Line #31 Creator/LisaShearin


1	[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lisashearin216.jpg]]
2
3	Lisa Shearin is an American author of the Raine Benares series, about a sorceress and seeker of things lost and people missing, who gets mixed up with an ArtifactOfDoom. She is also the author of the SPI Files series, an urban fantasy series about Mackenna Fraser, a seer employed to locate paranormal creatures for an organization dedicated to protecting humans from the supernatural and upholding TheMasquerade.
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5	!!The Raine Benares series consists of
6	* ''Wild Cards'' (eBook novella)
7	* ''Magic Lost, Trouble Found''
8	* ''Armed & Magical''
9	* ''The Trouble With Demons''
10	* ''Bewitched and Betrayed''
11	* ''Con & Conjure''
12	* ''All Spell Breaks Loose''
13	* ''Wedding Bells, Magic Spells''
14	* ''Treasure & Treason''
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16	!!Tropes found in the Raine Benares series include
17	* BettyAndVeronica: Mychael (virtuous paladin) and Tamnais (roguish duke) to Raine. [[spoiler: Mychael wins.]]
18	* CleaningUpRomanticLooseEnds: After the LoveTriangle is finally resolved [[spoiler: in Mychael's favor]], the remaining suitor gets together with [[spoiler: his head of intelligence.]]
19	* ClingyMacGuffin: The artifact, a magic rock called the Saghred. (Unfortunate, in that not only is the rock extremely powerful and dangerous, it also contains the soul of a similarly powerful and dangerous goblin mage, who is also a huge jerk.)
20	* DecadentCourt: Politics in the goblin court are literally cutthroat. The elven court and the Council of Twelve are less violent, but equally corrupt.
21	* DiplomaticImpunity: Just about everyone with diplomatic status. Nobody ever points out that the Guardians have more than enough evidence to declare them PersonaNonGrata and throw them out of the city for this.
22	* DrinkingGame: Students and off-duty guards invented one where they drink whenever the archmage snarks during a speech. Everyone involved generally gets hammered.
23	* GargleBlaster: Raine bonds with her mother-in-law to be over a couple of bottles of very rare, expensive and powerful rum they find after they end up stuck in the archmage's wine cellar after a battle. When they get extracted, the archmage expresses astonishment that they are still ''alive'' after drinking both bottles.
24	* HeavenlyBlue: Mychael's spell
25	* TheHighwayman: [[spoiler:Mychael's mother]] used to be one.
26	* ImprobableAimingSkills: The elven embassy is forced to accept that an "accidental discharge" of a cannon that blew a hole in their north wall was an accident because of the implausibility of somebody managing to make the shot (from a moving, rocking ship, though a narrow alley, to a target a quarter mile away) on purpose.
27	* IJustWantToBeNormal: And escape this artifact!
28	* MagicMusic: Spellsingers.
29	* MakeUpIsEvil: One villainess is marked out by her excessive make-up.
30	* OldRetainer: Tam's.
31	* OurGoblinsAreDifferent: Very civilized, for one.
32	* ThePaladin: Mychael
33	* VirginPower: Needed to find the Scythe of Nen. Good luck finding a virgin on a college campus on short notice.
34	* WhiteSheep: Raine is the only respectable Benares. Most of her relatives are pirates, the one named exception is a crooked banker.
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36	!!The SPI Files series consists of
37	* ''The Grendel Affair''
38	* ''The Dragon Conspiracy''
39	* ''The Brimstone Deception''
40	* ''The Ghoul Vendetta''
41	* ''The Myth Manifestation''
42	* ''The Phoenix Illusion''
43	* ''The Solstice Countdown''
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45	!!Tropes found in the SPI Files series include
46	* AndIMustScream: While all gorgons can impose TakenForGranite by gaze or touch, ''young'' gorgons aren't good at doing it quickly. Rather, their victims turn to stone ''from the outside in'' over the course of hours, unable to move or speak, only expiring when the effect penetrates to their vital organs.
47	* CelebrityResemblance: Mac's supervisor, Alain Moreau, looks a lot like Creator/AndersonCooper.
48	* DealWithTheDevil: Complete with a notarized contract. [[spoiler:And then it turns out the demon was selling goods that weren't his to sell, and his boss wasn't happy when he found out about it.]]
49	* DonutMessWithACop: At one point Kitty bribes the NYPD to leave a crime scene for a while so SPI can examine it for evidence of the supernatural with a large bag of baked goods.
50	* DragonLady: Vivienne Sagadraco is referred to as this. Mainly because she really ''is'' a dragon.
