The Midnight Breed Series Companion (2 page)

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) that 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 the 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.

There are no marriages, only reproductive matings among the powerful and selective, and clinical breedings (generally IVF, or stud servicing if the owners prefer more hands-on supervision) among the masses. Females are viewed as valuable only so long as they can breed—whether that's on the demand of an elite male (if the female is of a highborn bloodline) or in the farms and in servitude. Barren females, which are rare, and those who can no longer bear offspring, are euthanized—if they're lucky. Basically, you don't want to be born female on this planet!