in black leather and spike-heeled boots, and who bristled with as many deadly weapons as any one of my vampire alpha heroes of the Order. So much the better, that this Breedmate was also gifted with an extrasensory ability that could take down even the most lethal Gen One Breed.
Dear reader, meet Renata.
Naturally, a woman like that needs an equally strong partner. I couldn’t think of anyone more suited to go toe-to-toe with Renata than the adrenaline-junkie, combat-loving, gear-head of the Order, Siberian-born Nikolai.
As you can probably tell from the playlist of music I listened to while working on Veil of Midnight , Niko and Renata’s story was hard-driving, fast and gritty, full of action. It was also sexy and dark, at times very tender. I strive to make each Midnight Breed book feel new and different from the others, while still maintaining a sense of cohesion within the series. Veil of Midnight was certainly different from the others, but it also marks a turning point in the series. One that set the second half of the series into motion, but also laid the groundwork for what I didn’t know at the time—that the ending I’d plotted for Book 10 would actually be the beginning of a whole new generation of characters and a further arc in the series as a whole.
Which brings me to Mira.
Now, I’m not really into kids. I never had any of my own, whether that was the result of too many teenage years of babysitting jobs or something else, I don’t know. But as I was plotting this book, I realized that for all of Renata’s toughness and almost superhero invincibility, she needed to have a soft underbelly. She needed something to make her vulnerable, and I mean something aside from the reverb migraines she suffered after using her mind-blasting ESP talent. Renata needed to care about something, about some one.
And that someone was an eight-year-old orphan girl (a young Breedmate with the gift of precognition) whom Renata had rescued from a Montreal blood club run by Renata’s future employer, the nefarious Gen One, Sergei Yakut.
It was Sergei Yakut who brought Nikolai to Montreal on a mission for the Order, but it was the child-seer Mira who showed Niko that his future was tied to the hot female bodyguard who handed him his ass the first time they met.
Writing this book was a hell of a good time, and I hope it shows in the text. It was also a challenge, because in addition to the romance and the action plot of Niko and Renata’s story, I was also introducing new characters and weaving external suspense threads that would continue into the rest of the series.
It is in Veil of Midnight that the storyline of my next book, Ashes of Midnight , starts to unfold. Since the arrival of Berlin Darkhaven leader Andreas Reichen in Midnight Awakening and his further involvement in Midnight Rising , I knew I wanted to include him in the series in a more meaningful way. This goes back to my own German roots, and to my awareness of how unusual it is to find German characters in American commercial fiction—romance, in particular—who are not straight-up Nazis or some other brand of bad guy. Plus, I really loved Reichen!
It was difficult tearing his world down so completely. I loved the relationship he had with his long-time human lover, Helene. I loved his Darkhaven family in Berlin, such as the young mated couple with the new baby who’d only recently named Reichen godfather. I loved the life he had in Berlin, and I loved his easy-going, charming personality.
But there’s a popular saying among writers: Kill your darlings.
The fact was, the way I’d written it so far, Reichen’s life was perfectly settled. His storyline thus far did nothing to move the series forward. Reichen had no conflict, had made no mistakes in life, had no enemies… or did he?
I realized that to give him a compelling story of his own, I needed to first destroy everything I loved about him. It sounds really cruel, but one thing I’ve learned
Dear reader, meet Renata.
Naturally, a woman like that needs an equally strong partner. I couldn’t think of anyone more suited to go toe-to-toe with Renata than the adrenaline-junkie, combat-loving, gear-head of the Order, Siberian-born Nikolai.
As you can probably tell from the playlist of music I listened to while working on Veil of Midnight , Niko and Renata’s story was hard-driving, fast and gritty, full of action. It was also sexy and dark, at times very tender. I strive to make each Midnight Breed book feel new and different from the others, while still maintaining a sense of cohesion within the series. Veil of Midnight was certainly different from the others, but it also marks a turning point in the series. One that set the second half of the series into motion, but also laid the groundwork for what I didn’t know at the time—that the ending I’d plotted for Book 10 would actually be the beginning of a whole new generation of characters and a further arc in the series as a whole.
Which brings me to Mira.
Now, I’m not really into kids. I never had any of my own, whether that was the result of too many teenage years of babysitting jobs or something else, I don’t know. But as I was plotting this book, I realized that for all of Renata’s toughness and almost superhero invincibility, she needed to have a soft underbelly. She needed something to make her vulnerable, and I mean something aside from the reverb migraines she suffered after using her mind-blasting ESP talent. Renata needed to care about something, about some one.
And that someone was an eight-year-old orphan girl (a young Breedmate with the gift of precognition) whom Renata had rescued from a Montreal blood club run by Renata’s future employer, the nefarious Gen One, Sergei Yakut.
It was Sergei Yakut who brought Nikolai to Montreal on a mission for the Order, but it was the child-seer Mira who showed Niko that his future was tied to the hot female bodyguard who handed him his ass the first time they met.
Writing this book was a hell of a good time, and I hope it shows in the text. It was also a challenge, because in addition to the romance and the action plot of Niko and Renata’s story, I was also introducing new characters and weaving external suspense threads that would continue into the rest of the series.
It is in Veil of Midnight that the storyline of my next book, Ashes of Midnight , starts to unfold. Since the arrival of Berlin Darkhaven leader Andreas Reichen in Midnight Awakening and his further involvement in Midnight Rising , I knew I wanted to include him in the series in a more meaningful way. This goes back to my own German roots, and to my awareness of how unusual it is to find German characters in American commercial fiction—romance, in particular—who are not straight-up Nazis or some other brand of bad guy. Plus, I really loved Reichen!
It was difficult tearing his world down so completely. I loved the relationship he had with his long-time human lover, Helene. I loved his Darkhaven family in Berlin, such as the young mated couple with the new baby who’d only recently named Reichen godfather. I loved the life he had in Berlin, and I loved his easy-going, charming personality.
But there’s a popular saying among writers: Kill your darlings.
The fact was, the way I’d written it so far, Reichen’s life was perfectly settled. His storyline thus far did nothing to move the series forward. Reichen had no conflict, had made no mistakes in life, had no enemies… or did he?
I realized that to give him a compelling story of his own, I needed to first destroy everything I loved about him. It sounds really cruel, but one thing I’ve learned
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