51	* ExplosiveBreeder: Grendels only reproduce once every fifty years or so, but when they do, they lay three batches of 20-30 eggs each. This is a major reason as to why they haven't been hunted into extinction by SPI Scandinavia (Despite their best efforts).
52	* FamousAncestor: A minor character in the first book is descended from the Norse hero Sigurd. [[spoiler:Ian]] turns out to be descended from the Celtic hero Lugh. [[spoiler:Mac]]'s father is Lord of the Wild Hunt. SPI apparently has a support group for the descendants of mythological figures.
53	* FantasticDrug: Brimstone allows people to see through illusions. This causes humans who take it to freak out when they realize that the non-humans hidden under glamours all around them are non-humans hidden under glamours.
54	* FemaleGaze: Mac's description of the Mythos exhibit is definitely skewed towards the MrFanservice aspects of the artwork. That, and her equally-feminine flinching from a depiction of [[StalkerWithACrush Hades abducting Persephone]].
55	* GroinAttack: Fraser's first piece of desk bling - an anatomically correct leprechaun doll with his pants around his ankles - refers to an incident where she cornered a group of naked drunken leprechauns in a [=McDonald's=] and tasered their leader in the Happy Meal.
56	* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: Every book except the third takes place on or about a significant calendar event. The first book takes place during the week leading up to New Years, the second on Halloween. The third book takes place during the rather unremarkable and holiday-free first week of November, because it starts just after the second book ended. The fourth returns to the pattern, with the climax taking place on the summer solstice. The calendar date of the fifth novel is almost totally unknown, beyond the fact that it takes place almost exactly 100 years since the signing of a treaty (which expires after 100 years, the book is about events taking place in the hotel where a new treaty is being negotiated). The sixth takes place during a supermoon (and coincidentally Mac's birthday). The seventh book's climax takes place on Christmas Eve. Out of all those, only the first and fifth are not because of the date being of ritual significance (a monster attack on the New Year's Celebration in Times Square - watched by millions on live TV - would be impossible to cover up, the centennial anniversary of a major diplomatic event having a lot of [=VIPs=] in one place to target).
57	%%* MadLibThrillerTitle: Just look at the list above.
58	* {{Masquerade}}: Part of SPI's mission is to keep the existence of the supernatural hidden from the general public.
59	* MineralMacguffin: The second book centers around the theft of the Dragon's Eggs, seven magically powerful diamonds that were once owned by the Romanovs.
60	* NoodleIncident: Mention is occasionally made of cases that happen between books. One notable one was a Siren infestation during Fleet Week, which SPI was only able to cover up because all the witnesses were drunk. Another is known to have involved Ian, the Gates of Hell, and Hoboken, [=NJ=].
61	* OfficeRomance: Though Mac is clearly attracted to her partner Ian, they aren't in one, because they both understand how difficult it would make working together if things fell apart. At the end of the second book Ian has started dating a dryad in SPI's PR (Read: invents semi-plausible mundane explanations for supernatural incidents, like a statue coming to life actually being animatronic) department, with Mac's knowledge and approval. Said relationship is still going as of the end of book seven.
62	* PopCulturedBadass: More like Pop Cultured ActionSurvivor ''surrounded'' by Badasses, in Mac's case.
63	* SharedUniverse: The SPI novels and the Raine Benares novels take place on different dimensions, but there is communication and travel between them. The SPI novels have multiple references to events in the Raine novels. Raine's cousin Mago is a minor character in the fifth book, and her ex-boyfriend Tam is a major character in book six.
64	* ShoutOut: Kitty's bakery is on Bleecker Street in the West Village, which would put New York's premier portal witch just down the street from the Sanctum Santorum of Doctor Stephen Strange.
65	* SingleLineOfDescent: One of the things that has to be done to break the curse that banished the Fomor to the oceans was exterminate the line of Lugh, the hero who defeated the Fomor King and banished them thousands of years ago. Despite all the millennia, it appears that there is only one living descendant (or at least, only one that matters): [[spoiler:Ian]].
66	* SouthernBelle: Mac's North Carolina upbringing colors her manners, her taste in food, and her feisty response to slick talkers or threats to her "family" at SPI.
67	* SuperheroTrophyShelf: Every SPI agent has a collection of 'desk flair', little knickknacks given to them by their coworkers that reference notably impressive or embarrassing things they have done.
68	* SupremeChef: Kitty Poertner, New York's top portal witch, is a first-rate baker. She apparently gets called on to provide SPI with scones more often than she is called on for her expertise with portals.

Context Creator / LisaShearin