The Midnight Breed Series Companion Read online

  ~ ~ ~

  THE

  MIDNIGHT BREED SERIES

  COMPANION

  The ultimate insider’s guide to the New York Times and #1 internationally best-selling vampire romance series

  LARA ADRIAN

  ~ ~ ~

  Part human, part otherworldly, the Breed has lived among humankind in secret for thousands of years . . . and now fans of the popular, best-selling Midnight Breed Series can delve deeper than ever before into this hidden, seductive race of vampires and the dark, thrilling universe they inhabit.

  A book that’s been years in the making, the Midnight Breed Series Companion includes insider info on all of the novels, author notes on the creation of the story world and how the eleven-book (and counting!) series has evolved since its beginning as a contracted trilogy, a complete character guide, series trivia, questions from readers and more.

  This special series companion also includes “A Touch of Midnight”—an all-new, never before published, original novella featuring Gideon and Savannah, which finally reveals the story of how this reader favorite couple met and fell in love, and answers many questions that fans have been curious about since the series began!

  Praise for the Midnight Breed series

  “One of the consistently best paranormal series out there . . . Adrian writes compelling individual stories within a larger story arc that is unfolding with a refreshing lack of predictability.” –Romance Novel News

  “Adrian’s strikingly original Midnight Breed series delivers an abundance of nail-biting suspenseful chills, red-hot sexy thrills, an intricately built world, and realistically complicated and conflicted protagonists . . . ” –Booklist

  “One of the best paranormal series around . . . a must-read series.” –Fresh Fiction

  “A well-written, action-packed series that is just getting better with age.” –Fiction Vixen

  “[An] adrenaline-fueled, sizzlingly sexy, darkly intense . . . addictively readable series.” –Chicago Tribune

  About the Author

  LARA ADRIAN is a New York Times and #1 internationally best-selling author with nearly 4 million books in print worldwide and translations licensed in more than 19 countries. She lives in New England with her husband, where she is currently at work on her next novel.

  To learn more about her books and to sign up for her email newsletter, visit www.LaraAdrian.com.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book has been a work-in-progress for a couple of years now--much longer than that, if I am to count all of the thought and planning that went into the development of the Midnight Breed series from the time I first began writing it and adding pages of notes to my series "bible."

  At first, I expected my notes would remain as background material whose only purpose was to help me remember my own series lore and character stats. But along the way, as the series gained popularity and readers started emailing me with thought-provoking questions about one thing or another, or asked me at book signings to explain things about the Ancients or the Breed or the Breedmates that wasn't necessarily in the text of the books, I realized that it could be fun to share all of my "insider info" with the fans of the series who had grown to love the Midnight Breed perhaps as much as I do.

  I've had a lot of help from my husband and support staff at various times in compiling and editing the material contained in this Companion book, but no one has been more instrumental than my awesome Facebook admin and assistant (who also happens to be my lovely step-daughter and the mother of my first grandchild!) Heather Rogers. Thank you, Heather, for all of your effort, creativity and patience. I love you!

  Of course, neither this book nor any of the others I've written would be possible without the love and encouragement of my husband, or the enthusiasm and support from you, my dear reader.

  This book is for all of you, with love and gratitude.

  Contents

  Cover Page

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction by Lara Adrian

  The Midnight Breed Series Story World

  Ancients

  The Breed

  Breedmates

  Rituals

  The Order

  Glossary of Terms

  The Novels

  Kiss of Midnight

  Kiss of Crimson

  Midnight Awakening

  Midnight Rising

  Veil of Midnight

  Ashes of Midnight

  Shades of Midnight

  Taken by Midnight

  Deeper Than Midnight

  A Taste of Midnight

  Darker After Midnight

  Novella: A Touch of Midnight (Gideon & Savannah's story)

  Character Reference Guide

  Reader Q&A

  Questions for Lara Adrian

  Questions for the Characters

  Midnight Breed Series Trivia

  Who Am I?

  Am I Dead or Alive?

  First Kisses

  Lost and Found

  What Book Am I In?

  Whose Breedmate Mark is Located Here?

  True or False?

  Where Did I First See My Mate?

  Good Guy or Bad Guy?

  Midnight Breed Talent Show

  Who Said This?

  Dead People We Never Got to Meet

  Trivia Scoring: How did you do?

  The Midnight Breed Series Around the World

  The Future of the Midnight Breed Series

  Lara Adrian Biography

  Connect Online with Lara Adrian

  Resources for Writers

  Sign up for Lara Adrian's email newsletter

  Links to more Lara Adrian novels

  Bibliography

  Copyright

  Introduction by Lara Adrian

  For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a deep love of books. Although neither of my parents are avid readers, they made sure my siblings and I had library cards in elementary school and a couple of dollars to spend when the Bookmobile came around to our small hometown in Michigan. I can still remember the wonder I felt—and the agonizing indecision—every time I wandered the aisles of the public library or perused the tables of brand-new books set out for consideration in the traveling Bookmobile. It was always so hard to choose just one or two!

