Literature / San Amaro Investigations

San Amaro Investigations is a series of adult Queer Romance/Urban Fantasy novels. Written by Kai Butler, the novels began publishing in 2021, with the first book of the series Wormwood Summer, and continued.

The book is set in San Amaro, a Californian city, in a world where paranormal entities live in tandem with humans, though not without social tensions. Main character Parker Ferro is a changeling, a fae that was raised among humans, skipping from place to place in foster homes during his childhood before vanishing into the fae realm for two years and coming back, starting work as a P.I., taking over the role from his deceased foster father.

The series is composed of these books:

1. Wormwood Summer (2021)
2. The Oak Wood Throne (2021)
3. A Gilded Iron Blade (2022)
4. A Shattered Silver Crown (2022)
5. The Heart's Blood Arrow (2022)
6. Saffron Wilds (2023)
7. Cypress Ashes (2023)

Tropes

• Animalistic Abomination: Demons from the fifth realm look like unholy mixes of bats and lizards. The Demon that Parker captures in the second book is cat-like, but clearly not a cat, having refracting eyes, being able to merge with shadow and become incredibly tall.
• Anti-Magic: Played with. Because of very specific world-building rules, iron can be used to destroy fae magic. It's actually a technique of the Winter Fae to imbue iron within their weapons to be able to cut magic of other fae.
• Always Murder: Played with and justified. In Parker's case, he isn't always investigating murders, but a murder is often involved with the big picture of his cases; meanwhile, Nick is a paranormal investigator, so of often the cases that he is involved with are murders, and by extension, the cases he brings Parker as a consultant are often murder.
  • Wormwood Summer: There are is a serial killing case, composing the core mystery.
  • The Oak Wood Throne: Parker is not involved, since his case is about a stolen artifact, but Nick warns that there has been a similar case, but that someone ended up murdered, also involving a stolen artifact and untouched wards.
  • A Gilded Iron Blade: Caled Lyons, an activist against the World Tree, is found murdered in the groove surrounding it. Unlike most cases, this one is solved pretty fast, but the mystery of why and by who he was sent there makes up a bigger part of the mystery than who killed him.
  • A Shattered Silver Crown: The murder of Hartwell Monroe, an isolated alchemist acting as a cult leader for his commune, makes one of the core mysteries of the book.
  • The Heart's Blood Arrow: The book opens with the reveal that a previous Big Bad broke out of prison. It soon after comes out he was murdered, with Parker being one of the suspects.
  • Safffron Wilds: The death of several people under strange circumstances, being found with no clear reason for their deaths. It's not exactly a murder, as they're being killed by participating in the Night Circus, which trades on people's lifespans and they over expended.
• Arc Welding:
  • In the first book, there is a slowly creeping connection between the three ongoing plots: the disappearance of Acacia, Dieter chasing down Parker, and the serial killings. The Serial Killer was an alchemist trying to perform an extremely powerful and complicated spell, for which he needed to drain the power of supernatural beings, Acacia, as the daughter of the Summer Queen, being the most powerful among his targets, would need to be used during the spell, and he had kidnapped her because of it, with Dieter acting as his right hand man and chasing down Parker to keep him from finding out.
  • In the second book, the same happens to the ongoing plots: the missing half of the underground entity, the stolen fae artifacts, Javor's challenges to fight Parker, and even Skylar's kidnapping. Skylar had been kidnapped by the Dark Court, which turns out to be the ones behind the skill to pass through wards and even the demon attacks, and were used to steal the artifacts. Javor is capable of identifying the artifacts as having been made using Winter Court techniques, which further connects them to the Dark Court, to whom said court had a debt. When combined, the artifacts were the thing that was used to destroy the World Tree, separating the underground entity among realms.
  • In the third book, the disappearance of Daniel DeLeon, the death of Caleb Lyons in the World Tree's forest, Wilson Hammond's interest in the World Tree, the missing kids, the secret society that once destroyed the World Tree, the missing Autumn Court fae Buttercup, and the Magic Users United group. The MUU is a front that the Meridian, said secret society, uses to scout, recruit, and groom talented magic users into becoming their foot soldiers, such was the fate of the kids, Daniel, and Caleb. The Society had fallen away from alchemy, slowly turning into a mere social club as their members became lazy fat cats instead of powerful alchemists, but when Wilson joined it, he reignited projects against the fae there in order to become well connected enough to advance his political career, and he was the one that invented using several fronts to recruit magic users. When the World Tree appeared, it became a matter of following through with promises he never thought he actually would have to, throwing him into a panic and making him come up with, at first, the plan of sending Caleb into the forest with a device to destroy it, as Wilson had permission to enter it, but Caleb was killed by the trees meant to guard it. Wilson then came to plan B, kidnap various coven leaders, including Laurel, and the fae Buttercup to use as power sources for a massive spell that would destroy the World Tree, with Daniel being his right-hand man.
