Ashes of Midnight published in May, 2009, spending three weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, two weeks on the USA Today list, debuting at #31, my highest showing on that list at the time. And still another high spot, Claire and Reichen’s book hit #6 on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list its first week out as well.
Shades of Midnight
BOOK 7
Romantic Leads
Kade
Alexandra Maguire
Plot Summary
A mission to Alaska to investigate a string of savage vampire attacks sends Breed warrior Kade to the frozen land of his birth, where he encounters a sexy female bush pilot whose own quest for answers forces him to confront his darkest secrets, and an even greater evil that could destroy all he holds dear.
Primary Story Locations
Small (fictional) town of Harmony, Alaska
Kade's family Darkhaven outside Fairbanks, Alaska
Order's compound headquarters in undisclosed location in Boston
Playlist
The Fear by Trust Company
Shame by Stabbing Westward
So Cold by Breaking Benjamin
Crashed by Daughtry
Story Background
Since the introduction of black-haired, silver-eyed Kade to the series in Midnight Awakening, I couldn’t wait to set one of the books in Alaska. Naturally, it had to be his!
I’d had it in my head for a while that Kade had left his family Darkhaven outside Fairbanks for a reason he didn’t really want anyone to know. And I’d also had it in my character notes that he was an identical twin—although whether Kade should be the “good” twin or the “bad” one, I wasn’t yet sure.
I began plotting Shades of Midnight from the external side of things: The Ancient’s escape from the cargo train at the end of Ashes of Midnight, and the subsequent slaughter of the Alaskan family, which prompts the Order to send Kade north—far north—to investigate. It was this same slaying that would bring female bush pilot, Alexandra Maguire, into the middle of the Order’s business and, soon afterward, into Kade’s bed.
The first big lesson I learned in plotting Shades of Midnight was that Alaska is unlike any other state in the country. I mean, I knew that, of course. But I had no idea just how vast and wild and undeveloped the place was until I started studying maps, buying reference books, and Googling for general information on living conditions, temperatures, bush piloting, law enforcement and various other details I wanted to get right in the book.
Alaska is harsh, primitive frontier in many places; in others, it’s absolute, forbidding wilderness. It was actually perfect for the kind of story I wanted to tell.
And the perfect place to have produced someone like Kade—not to mention, his twin brother, Seth.
Given their shared Breed ability to connect psychically with predator animals, the subplot of Kade’s backstory and the dark secret he’d been running from both fell into place as an integral part of Shades of Midnight. It would also form the wedge that would eventually come to stand between Kade and Alexandra.
It is in this book that the Ancient eventually meets his end. I planned for it upfront, knowing the way the Ancient would die, although I hadn’t decided on the specifics of who would ultimately take him over that ledge until a little farther into the actual writing of the story.
I also knew that before the Ancient died, he would leave behind a piece of himself—a biotechnology “key” that would unlock secrets about his kind and their time on Earth. The Ancient leaves this biotech chip (along with some of his DNA) embedded in the nape of a human warrior—former Alaska State Trooper, Jenna Tucker-Darrow, Alex’s best friend.
When I first sketched out the premise of the Ancient wanting to ensure part of him lived on as he faced a certain death, I had a vague notion that in addition to the chip creating a transformation in Jenna on a genetic level—turning her into something far more than human—it could also become a tool the Order could use in their efforts to defeat Dragos. That part of the equation changed once I started refining the plot for Taken by Midnight, Jenna and Brock’s story.
And for the readers who’ve asked whether there was a reason for the Ancient forcing Jenna to choose “life or death” before he embedded the chip inside her? Yes, there is a reason! I promise, I’ll answer that question fully before the series is over.
Shades of Midnight released in late December, 2009. It hit the New York Times bestseller list higher than ever, in the #5 spot, and it stayed on the list for three weeks straight. Kade and Alex’s story also spent three weeks on the USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. And, for the first time, I broke the top ten at Barnes & Noble, with Shades of Midnight debuting there at #7 out of all books on sale.
Meanwhile, in Germany, the series was doing very well too. So well, in fact, that my publisher, Egmont LYX, invited me to come for a multi-city book tour that following summer, when Kade and Alex’s story was due to arrive in bookstores over there. I’d never been on book tour. My U.S. publisher has never arranged for me to tour here in the States, so this invitation to travel overseas and meet readers in Germany was incredible. Of course, I said yes!
And so it was that in June of 2010, I found myself on a whirlwind “mini-tour” of several cities, including Dortmund, where a crowd of more than 150 warm and welcoming German Midnight Breed fans came out to have their books signed and hear passages from Shades of Midnight read to them by me (in English) and by the wonderful narrator of my German audiobooks.
While I was in Germany, I received more amazing news: Shades of Midnight (Gezeichnete des Schicksals) debuted in the highest spot for the series so far, #3 on Der Spiegel!
Taken by Midnight
BOOK 8
Romantic Leads
Brock
Jenna Tucker-Darrow
Plot Summary
Tasked with the protection of a beautiful human female who’s brought from Alaska to the Order’s Boston headquarters, Breed warrior Brock soon finds himself entangled in an impossible passion—one that challenges him to confront the mistakes of his past, and to risk his heart for the one woman he can hold, but can never truly possess.
