The Beaufonts

Every family has its legends. The Beaufonts have a sword, a mansion that talks back, and a standing appointment with the fate of the magical world. When Liv Beaufont learns that her missing parents were magicians and that the ancient council called the House of Fourteen expects her to take up the family blade, "ordinary" stops being an option. This is urban fantasy run at a sprint: portals stitched between our world and hidden magical courts, wisecracking dragons, gnomes with opinions, and a bloodline that keeps producing exactly the wrong person for the job at exactly the right time. Sarah Noffke and Michael Anderle build the world one relative at a time. Each cycle takes its name from a Beaufont and an adjective — the Unstoppable Liv, the Exceptional Sophia (who trades the courtroom of magic for the back of a dragon and the ranks of the Dragon Elite), the Inscrutable Paris, the Undoubtable Rose, the Unconventional Agent — while The First Beaufont reaches back to the ancestor who started it all, and Beaufont Stories fills the gaps between. The books are short, briskly serialized, and forever handing the reader off to the next cousin in line. The pleasures here are found-family banter, snappy magical bureaucracy, and heroines who solve problems with equal parts spell and stubbornness — comfort-read fantasy that never mistakes itself for grimdark. Newcomers should begin where the saga did, with the Unstoppable Liv Beaufont books, then cross the bridge to The Exceptional Sophia Beaufont; the other branches of the family read happily once you know whose door you're knocking on.