• Artifact of Attraction: The diadem of The Oak Wood Throne, aside from giving more power to the wielder. Whoever so much as touches it becomes obsessed with having it. Even worse, it's later shown to be part of a set of fae artifacts, all of which cause this on certain targets. The story of the book kicks off by the diadem being stolen.
• Back for the Dead: In Book 5, some previous antagonists return only to be found dead. Specifically, Hammond and Greta from A Gilded Iron Blade are both killed by Archer. Even worse, they have their souls removed from existence by Darkness.
• Back from the Dead:
  • Book 4: After the first confront with Malus, he kills Nick to make a point to Parker about the inherent flaw of a fae romancing a human. Parker is able to bring him back through a series of small obligations he collected from Nick over their relationship, and demanding that he owes him to keep living.
  • Book 5: Shannon is brought back when Parker and Laurel elect her as The Mother's heir.
• Badass Family: The found family that Parker build around himself is full of people who can easily take almost anyone in a fight. He himself is a powerful fae, a strong fighter, and eventually the Windrose, which is one of the most politically influential fae there are; his boyfriend (later husband) Nick is a excessively talented and skilled alchemist fighter; his sister Lauren is a formidable coven head and the vessel for the most powerful saint in the setting, Santa Muerte; his roommate Sugar is one of the strongest succubus out there with distinctive strength to control others emotions; his foster mother Shannon is the heir to The Mother, one of the three most powerful gods in the setting; and his pets include a size-shifting cat demon and a demon dog with a head full of fire. Expanding this, you also get his former foster brother Malik, who leads a pack of werewolves; his new foster brother Bastian who is half-fae and capable of fae magic; his possible sister-in-law Avila is a trained officer and a brujx with light and Living Lie Detector powers; and the brownies that live in Silverwood's garden, which are capable of strange, but strong feats of magic.
• Battle Couple: Nick and Parker are very talented and skilled magic users and have fought together in many battles across the books.
• Big Bad:
  • In the first book, the serial killer draining magic from paranormal beings.
  • In the second book, the Dark Court.
  • In the third book, the head of the project that is trying to destroy the World Tree, Wilson Hammond.
  • In Book four, Malus, the man behind Graves and Adrienne.
  • Book five has a Big Bad Ensemble of Lover and Archer, two of the old gods and Lord Sun's scouts.
• Big Good: The Mother. She is the most benevolent among the gods and the leader of the faction among gods against Lord Sun.
• Charm Person: Lover, an old god. She constantly shapeshifts when in the presence of others until taking the form of their ideal person and with her magic, can put anyone to do whatever she wants.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • At the beginning of the first book, Thistle stops time to talk to Parker and make him follow him into the Far Realm. Parker has to use it on the battle at the end of the book to be able to get Nick to undo a magic circle.
  • The books and the orb that the courts had offered Parker in the second book to research about the World Tree.
  • Winnie, the chimeric bear that Parker fights in Book 6, returns as both an important part of the Lion Pride project, being the source of the Attack Reflector magic, and turns out to be a fake identity for the Bear Goddess Ursa who gifts Parker a way to fight the Sun God.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Derek McCallum is an old nemesis of Parker, someone who he has chased down to make him pay for the betrayal and the fact he owes him for a job. He returns in the second book, having been the one to steal the diadem Parker is after.
  • Sugar, the air headed sex worker whose debt Puck passes to Parker. She is crucial in the climax of the second book, where Parker uses her obligation to him to make her get all the fae and demons fighting essentially high and stop fighting.
  • There are mentions of Nick's father, Robert King, as early as the first book, but he only appears much later. First in a phone call on book 3 before making a physical appearance in book 4.
• Circus of Fear: Subverted with the Night Circus. It's a weird pocket dimension of a carnival where the currency is people's life time who had also been kidnapping and buying familiars and chimeras. That said, it's final goal is benevolent, which is that it was used by Darkness to hide away the gods' heirs from Sun, who intended to kill them, as well as collect sufficient energy from people to keep it moving without using the World Tree.