Primary Story Locations
Order's compound headquarters in undisclosed location in Boston
FBI office in New York City
Dragos's secret prison for captive Breedmates from his breeding labs
Andreas Reichen and Claire’s Darkhaven in Newport, Rhode Island
Cemetery outside Harmony, Alaska
Playlist
Home by Daughtry
Give Me a Sign by Breaking Benjamin
Fade Into You by Mazzy Star
All That I’m Living For by Evanescence
Angel by Sarah McLachlan
Story Background
Here we arrive at Taken by Midnight, eight books into the series. Looking back now, it’s astonishing to me how far the overarching storyline has come from its beginnings in those first three novels. I often tell people that had I known when I first pitched Lucan and Gabrielle’s story that I was embarking on an adventure that would span ten books and counting, I might not have had the guts to start.
I’m a plotter. I like to know where I’m heading before I put the first word on paper. But I’d never attempted anything this expansive. It’s been a great experience for me to grow as a writer, as a storyteller. I’m learning to trust my instincts, and in Taken by Midnight, those instincts were put to the test.
This book takes the series a big leap forward with the introduction of a heroine who’s a human female undergoing a genetic transformation that’s more than a little on the freaky side of science fiction. I wasn’t sure how readers would react to Jenna, frankly. But the decision to move her in this direction was one of those instinct moments. I had to do what I felt was best for the character, the current book, and for the series as a whole. And I’ve been relieved to find that by and large, Jenna is a curiosity that most everyone seems to like.
&nbs
p; So, just what is she becoming, anyway?
That’s the question I hear all the time whenever the subject of Brock and Jenna comes up. And it was a question many of you asked in one form or another through the Q&A contest we held at my website a while ago.
I’ll tell you what Jenna isn’t becoming. She won’t be turning into one of the Breed. She’s human at her core, remember. The Breed’s genetic makeup is otherworlder (Ancient) and Breedmate (which we now know to be—I don’t think this is a big secret anymore—half Atlantean). So, while Jenna’s body now contains Ancient DNA, she is missing the other piece that would turn her into one of the Breed.
Jenna’s alien DNA gives her many of the strengths of an Ancient: self-healing, prolonged life, superhuman strength and speed, enhanced cognitive and language skills. As she later discovers, the biotech implant has additionally given her access to the Ancient’s memories. And let’s not forget, she’s also got a pretty cool dermaglyph growing at the back of her neck.
What Jenna doesn’t have is a fatal allergy to sunlight, like both the Breed and the Ancients do. Nor does she have fangs or a need for blood in order to sustain her, although she has been known to eye Brock’s carotid with more than a passing interest.
Jenna is human with a big serving of alien. She is unlike anyone else we’ve seen so far in the series. And she’ll be key to events still to come as the second arc of the series continues.
But let’s get back to Taken by Midnight.
Brock and Jenna’s romance was about second chances, and about learning to let your walls down in order to let love find you again. They both came together from places of pain—Jenna following the loss of her husband and young daughter in a car accident, and Brock still weathering the guilt of his failure to protect an innocent young Breedmate who’d been placed in his charge as her bodyguard when Brock lived in Detroit.
Theirs was a tender romance, perhaps the most tender of the entire series so far. Neither of them came into their relationship as wide-eyed innocents or reckless people easily caught up in a hot passion that might burn out just as quickly as it started.
Brock and Jenna had been knocked down before. They’d been wounded. They both carried their own burden of guilt from their pasts, telling them they weren’t good enough to be loved by someone. So, when they finally came together—when their unwilling partnership in Order business began to ignite into irresistible attraction and true, deepening affection—their bond was such that it didn’t require blood to seal it.
While Brock and Jenna’s romance smolders at a slow burn, the action in Taken by Midnight ratchets up the threat of Dragos and his determination to strike hard at the Order for their hand in the death of the Ancient in Shades of Midnight and the destruction of one of Dragos’s secret lab facilities in Alaska.
With Dragos growing bolder, the warriors and their mates begin working together in earnest to stop him. While the warriors pursue Dragos and his secret lieutenants on night patrols, the women of the Order strive to locate the Breedmates being held captive in his breeding labs. They come upon clues that lead them to a former runaway shelter worker, and, through a mix of cunning and courage, Jenna, Renata, Dylan and Alex eventually unmask the Minion in charge of holding the prisoners. With the warriors and their women working as a true team, the captive Breedmates are freed—including Corinne Bishop, the young Breedmate who’d been entrusted to Brock’s protection decades past in Detroit.
Other new characters enter the series in this book as well: Mathias Rowan, an Enforcement Agent in Boston and a former friend and associate of Sterling Chase; and the Archer family, Lazaro, the Gen One patriarch of a Boston Darkhaven, and his son Christophe, who come to the Order requesting help in recovering Christophe’s teenage son, Kellan, who’s been abducted from their home by unknown captors.
This abduction—and the recovery of Kellan Archer—set into motion events that would alter the Order’s future in the next book to come, and would change the landscape of the series forever.