  Other kids saved their pennies for candy or the latest cool toys. I could never get enough books. I could never get enough of the mysteries that books showed me, the magic they created, or the many incredible worlds they opened up in my mind’s eye.

  Books were my escape from all the things that troubled me. They were my passage into amazing, sometimes terrifying places I never dreamed might exist. Books were my home port, their pages a comfort and companion, no matter my age or where life took me.

  They still are.

  The fact that I now make my living writing books—telling stories I hope will give my readers some of the same kind of escape and wonderment that other storytellers have given me throughout my life—is a privilege I never take for granted.

  I worked hard, but I also got lucky early on, landing a publishing contract with Random House for the very first book I’d ever written—a medieval romance that released in 1999 under my first pen name, Tina St. John. I wrote six more historical romances over the next six years, books that received nice reviews and won awards, but never found a large enough audience to keep a publisher happy.

  And so it was, in the summer of 2005, that I found myself at a crossroads. My publisher didn’t want any more medieval romances from me. The proposal for the book I was working on had been rejected and I was without a contract—news I received just after my husband and I had signed a mortgage on the first home (a condo) th
at we’d ever owned.

  Fortunately, my editor believed in me and invited me to send in something totally different for consideration. Even though I was reeling from the fact that my Tina St. John career had just ended without notice, my mind was already leaping forward to the folder of story ideas I’d been gathering and playing with over the years—ideas that included everything from gritty thrillers and psychological suspense stories, to small-town, feel-good romances. I also had a couple of concepts sketched out for dark, sexy vampire novels.

  My agent wasn’t very enthusiastic when I told her I wanted to propose a vampire romance. She cautioned me that editors had been predicting the death (the true death?) of vampires for quite some time. She worried that, as with my historical romances, I might be coming in on the downward curve of the trend. Little did anyone know that in just a few months’ time, a certain phenomenon called Twilight would breathe all-new life into romances with blood and bite!

  A couple of weeks after that bad news call from my agent, I submitted a rough outline and first three chapters for a book I’d tentatively titled, Kiss of Darkness. Feeling I had nothing to lose, I packed my story with all the things that entertain me most as a reader: action, suspense, urban fantasy, and, of course, scorching sensuality and romance featuring a dark, absolutely lethal, drop-dead gorgeous, uber-alpha male.

  My agent read the material, and she loved it. She loved it so much, she asked if I could possibly expand the outline to cover three books, so she could shop the proposal to a handful of publishers as a trilogy. I worked out brief plotlines for another two books (one story that stuck pretty much as I’d pitched it, and another that, well, didn’t—which I’ll explain further on in this Companion). My agent sent out the proposals and told me she hoped we’d have some nibbles of interest shortly.

  Not even a week later, we had offers from almost all of the top publishing houses in New York. An auction took place between several of them, and within a few days I went from being an unemployed historical romance writer to a brand-new, dark contemporary vampire romance author with a new name and multiple offers in hand.

  In the end, I remained with Random House and the wonderful Shauna Summers, the editor who plucked me out of the slush pile with that very first medieval romance manuscript. Random House released the first three Midnight Breed books in rapid succession—two of them back-to-back in the summer of 2007, and a third later that year. To my total amazement, the series was an instant success, landing on major best-seller lists since the beginning.

  There are now a total of eleven Midnight Breed novels in print through Random House USA (with a twelfth coming soon!) and one ebook novella. This Companion to the series covers the first ten books—Kiss of Midnight through Darker After Midnight—which comprise the original story arc of the series. You’ll find background information on the story world and each of the first ten novels, a complete character reference guide, a Q&A with readers, fun trivia questions and more.

  This Companion volume also includes Gideon and Savannah’s story, something I’ve been promising Midnight Breed fans for what seems like forever. A Touch of Midnight is an all-new, never-before-published novella of around forty-thousand words—a big “short” story, almost half the size of one of my typical novels. It finally answers all the questions you have about Gideon, how he and Savannah met, why he no longer runs combat missions, and even a couple extra surprises that shed light on other things you’ve asked me about through the years.

  My intent for the Companion had been to release it as something of a bridge between Darker After Midnight and Edge of Dawn, the book that begins the current, second story arc of the series featuring the offspring of the Order and a powerful new enemy on the horizon.