• Cliffhanger:
  • Wormwood Summer ends with the entity below the park calling upon Parker to fulfill his promise to him.
  • The Oak Wood Throne ends with Malcom suddenly appearing in Parker's library.
  • A Gilded Iron Blade: Skylar barges into Parker's house to warn him that she has seen his father returning in his future. In fact, she sees his father in the future of everyone.
  • A Shattered Silver Crown: Robert King comes to Parker's office and reveals he knows his identity as Windrose.
  • The Heart's Blood Arrow: Santa Muerte appears to inform The Mother that Darkness was involved with the disappeared souls.
  • Saffron Wilds: Nick is revealed to have Darkness inside of him.
• Connected All Along: Lilacina turns out to be the daughter of the Queen of the Night Court, who went into hiding and bid her time to fight against the other courts.
• Continuity Nod: The books have pretty heavy continuity. Characters and events, regardless of how minor they are, are capable of returning later, and sometimes things are introduced in one book with a clear purpose of becoming more relevant in the following book, like Derek McCallum being introduced in the first book to become relevant of the investigation of the second, or the sword Tremble and the Fire Spirits appearing in book 2 to become big sub-plots in book 3 and so on. The narration has a tendency to hint at what those plot details were whenever they are brought up to refresh the reader's memory though.
  • When Laurel goes missing in book 3, Parker calls in favor from Skylar, Malik, and Derek, three relatively minor character from previous books.
• Cult: Book 4 introduces a cult of people living under an isolated alchemist that claims to be capable of using fae magic, and that their leader, Monroe, is at least 200 years old, living long due to fae magic taught to her by a fae queen.
• Dating What Daddy Hates:
  • Robert King does not like Parker dating his son. He assumes that Parker is just a fling and a Gold Digger, even offering in front of Nick and much to his rage and embarrassment, to give Parker a blank check to break up the relationship so Nick can take up a job as head of a new government agency and start a career in politics. He becomes friendly the second he realizes that Parker is a politically powerful fae, wishing to somehow get Parker to become another source of political power for the King family.
  • While Shannon loved Nick for being a good influence on Parker, Malus hates all humans and is disgusted at the idea that Parker is dating one. He even briefly kills Nick to make that point.
  • Book 5 introduces Estelle King, Nick's mother, who seems just straight up cold towards Parker. She then turns out to be more dangerous than her husband. Coming from a line that got their freedom from slavery from a fae via a contract that forced them to give up one of their children every 10 years, she fears that Parker is there to do it to Nick despite the contract being fulfilled. She attacks Parker and even threatens to hurt Nick to ensure Parker couldn't take him. However, upon seeing Parker be willing to sacrifice their relationship to free Nick from Lover's spell (which makes him obsessed with Parker), she relents that their relationship is genuine, but while she makes up with Parker, her relationship with Nick is left strained for attacking his boyfriend.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • Fae magic deals with contracts and debts a lot. This is a special case in which all the power needs to work is some sense of obligation or even gratitude. Parker illustrates this by making Nick punch himself in the face after gifting him a can of soda, because even accepting a fae's gift creates obligation that they can use.
  • Parker starts the story in one of these to the Summer Queen Lilacina. She allowed him to leave the Fae Realm, which made him owe her his life, something he didn't fully understand at the time would essentially bind him to her will forever. He manages to get free of this when he becomes the new Windrose.
  • Implied to be the case in the first book, while being attacked by werewolves, Parker is forced to call upon a mysterious entity living underneath the park. He only knows it is ancient and powerful enough to cause an earthquake, and it ominously says that he will come to ask for the favor back.
• Death World: The Dark Realm. Downplayed in that despite being inhabited by dangerous wild monsters and it being constantly too dark for any human to be able to see there, it is apparently livable enough still to have a kingdom in it with various villages.
• Don't Fear the Reaper: Santa Muerte, the saint of death, is a fairly threatening giant skeleton woman, but in the grand conflict of things, she is at worst neutral, and often a belligerent ally.
• The Dragon:
  • Dieter to Mark Woolworth in the first book.
  • In the third book, Daniel to Wilson.
  • In the fourth book, Graves is one to Malus. Meanwhile, Adrienne plays a more distant Co Dragon.
  • Lilacina turns into this to Lord Sun in book 6.
