How Does Lauren Groff Blend History And Myth In The Monsters Of Templeton?

After being expelled from college for a violent outburst, I was sent to a school for monsters by my mom. Now I’m trapped between three dangerous monster boys: Raven, the cold, hypnotic vampire prince. Thorne, the wild, possessive Alpha heir. And Lucien, the dangerously charming incubus who watches me like he knows a secret I don’t. They hate each other. They confuse me. They want me. And no matter how hard I try to stay away… I keep falling for all three. But when strange things start happening—inhuman strength, sharpened senses, and cravings I can’t explain, I realize there’s something inside me. Something I can’t control. Something that doesn’t belong in their world... or mine.

The Scions rule the world now. Born of celestial light, they turned on their creators and claimed the earth for themselves. But their victory came at a cost—every daughter of their kind has withered into dust, and extinction looms. So they hunt human women to survive. Anwen has always been fragile. Sickly. Ordinary. She was meant to be hidden away in a sanctuary, safe from the monsters who would claim her. Instead, she’s taken by three of the most feared shifters alive. A Dragon, cold and untouchable. A Lycan, lethal and always too close. A Minotaur, silent and watching—like she’s a puzzle he intends to solve. They expect her to die like the others. Another delicate human who won’t survive the bond. But Anwen doesn’t break. She burns. And the longer she remains in their fortress, the more their control begins to unravel. Their magic bends toward her. Their instincts sharpen. Their possessiveness turns feral. Others want her. Their High King demands her. But these three won’t give her up. Because the fragile human they stole? She might be the most dangerous creature in their world. And they’re done pretending she isn’t theirs.

In the neon-lit shadows of Novela, Isabella Hart, a red-haired outcast, is drowning in betrayal. Bullied at school and abused by her family, her world shatters when her boyfriend spreads fake nude photos, driving her into the arms of a mysterious stranger for a reckless one-night stand. The next day, she’s stunned to find him—Sebastian Wolfe, a smouldering history professor and Lycan—standing at her lecture podium, his green eyes taunting her with their shared secret. But her life is about to get even worse as Caleb Reed, a charismatic senior with a demonic edge, who hides a deadly mission behind his seductive smile walks into her life. Both men are mated to Bella by the Moon Goddess, their rivalry igniting a lustful, dangerous love triangle. As Bella navigates forbidden passion and relentless torment, she uncovers a shocking truth: she’s a half-werewolf Moonborn, her red hair a mark of a rare lineage destined to destroy the BloodMoon pack’s evil Alpha, Marcus, and his Beta, Veron—Sebastian’s father. With Caleb’s obsession turning violent and Sebastian’s secrets threatening their love, Bella must embrace her powers to survive kidnappings, near-death ambushes, and betrayals that tear her heart apart. When her long-lost father resurfaces, Bella’s fight for her throne becomes a battle for survival, love, and redemption. In a city where werewolves lurk beneath skyscrapers, Bella’s destiny will burn bright—or consume them all. The Professor’s Mate is a dark, sensual werewolf romance, weaving lust, betrayal, and supernatural intrigue in a novel saga of a common human girl rising from ashes to claim her power as an Alpha in the werewolf realm.

Eliza Ward does not fall through time. Time bends toward her. Pulled from the present into Revolutionary America, Eliza becomes trapped in a landscape where history repeats unevenly, battles restart with variations, and memory functions as both anchor and weapon. She is not a chosen heroine, but a constant: a woman whose awareness destabilizes the moment itself. She meets Mercy Hale, a midwife and witch who understands time as a negotiation rather than a force to command. Mercy aids Eliza’s survival while refusing the role of savior, having already learned the cost of standing too close to history’s center. During a looping battle, Eliza saves Thomas Reed, a Continental soldier who does not shift when time does. Thomas is an anchor: steady, observant, unchanged across iterations. Their bond deepens in an almost-normal village where time briefly behaves. Eliza’s intervention triggers time’s response. Rather than immediate destruction, time collects interest. Mercy bargains to spare Eliza and Thomas, sacrificing her own future to stabilize the present. Time extracts payment from Eliza as well, stripping away her voice, the very tool she uses to name and hold moments in place. Silenced and unmoored, Eliza is violently displaced back into the original battle. Unable to anchor the moment, she watches Thomas die in the version of history that was always waiting beneath her defiance. Told in rotating perspectives between Eliza, Thomas, and Mercy, The Hours That Refused to Behave is a lyrical time-travel novel about revolution, restraint, and consequence, asking not whether history can be changed, but who pays when it is.

The supernatural creatures of the world have long been governed by The Council, made of representatives of each faction: werewolves, vampires, witches, and fae. The Council’s main goals were to keep the existence of magic from humans and keep any one group from becoming too powerful. Legends of a creature, a hybrid capable of being more than one supernatural creature, have existed as long as the beings themselves. A hybrid would be able to topple The Council, and whichever faction they were loyal to would rule with ease. As such, the purposeful creation of such a creature was forbidden. In 2012, ancient vampire Elias Elhassan found Claire Luna. After years of living in and out of the oncology ward, the 26-year-old was ready for death. Until he approached her and offered her a way to live without the constant pain she had become so accustomed to. 24-year-old Colin Lucin, the youngest, bastard son of the Alpha of the Half-Moon pack, did not want much from life. After a childhood filled with loss and pain, he was more than satisfied to be the pack’s nurse and stay out of the way of his father and eldest brothers. But in order to maintain a long-held pact with a local coven, once every generation, a witch is destined to mate with a wolf of the Alpha line. Thrown into a political battle that neither knows anything about, Claire and Colin are forced to navigate a centuries-old web of lies, torture, and manipulation. Though they are fated to be together, can they trust each other’s words? Can they even survive long enough to find out? Trigger warnings: Depictions of: violence, blood, language, sexual content (to what degree is yet to be decided) Implied: abuse, sexual content

Long long ago... A powerful vampire-witch prince and a royal lycan princess were fated to be mated. At first, the world was stunned. A union so impossible—so unnatural in the eyes of many. But as time passed, their love blossomed so deep into their very being. Against all odds, they made their bond eternal. Centuries later, they were blessed with a little daughter—Taishiri Nefferca. Just like her name, she was unique…incomparable. She was their whole universe. Their reason to exist. Until the day everything collapsed. The lycan princess was lost and the prince, in a desperate act of protection, gave his daughter away—to save her. *** On her 18th birthday, Neffie Hale was meant to reveal a secret she'd buried deep for the past two years. But she wasn’t ready. She didn’t know what would happen if she let it out… or what she’d become once it was no longer hidden. All her life, she’d been labeled a freak. An outcast. It didn’t matter that she had a completely normal twin. Or that she was the royalty. None of it mattered. And when it's time to unveil the secrets, it didn't go as planned. Not even close. Even if the secrets stayed buried—she paid the price. A price that nearly cost her everything… even her life. And just when she thought things couldn’t spiral further—another truth from her forgotten past broke the surface. She didn’t know what to believe anymore… Or where to run… Or who she truly was. But with a newly found mate, an overprotective father returned to her life, and a divine sister by her side—Neffie no longer felt like an outcast. She just didn’t know how to live in the light she’d never been allowed to touch.