first get rid of Enrique's recent curse by visiting an old and dangerous adversary. The others hunt the city and swamps where Father Ebbs uncovers blasphemous truths with a new friend-truths that will tear the group apart and fill the bayou with blood.
Excerpt
“Ricky, do be a good man and clear your mind. That shouldn’t take long.”
“Can we do this without the insults?” Enrique asked.
“I didn’t mean you personally,” Clout said signaling Enrique to lie on the cloth and tying a woven leather necklace into place. “I meant humans.”
“Ah,” Enrique said. “Better you insult the entire population and not just me.”
“Wouldn’t want to play favorites,” Clout said, taking a small vial and pair of reading glasses from Matthias’ talon. He looked into the vial, uncorked it, sniffed, and drank. Someone tugged the door handle at the shop entrance.
“Burgers!” Elkie exclaimed excitedly.
“Where did you order from, next door?” Enrique asked.
Clout’s eyes widened. His voice cracked through his scream of “DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR!”
“Sqvelmash!” Elkie yelled, stumbling away from the door, pointing.
Once she moved back, Enrique saw what was on the sidewalk outside. It was not a figure, but a mound. Shoulder high, twice as wide at the base, was a seething deep brown mound of churning gears made of flesh. A muscular cog works of rotating viscous dials drenched in something between oil and blood. It flexed, whirred, pulsed, and spattered, growing and heaving in a sound neither a heavy sledge on anvil nor a heartbeat and simultaneously both. The lack of reactions from people passing the shop outside made it clear that they could not see the organic clockwork monstrosity as it lurched and tugged itself to cover the whole of the glass storefront in a matter of seconds. On the blood-rusted gears and flywheels, eyes opened, closed, rotated, and merged.
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub)
Amazon: https://a.co/d/b2oFEKs
Author Biography
Paul A. DeStefano, voted Best Author on Long Island 2025, has been writing in fantasy and worlds not quite our own for decades. Moving from his usual playground of tabletop and role playing gaming, including the award winning Oathsworn: Into the Deepwood, the Riftsiders urban fantasy series is grand worldbuilding of his own design.
Social Media Links