• Exact Words: Lilacina's deal with Malus. Their deal was that she'd make sure Parker (then Sylvan) was raised by someone who could show him the true nature of humanity. Malus assumed that it meant she could kidnap Parker and give him to Malus himself, but that is not what she promised, she instead gave Parker away to the system in the human world, which ended with him at the care of Marco and Shannon, which instead gave him an appreciation of humans.
• The Fair Folk: The fae in this setting range much closer to this. They're tricky and manipulative, with powers often related to promises and debts and are much more powerful than normal paranormals, who fear them as much as humans. That said, they're usually portrayed as being ethereally beautiful instead of monstrous.
• Floral Theme Naming: The fae monarchs are all named after flowers: Celandine, Lilacina, Hawthorne, and Balsam. This also seems to pertain to previous monarchs, like the previous Spring King, Aletris. It is also generally common among the fae, like Thistle, Acacia, and Buttercup.
• Flower Motif: Marigolds for Santa Muerte. Fittingly, the Mexican marigold is used for Day of the Dead celebrations and is known as the "Flower of the Dead". When Laurel begins using her magic, it briefly casts orange marigold petals around her.
• Foil: Daniel to Dieter. Both are their books' respective The Dragon, but are significantly different. Daniel is a young and powerful brujx boy, groomed and brainwashed by the Big Bad Wilson into believing he is only worth anything by following his orders, and failing to do so would cause much damage to the world which would rest on his shoulders, including the death of his parents if the fae break through. Dieter, meanwhile, is a strong, but small time thug, a much simpler character, and his loyalty to Woolworth is also much simpler, as he is being blackmailed into following through. It's also worth noting that Daniel returns in the following books, while Dieter is a rare case in the series of a named character that totally vanishes afterwards.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Parker mentions that his neighbor's, Malcom, house looks much bigger on the inside than it should. Malcom also says that if Parker needed help with his contract, he could bring it to him. The house is indeed bigger because, as the Windrose, he lives in Silverwood, a magical sentient house that allows him to connect with the apartment complex where Parker lives. As a fae, it also means he has a natural affinity with contracts.
  • Once Parker is able to understand what the orb that the Winter Court is trying to tell him, he learns that, soon before the end of the World Tree, the Winter Court and the Dark Court had struck a deal as allies, with the promise to marry one noble of the Dark Court to a Winter Fae to re-solidify their alliance. The end of the second book reveals that there was more to the story, and said Winter Fae, Hollin, was kidnapped by the Old Gods, with the reason for the Dark Court being obsessed with getting the artifact was for Talon to find a way to find him again.
• Found Family: As an orphan, Parker did not have a family until he came under the care of Shannon and Marco, becoming siblings with Laurel. Although he lost this family when Marco died and Shannon went in a coma during the time he was lost in the Fae Realm, the book series sees him building a new found family, reconnecting with Laurel, starting a serious relationship with Nick, and adding Sugar as another sister and his pet demon Runt. Book 5 has a comment mentioning that Nick probably needed such a family as much as Parker.
• Friend on the Force: Nick for Parker, though he quickly becomes a boyfriend in the force. That said, Nick will not reveal anything he genuinely can't to Parker.
• Fusion Dance: A forbidden form of magic among the fae involved fusing two spirits, it was what caused the end of the Night Court. Parker does a more benevolent form of this magic by fusing his shadow spirit and tremble to send a darkness-powered lightning that finally destroys the Sun God.
• Guardian Entity: When using their magic, the Saints of the Brujxs appear behind the casters, offering their blessing, and allowing them to cast magic. Usually, each Brujx has one saint bless them, but Daniel is particularly powerful thanks to having 3 Saints with him.
• Genius Loci: Silverwood, the house of the Windrose, is a sentient house that can prepare food and do house chores by itself, and does so in order to lure Parker into it. Subverted, when it turns out that it was Malcom's spirit living in the woods, and it is no longer sentient in Book 3 after his spirit leaves the wood.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: The current Summer Queen is a power hungry and manipulative fae that, had not been for the Windrose's interference, is believed to be willing and capable to re-ignite wars between the court in a bid for more power. Even deposed, the is still a threat, as she allies herself with Lord Sun to destroy all other courts and regain her position in the Summer Court against all.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Lord Sun, the old god that kickstarted their war and has spent his time traveling the thousand realms, destroying any realm that wouldn't bow down to him. This has caused the conflict of most of the series, Talon tracking the Meridian artifact to save his betrothed taken by Sun, Wilson trying to destroy the World Tree to keep it away, Malus trying to prepare the fae to fight and enslave humans, Lover and Archer attacking San Amaro, Darkness creating the Night Circus to hide heirs, etc. Starting on book 6, he finally takes center stage as the main threat.
