ShowBusiness: the first book, Magician, stands alone while the second two, Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon, tell a two-part story. Inverted with one of the later trilogies, Conclave of Shadows; the first two books, Talon of Silver Hawk and King of Foxes, tell a two-part story, while the third, Exile's Return, features a Perspective Flip, change of setting and a separate story of redemption for the earlier parts' villain, as well as setting up a later series.
RobertAHeinlein: Several, but probably the worst offender is Sr. Hakone, an armchair general who believed that the Empire was a little too decadent and needed a good, long war with another government to get things going again. Sten obligingly fries Hakone with an electrical cable right in the middle of another of his self-important speeches.
ArrangedMarriage: The town finds it fascinating that Parminder and Vikram had one.
AuthorAppeal: Terre d'Ange is a society who worships love and believes that prostitution is a sacred calling. Everyone is Bi and the books feature a lot of BDSM. Oddly, this seems to be the only real fetish as such that anyone practises: there's vanilla sex and bondage, but no foot fetishism or cross-dressing. Of course since the book is told from the perspective of Phèdre, she might not encounter too many fetishes outside of BDSM, since that's her specialty.
BadassGrandpa: Ritva and Mary Havel begin very much like this, though they develop/display more distinct personalities in the course of the second trilogy.
BalefulPolymorph: More than a few Goosebumps books had this as a problem the kid-protagonist had to face, caused either through magic or technology.
BodyHorror: Darryl kills Mary by emptying gallons of chlorine into the Jacuzzi bath at the gym and waiting for her to go in. She completely submerges herself save her head before she begins screaming in agony as her whole body starts to peel.
BrattyHalfPint: Lucy, Grella and Rosa all slot into this trope at some point in their lives.
Catchphrase: Nakata, with "[food item] are one of Nakata's favorites."
ChaseScene: One of the few upbeat sections of the novel, in fact.
ContinuityNod: Harry's narration refers to Proven Guilty's excursion to Arctis Tor twice—once when he recalls fighting the giant scarecrow phobophage, and when he mentions that the last time he was in Arctis Tor, he "pissed off the faeries. Like, All of Them."
CrossOver: The protagonists enter the universe of The Stand, post-Captain Trips.
CrypticBackgroundReference: Zahn is fond of using these. Many of them proved to be Canon Fodder for later authors, especially Michael Stackpole. A few were never followed up on, but their number is dwindling.
DeadlyPrank: Gaunt's Tucker Talisman... which is more than just a car.
DeadpanSnarker: Lascelles and Childermass. Most of Norrell's dialogue is this, as well.
DistractedByTheSexy: This is the official duty of Katya's very beautiful sister Galya. Many beautiful evil Sorceresses and Witches do this to random kings, but magic enters the equation here as well. The witch that plagued the Kingdom of Nippon used this as her main shtick to power. Queen Cassiopeia uses this as a political tactic.
DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: After The Masquerade is broken and Kitty (already Hauled Before A Senate Subcommittee) is forced to Change on national television, a number of protesters start demonstrating outside the Capitol Building. On the side in favor of the supernaturals, there's the Vampire League Against Discrimination: V.L.A.D. They reappear at the London conference in book ten.
EmbarrassingFirstName: Kirsty doesn't like her name. Or any of the other names she comes up with after a week or so.
Expy: The character of Rigg bears a strong resemblance to Ender Wiggin, due to their precocious intelligence and snarkiness.
FunctionalMagic: Anybody can learn Rule Magic; vampires and some others have Inherent Gift, and elven magic seems somewhere in between. In general, magic is divided into three spheres- thaumaturgy (deals with the physical, used for crafting artifacts), conjury (used for summoning elemental forces and spirits) and sorcerer (dealing with the mind and spirit). The schools are not mutually exclusive, and can be combined to produce more dramatic effects (necromancy, for example, is a blend of conjury and sorcery).
GenreBlind: Ziba is around six feet tall and towers over everyone except Doug.
GroinAttack: Don't harm anyone Savannah considers family or is protecting as part of her job, because she will pay you back double. For example, in A Decadent Way to Die, after Tammy's boyfriend hurts her, Savannah drops in to pay him a visit. She kicks the door in on him hard enough to break his nose, gives him a kick in the spot men least like to be kicked bad enough to require surgery, and holds her gun to his head, threatening him to never even textTammy again.
HiddenDepths: Felix reaches this level in The Mirador, before a traumatic Heel Realization in Corambis. Part of this may be due to the influence of Malkar's noirance-soaked rubies. To be fair, the Crapsack World setting ensures there's plenty of depravity to go around (see Kolkhis, Porphyria Levant, Mehitabel's uncle Rene, etc.)