  But things don’t always work out as planned, and for a number of reasons, this Companion almost didn’t happen at all. Instead, with options opening up to authors through self-publishing, I decided not to wait any longer and instead release it myself in ebook and trade paperback.

  If there is reader interest, I’d love to release a second Companion volume in the future to cover all of the exciting things and interesting new characters you’ll encounter as the series continues with Edge of Dawn and the other books still to come.

  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy revisiting Lucan, the Order, the Breedmates, the story world, the behind-the-scenes tidbits and all the rest, in this, The Midnight Breed Series Companion.

  Lastly, a word of caution: This book is full of spoilers!

  You’ll find no warnings (other than the one you’re reading now) so if you haven’t yet read the Midnight Breed Series, this may not be the best place for a new reader to start. Unless you’re like me, that is--frequently peeking at the last page of a book first, and taking no less enjoyment in the journey despite knowing how everything will end.

  Either way, enjoy! And thank you for being part of this journey along with me.

  With big hugs and much love,

  Lara Adrian

  The Midnight Breed Series Story World

  Ancients

  Why Aliens?

  If I’m going to talk about the world of the Midnight Breed series, I suppose I need to start at the beginning. I have always loved vampires, from the time I was a kid. From the creepy, sometimes campy, Dracula movies on the Saturday afternoon “Creature Feature” on TV, or films like The Lost Boys and ‘Salem’s Lot, to Anne Rice’s mesmerizing novels featuring sophisticated, lethally seductive Lestat, vampires were—and still are—my #1 monster of choice. What other supernatural creature inspires fear and desire in such equal measure? He is death and sex and limitless power, all rolled into one insatiable (usually gorgeous) package. Vampires represent the ultimate dark, erotic fantasy.

  There’s just one problem with this picture. The corpse thing. I don’t know about you, but for me it’s not exactly a turn-on. Hard to imagine getting up-close-and-personal with a lot of cold, dead flesh. And no heartbeat means no blood flow. Which also means…well, no blood flow. And in a romance novel, especially the kind I like to write, that’s a leap of logic that really can’t be overlooked. But beyond that consideration, I suppose I just prefer my book boyfriends to be breathing.

  So, when I got the green light from Random House and began creating my own race of vampires—my own mythology—the “undead” issue was the first thing I had to resolve. When I mentioned to John (my husband and most-valued plotting partner) that I needed to come up with a plausible origin for the Breed, he quipped, “Maybe they’re aliens.”

  It seemed kind of crazy—vampires from outer space—but also kind of brilliant. All the pieces started coming together in my mind as soon as he said it. I couldn’t jot down my thoughts fast enough—everything from the Ancients’ arrival on Earth, what they looked like, what kind of planet they came from, how their offspring would look, how they would live and love and sometimes die…all of it.

  Not everything has made it into the books themselves. Maybe it never will. But when it comes to research and world-building, I think it’s important for a writer to know the answers to questions that might not ever get asked in any particular work. It helps give a firmer foundation to the characters and to the universe they inhabit, even if that foundation remains just below the surface of the actual stories.

  Here are my world-building notes, taken from my story “bible” as I was writing the book that became Kiss of Midnight and the start of the Midnight Breed series:

  What life is like on the Ancients’ planet

  The planet is mostly dark, with about four hours of sunlight during which the inhabitants sleep in order to avoid getting smoked by UV rays. The planet is chilly due to the lack of light, but the aliens' blood runs faster than human/mammals so they are not affected. There isn't a lot of plant or animal life on the planet (also due to lack of light), but there is a lot of water and hilly, rocky terrain. The aliens live in technologically advanced cities and dwellings, made from metals excavated from the hills.

  Because of t
he lack of natural animal life, the alien society eats its own—they are cannibals, except they don't consume meat or muscle, only blood. They have farms that raise "crops" of blood hosts for the masses. The powerful in alien society purchase private stocks of blood hosts, rather like slaves, who exist only to nourish and entertain their masters.

  The race is cruel and aggressive: Males enjoy the sport of hunting and often arrange predator parties for their elite friends; females sometimes are permitted to organize gladiator-style spectacles of the choicest male slaves, who are typically forced to "service" their mistresses. The male hunting fervor has also spread to the "street" crowd, but it resembles more gang-style murder than organized sport. This underground form of hunting among the lower classes is illegal, and punishable immediately by death.

  As far as laws and government, a few powerful individuals control an entire society. There are no elections, no rights of the individual, only those of the strong and the elite. The work force is in business to serve rich masters. There are no schools for general population; they are kept ignorant of everything except what the government deems they need to know. Reproductive rights are non-existent; general civilians are bred like cattle, with most offspring being taken away to serve the rich. There is only one religion, and powerful priests dictate to the masses how they should live.