• Happiness in Slavery: Played with. Graves was happy serving under a fae, despite being bound to his will, because it gave her a very long life, making her immune to aging, but breaking their contract also means immediate death when all the years come back to her, making her seek another master to serve the moment her previous master breaks sets her free.
• Happy Ending: Due to a Heroic Sacrifice, Parker and Nick destroy Sun and Darkness, freeing past gods and ending the biggest existential threat towards the thousand realms. In the process, Estelle and Laurel manage to save them, connecting their lifespan and making it so that Nick will live as long as Parker will and ending their Mayfly–December Romance woes. The ending shows San Amaro being rebuilt, the thousand realms slowly reconnecting (with humans and shifters both having representatives in the Windrose's court with Robert King and Malik), and a happily together Parker and Nick going off to their honeymoon.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • The Dark Court. Despite being introduced as possible enemies, Parker is able to reach a peaceful understanding with them, promising to help their quest if they accept to be under the judgement of the Windrose.
  • Lover and Archer in Book 5. Once Parker and Laurel bring back Shannon as the new Mother, the two drop their loyalty to Sun and join her side of the conflict.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Shannon, in the third book. Realizing her time is already running out, and that Parker is going to sacrifice his life to destroy a spell that would kill Laurel, she decides to sacrifice herself to protect both of her children, taking Parker's Tremble and destroying the spell and herself.
  • In the final book, Parker and Nick, now the heirs of the Sun God and Darkness, can't bear the weight of what being that makes them, even more because Parker is just as prone to Black-and-White Insanity as Sun and was just about to go on the same rampage. They decide to end themselves and bring the gods together with them. Thankfully, Estelle, Laurel, and Santa Muerte working together manage to avoid their sacrifice, while still managing to end the two gods.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Summer Queen intended to use the death of the previous Windrose to force Parker, someone who has a debt to her, in the role, which would make him something of a Puppet King for her. This loses her Parker entirely, as the Spring Queen, Celandine, makes their debt null through a new agreement that forces him to be neutral, though she takes some comfort in the fact that now that he has to be neutral, he can't be partial against her either.
• Internal Reveal: Parker is revealed as a fae to the police department in Saffron Wilds when he and Nick transport together to the front of it while Parker is in his fae form.
• A Lighter Shade of Gray:
  • None of the fae monarchs are particularly good or trustworthy people, but Queen Celandine truly stands as the best among them for Parker. Unlike the standoffish Balsam, the mischevous Hawthorne, and the genuinely evil and power-hungry Lilacina, Celandine is someone Parker is still wary of, but also acknowledges as the most cooperative and willing to maintain peace over her own personal agenda. This is established as she is the one to kneecap Lilacina's plan for making Parker into a Puppet King for her as the Windrose.
  • Prince Talon from the Dark Court compared to the fae monarchs. Unlike them, he isn't sharing land with them or is interested in their power struggles, meaning that despite his standoffish personality, he is prone to being helpful for the sake of maintaining friendly relationships with the other courts and the Windrose, especially since his only actual goal, retrieving his betrothed, is something that Parker is willing to help him with.
• Love Goddess: Lover, an old god from Book 5. She is feared as possibly the most powerful of the gods, and her powers include making anyone do anything for her. Sugar is disgusted at her powers because it goes beyond love into worship and desperation.
• I Love the Dead: One of the serial killer victims of Wormwood Summer is an incubus sex worker. The body was found weeks after the murder, this leads to Nick come up with the theory that his pimp may have kept his body around to sell for necrophiles, which makes Kai deeply upset.
• The "I Love You" Stigma: In the second book, Nick and Parker have fallen in love with each other, but Parker grows terrified of actually saying "I love you" as, due to a history of abandonment issues, Nick would be the first man he ever said he loved.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Parker feels like he is this to the position of Windrose, though his genuine care for the peace between the realms and the courts cause him to be viewed as a proper, if inexperienced inheritor by others. Puck is a much more screaming example, despite being trained by Malcom to take the position, he had already started doing shady dealings and promising things to people outside their courts for when he had the position to pay them off in exchange for money and power.