HobbesWasRight: Played with. With the collapse of the Edain chiefdoms, they've dissolved into petty brigands capable of anything from petty thieving to rape. Averted later as Túrin's militant, domineering personality and leadership lead to the destruction of Nargothrond and his personal demons drive him to suicide mere hours after being proclaimed ruler of Brethil in place of the crippled but much more sensible Brandir.
ImpossibleTask: as others have pointed out, Cain's Last Stand shows that Cain has reached a state almost mythically impossible in the 40K universe: he reaches retirement. Cain will have you know that this has been his objective all these years.
InferredSurvival: In Armour of Contempt, Mkvenner, who is literally one of the most Badass Ghosts in existence, is stated to have been killed in action, though they Never Found the Body and the Resistance deliberately pretends that he's still alive. There are a number of clues in the book to suggest that he actually is.
Jerkass: Some fans regard Bill Casson as this - with good reason.
KnowYourVines: An American missionary in Congo ends up with tree sap on his arm and forehead, but pays it no heed. A local tells him "That tree, it bites", a warning he can't make sense of. The next day, he wakes up with a severe skin irritation where the sap was.
LaserGuidedAmnesia: Alyssa's teacher wants her to marry Connen-Neute, because he believes they're the only two young Masters alive. He has no luck in this, since while they're friends, it's completely platonic- with him being a little intimidated by her or rather, he's scared of her alternate personality, Beast.
LeParkour: Hollis Henry was the lead singer for a fictional punk/alternative rock band named "The Curfew"; their heydey is implied to have been the early-to-mid-90s. A portrait of Hollis, taken by real-life music photographer/video director Anton Corbijn, shows up in a few places in the books.
LetMeTellYouAStory: Olive, Stork, and Butterfly each tell Black three stories when he's first sent to question them regarding Elegant Effendi's murder.
MercyKill: Durzo Blint's got a lot of them. Because he happens to be almost every hero from the past 700 years.
MusclesAreMeaningless: The Doctor can easily carry a grown man around, has threatened one of his companions with the fact he could break any bone in said companion's body (he was really stressed out at the time), and once stabbed a guy with his thumb. He's 5'8", "slight", and "bony".
NotSoDifferent: Both Alatriste and Malatesta invoke this to each other.
OffingTheOffspring: In the movie version, Sadako is thrown down a well by her own (adoptive) father. For Samara, her American counterpart, her birth mother and adoptive mother both tried to kill her (the second one even succeeded).
PunchClockVillain: Thrawn means a lot to Pellaeon. A lot. Pellaeon doesn't take the news that Thrawn may have returned without talking to him very well, and speculates morosely as to why.
RedHeadedHero: Most of the main characters are exiles from Recluce (or in one case, Westwind), because they develop strong Order magic powers. They consistently resist being labeled as "order-masters", but insist they're just simple woodworkers/blacksmiths/engineers/etc.
RomanceInducingSmudge: This happens early in the series, when Chloe is eating a cookie and has a bit of chocolate on her cheek. Buck leans over and wipes it off with his thumb, then eats it on impulse. Since the two have become hilariously repressed fundamentalist Christians, this is treated as a huge sexual milestone in their relationship. (Third base comes with chocolate.) Cookies later become a romantic symbol for them, almost to the point of creepy ridiculousness. Almost?
ShockAndAwe: Davy in the battle for Farbranch. Todd sees him firing his gun into the air "when there's nothing else for him to shoot". If you look at who his father is, it's not a big surprise.
ShowWithinAShow: Crispin's works are prominently featured in the novel, and there are also news shows dealing with the events in the fictional Manila.
SnakesOnAPlane: Lampshaded when an official in the courts of Hell complains about Emma's Retainers constantly getting killed.
Technobabble: Thursday repeatedly mentions this to Booklanders in the real world, though frequently events hint that her world isn't real either.
TheHighwayman: Ratcatcher opens with a pair of highwaymen robbing a coach and killing a naval messenger.
ThemeNaming: John Christie's alias happens to be the name of a prominent serial killer from the previous century. When he gets a new alias issued to him, that one turns out to be the namesake of another serial killer. He is not amused by this and suspects that an outside party is tampering with the Operation's system to make him stand out more.
TokenEvilTeammate: Alicia. She's probably the closest to actually evil of all the Pretty Committee.
BlakesSeven: Nearly every Past Doctor novel is set between two episodes of the TV series, with the exception of Fear Itself (published after the Eighth Doctor Adventures wrapped up, and set between two earlier EDAs) and possibly also of The Infinity Doctors (deliberately ambiguous as to placement). Most of the Seventh Doctor novels are set in the long gap between the last episode of the ongoing series and the 1996 TV movie. (Where this puts them in respect to the NAs, set within the same gap, is up for debate, since the BBC's policy was to neither confirm nor deny the Virgin novels' canon status, and certainly not to provide official guidance on how they fitted into the continuity.)
HalfLife2: The Hero City, all those other little holdouts, and the defense of the Five Colleges in California.