Taken by Midnight spent the most time on the U.S. bestseller lists after its release in September, 2010. It stayed four weeks on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists, and three weeks on Publishers Weekly. It also made the Indiebound bestseller list—another career first for me.
Around this time, I started hearing from my agent that Random House wanted to take the series into hardcover soon. Hard to believe that just five years earlier, I thought my career was over. I suppose the lesson here is not unlike the underlying theme of Brock and Jenna’s romance: Just because you felt like a failure in the past, doesn’t mean you can’t get back up again and make something better of your future.
Deeper Than Midnight
BOOK 9
Romantic Leads
Hunter
Corinne Bishop
Plot Summary
After years of captivity and torture by malevolent vampire Dragos, beautiful Corinne Bishop finds safety and passion in the arms of Hunter, the most lethal of the Order’s warriors—a Gen One Breed born and raised to kill on Dragos’s command. Now Hunter’s loyalty to the Order will be tested when duty to his new allies forces him to risk breaking Corinne’s tender heart.
Primary Story Locations
Bishop family Darkhaven in Detroit, Michigan
Various places in and around New Orleans, Louisiana
Amelie Dupree's bayou home at Atchafalaya, Louisiana
Massachusetts senator Bobby Clarence’s North Shore residence
Order's compound headquarters in undisclosed location in Boston
Playlist
Through Hell by We Are The Fallen
This Night by Black Lab
Breathe Me by Sia
Empty Bed Blues by Bessie Smith
Story Background
I really felt the momentum of the overall series arc coming to a head as I wrote Deeper Than Midnight. On the external storyline side of things, events were in motion that would lead to the final, big showdown between the Order and Dragos.
Lucan and the warriors were soon to discover that the kidnap of Kellan Archer had been a calculated move by Dragos—a strike intended to prompt the Order to break one of their cardinal rules: admitting a civilian into the Boston compound. A secret, hidden location for more than a hundred years, the Order’s headquarters is suddenly compromised to their greatest enemy when Kellan spits up a tracking device placed inside him by his abductors.
Lucan has never been one to run from danger. Yet he knows that a swift relocation is the only responsible choice if he wants to keep the compound’s residents safe—his family, as he’s reluctantly come to think of them all over the course of the series. Kellan’s Gen One grandfather, Lazaro Archer, offers one of his properties in the Maine woods as a temporary base of operations, but just as the Order begins making plans to move to safer ground, Tess, who’s been pregnant since Midnight Rising, goes into labor.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Deeper Than Midnight is Hunter and Corinne’s story. Hunter, the emotionless Gen One assassin born and raised to be a soldier in Dragos’s personal army, and Corinne Bishop, the Breedmate kidnapped from under Brock’s watch in Detroit decades ago and recently freed from imprisonment in Dragos’s breeding lab. Both victims of Dragos’s evil, Hunter and Corinne are thrust together in an unexpected alliance, when he’s tasked with escorting her home to her family, only to discover that Corinne had been secretly surrendered to Dragos all those years ago by her Darkhaven father.
And Corinne is keeping a secret of her own too. A thirteen-year-old secret, born to her in the breeding labs and snatched away from her when he was just minutes old to become the same kind of expert killing machine that Hunter is. As soon as she was released from captivity by the Order, Corinne’s driving purpose is to find her son and rescue him from Dragos’s control.
I thought it would be interesting to pair up Hunter (my first virgin hero!) with a woman who shared his background of abuse and manipulation by Dragos. Even
more interesting, a woman whose personal quest will bring Hunter face-to-face with his own history—revelations that tear down the walls he’s had to build around his emotions in order to survive.
As a writer (and a woman) I’m fascinated by a stoic, strong, fearless man who comes from a background so destructive and poisonous that it would reduce most other men (rightly so) to quivering pools of weakness and self-pity. As the saying goes, the strongest steel is forged in the hottest fire. That certainly sums up Hunter, but it also sums up Corinne as well.
While Hunter and Corinne set out to uncover more of Dragos’s lieutenants and find her son, Nathan, back in Boston the Order has its hands full too. Aside from the sudden vulnerability of the compound to Dragos and the birth of Dante and Tess’s son, Xander Raphael, another of the Order’s inner circle is caught in a downward spiral that threatens to have catastrophic consequences.
Sterling Chase, once the uptight, by-the-book Enforcement Agent, has over time begun to slip perilously toward Bloodlust. But despite the grip of his consuming disease, he uncovers a stunning link to Dragos through an ambitious human senator who’s somehow allied with the Order’s chief adversary. And in Chase’s quest to learn more, he crosses paths with the senator’s assistant, Tavia Fairchild, a beautiful young woman whose very existence will change the course of the series and alter Chase’s own future with a single gunshot.
So, about that cliffhanger ending….
I’ve never written a cliffhanger before. While I don’t mind them as a reader, so long as the book doesn’t end mid-sentence or without wrapping up the main story I’ve been invested in for the past four hundred pages, when I chose to end Deeper Than Midnight with Chase’s voluntary surrender to human law enforcement in an effort to spare his friends at the compound, I did so with the intention that the next book, Darker After Midnight, would be coming out very soon afterward. As in a few months afterward.