• Locked Room Mystery: In book 2, both Parker and Nick see themselves investigating a case of these separately. Parker investigates the theft of an item a rich man kept in his bedroom, while Nick investigates the murder of Reagan Campbell, a man killed with no signs someone entered his room to do so; in both cases, the protection wards did not appear to be messed with. When a friend of Parker's turns out to have suffered a break-in that also did not harm her wards, he realizes that someone might have realized how to invade a protected place without breaking them and spread the knowledge to hide their own activities with it.
• Loophole Abuse: Book 2 starts with Parker, as the Windrose, having to solve a dispute when a woman who contracted with a fae to give her first child to the fae in exchange for fame. After getting a massive social media following and a TV show, the woman got her tubes tied, and the fae wants to have her dog now since the woman called it her "fur baby".
• Long-Lost Relative: Mark Woolworth was a bastard son of Nick's uncle, who was snubbed for his lack of magic. Mark's psychotic need of making his father acknowledge him is what leads him to kill people for their magic.
• Main Character Final Boss: The Sun God's final action is to force Parker into becoming his heir, turning him into just the same Black-and-White Insanity tyrant bent on trying to eradicate all darkness. Nick has to stop him after he is willing to go in a rampage against all worlds because of Bastian's death. After calming him down, they decide to end each other so they take the Sun God and Darkness with them, but their Heroic Sacrifice is stopped just short of killing them, taking only the gods and Santa Muerte rewards them by saving Bastian.
• Malicious Slander: There is a rumor that King Balsam was the one that destroyed the World Tree, which causes him to be feared and mistrusted among the other courts. He didn't, but he kept other believing it anyway, since his court was in a tough spot at the time and letting others thing he has sufficient power to destroy the World Tree would provide at least some protection against other courts, but he regrets it since he now has a hard time being approachable to other courts.
• Motive Misidentification: Parker assumes that Dieter, who had been following him through the entire first book, was after him because he had pictures of him having an affair with a werewolf from another pack. While that may have been a reason, the main reason was that Dieter suspected that Parker had evidence of him meeting with the serial killer.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Nick, while under the influence of the diadem is willing to cast a spell that would have killed Parker to protect the diadem. The shock that he almost cast a spell to kill his boyfriend is sufficient to break the spell of the diadem long enough for Parker to take it away from him.
• My Greatest Failure: Lover carried her betrayal of The Mother around her neck for years. The moment Mother returns, she drops to her knees in tears and begs for forgiveness, swearing that she will never betray her again and switching sides against Sun.
• Non-Action Guy: Downplayed with the Big Bad of book 3. He is capable of putting on a fight, but he is not a skilled alchemist, and in fact might be notably unskilled according to Nick, and in sheer power is outmatched by both Parker and Nick. He ends up relying on hired muscle and The Dragon, who is an overpowered magic user capable of giving Parker a run for his money, to actually fight for him.
• Our Demons Are Different: Demons in this setting are extra-dimensional Animalistic Abominations from a place called "the darkest realm" and seem to be mostly animals intended to harm things around them. That said, it's alter revealed there are humanoid demons who are sentient and pretty much normal, possibly even less dangerous than the Fae because they have less of an interest in messing with humans and lack other courts to fight against.
• Physical God: The Old Gods have physical forms and appear human (with quite a few caveats, like almost constant shapeshifting like Lover and Trickster, or being totally golden like Archer).
• The Power of Love: When Estelle demands Parker lets Nick go from all obligations, they're still left with a single connection, which is their love for each other. Trying to cut it with a magic knife causes it to destroy the knife and explode, but maintain their connection.
• One-Steve Limit: Discussed. The Old Gods all go by titles of what they are or control rather than any name, which Parker finds makes things very confusing since there is one god called "The Mother" and another called "mother of all gods". He asks Trickster to start giving them names to make it easier to follow his stories, but he refuses.
• Queer Romance: Part of the story of the books is the romance between Parker and Nicholas.
• Rapid Aging: Puck, in the second book, uses his own lifetime to make time stand still and have a chance to negotiate and then attack Parker. Before his eyes, Puck starts aging until he becomes a husk and dies during their confrontation.
• Religion is Magic: Brujxs are practicioners of a kind of magic that relies on getting attached and then summoning the help of a saint through their rosaries.
• The Reveal:
  • In Wormwood Summer:
    • The killer's identity is Mark Woolworth, the college professor alchemist that Parker asked about the case.
    • Timothy Powell, the Humans Are Humans activist that derailed classes in college, is a fae from the Autumn Court.
  • The Heart's Blood Arrow:
    • Keith Baldwin is one of Archer's puppets taken by Lover. She created someone perfect to Nick with the intention to seduce him away from Parker and leave him vulnerable.
• Sequel Hook:
  • Book 1 sets up the entity underneath San Amaro as a major plot point for the next book.
  • Book 2 sets up Talon's missing betrothed, the spirit inside the sword Tremble, Parker's damaged vessel, the fire spirit he attracted, and the secret alchemist society behind the device made out of stolen artifacts and meant to destroy the World Tree as future plotlines. It is also the very first mention of the Old Gods.
  • Book 4 has the act that Parker is now protecting the Mother's Crown, more mentions of the Old Gods, the metal building within the World Tree grove meant to welcome extra-dimensional refugees, as well as a brief mention by Celandine that there is a marriage-like ceremony that Parker can perform with Nick to make Nick immune to obligations.
• Serial Killer: The first book involves the serial killings of paranormal beings having their magic fully drained from their body.
• Shapeshifter Default Form: Subverted with Lover. She has lost the memory of her original form after her affair the The Mother, and appearing as person who constantly shapeshifts into other people or a new person entirely is indicated to be a way she is trying to find or remember her default form.
• Shock and Awe: Parker's sword, Tremble, has the spirit of a lightining inside of it, and when using it, Parker can cast lightning and even use it as an extremelly powerful taser.
• Spirit Advisor: Starting in book 3, the previous Windroses appear to Parker to help him and teach him the spell to pass the fire spirit inside him into a ring.
• The Starscream: From the very beginning it's clear that Thistle has plans to overthrow Lilacina to take the Summer Court for himself. This finally happens in Saffron Wilds, where he rises up a bloody revolution against her and takes the throne to himself.
• Summon Magic: Older alchemists had theorized the existence of other realms beside the Far Realm inhabited by the fae, and because of that, they started researches to try to summon and connect with whatever was in those places. Although it would need a warehouse degree of magic to be able to use it, they did come up with a theory of how to perform magic that summons demons. The alchemist behind the killings is trying to use it, stealing magic from the paranormal beings to power himself up.
• Take That!: In Book 5, Parker and Nick interview a 12 year old kid they rescued from Meridian. His testimony is greatly wanted for being the only one of them that wants to talk about Meridian and the old gods, but is cut short when it is clear his parents abused him which means CPS needs to be involved in further investigations. One of the BPT officers demands Parker continues the investigation and threaten the kid with returning him to his parents to get a confession, both Parker and his boss blow up at the officer who is then fired from BPT and returned to his previous department, which turns out to be the Border Patrol, which has a spotty history of dealing with immigrant children.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Owen and Hollin.
• Uptight Loves Wild: By-the-Book Cop Nicholas King is in love with the protagonist Parker Ferro. Nicholas is all about due process, he has rigid routines and is unwilling to bend his morals, while Parker plays much faster and looser.
• Wild Card: Trickster is an old god that opposes Sun, which is the Greater-Scope Villain from Book 5 (and implied to be such for most books). That being said, his actual agenda is a mystery, and seems to briefly consider giving Mother's Crown to Lover, who was a Big Bad, as well as hide the fact that Parker had the right to elect The Mother's heir.
• World Tree: In ancient times, a massive tree used to connect all the different realms of existence. In the backstory, it was destroyed with unknown means by an unknown party 200 years prior, cleaving apart the human realm and the fae realm, which made only the fae court with the most power (which changes according to seasons) to be able to open gates between them. By book 2, the investigation on it takes center stage, culminating in Parker growing a new World Tree, and a surrounding grove to protect, in an abandoned area of San Amaro. The tensions caused are central in Book 3, as the government and certain parties are wary of letting a magic, unknown tree from a race of dangerous magical tricksters stay in town and possible threaten it, doubly so since they believe fae and unknown creatures are guarding the forest and even if they aren't the trees alone are capable of killing people.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Buttercup, an autumn fae kidnapped, assumes the form of a tiny, child-like being that, according to Parker, looks like a Disney Princess. Parker realizes that she is using that form and making herself look more helpless to try to guilt her captor into saving her. Parker manages to release her by himself and she takes on a more dangerous form and attacks the man she tried to trick before.

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