The Midnight Breed Series Companion Part 3

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 & n.o.ble, 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 pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sion-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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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.

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 pa.s.sing 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 relations.h.i.+p as wide-eyed innocents or reckless people easily caught up in a hot pa.s.sion 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 partners.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sociate 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 pa.s.sion 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 Ma.s.sachusetts senator Bobby Clarence's North Sh.o.r.e residence Order's compound headquarters in undisclosed location in Boston Playlist Through h.e.l.l 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 a.s.sa.s.sin 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 Bloodl.u.s.t. 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 a.s.sistant, 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.

But Darker After Midnight proved to be a bigger book than I antic.i.p.ated. It took longer for me to get it just right. When I finally turned it in to my editor, she told me it was the best one in the series so far. It was a big book, she said, with a big book feel. And because of that, Random House was going to release it in hardcover. Which meant an even further delay in publication than if the book had come out as a ma.s.s market original.

Deeper Than Midnight released at the end of June, 2011. It debuted on the New York Times at what remains my highest showing on that list, the #3 spot. Since my last release, the Times had recently begun tracking ebook sales in addition to print, and Deeper Than Midnight also placed high on the ebook/print combined, coming in at #5. It stayed for two weeks on the New York Times, USA Today (peaking at #12) and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists.

It was around this time that Random House also made an offer for my next two books. I had already decided I was having too much fun with the Midnight Breed world to let go now-and I also had this germ of an idea for a second story arc that could feature an all-new generation of Order warriors in a near-future setting.

As we went to work on a contract for what would become Books 11 and 12 of the series, I also pitched the idea of the series Companion you're reading now. My editor liked the concept-and the plan to include Gideon and Savannah's story as an original novella-but ultimately Random House and I could not agree on how to publish the book. They wanted to do it ebook only, with the potential of a limited-run hardcover release if, and only if, sales of the ebook were robust enough.

I was adamant that the Companion release in both print and ebook formats. And besides, with the industry changing so rapidly, giving authors more and more freedom to publish their work independently, I decided to decline their offer and table the Companion until I could do it on my own.

A Taste of Midnight BOOK 9.5.

(novella) Romantic Leads Danika MacConn Malcolm MacBain, aka Brannoc Plot Summary A widowed Breedmate of the Order, raising her infant son alone after the death of her warrior mate in action, seeks the solace of a Christmas in Edinburgh, Scotland-her beloved's homeland-never dreaming the holiday escape would bring her face-to-face with a deadly Breed crime boss and the dark, mysterious henchman who serves to protect him...someone she once knew-and could have loved-a long time ago.

Primary Story Locations MacConn family Darkhaven estate outside Edinburgh, Scotland Various places in and around Edinburgh, Scotland Playlist Who Wants to Live Forever by Queen Wherever You Will Go by The Calling I Will Stay by We Are The Fallen Story Background This ebook original novella came about quickly and unexpectedly. I'd recently completed the ma.n.u.script for Darker After Midnight-which was to be my first hardcover release, in January 2012-and I'd just unsuccessfully pitched the concept of a Midnight Breed Series Companion featuring a novella for Gideon and Savannah.

As we were in the midst of contract negotiations for Books 11 and 12, my editor asked about the possibility of me writing an ebook original novella to be used to fill the time gap between Deeper Than Midnight and Darker After Midnight, the idea being the new novella would also help promote the upcoming hardcover. They wanted to include an excerpt from Darker After Midnight at the end of the novella, and later on, after the book was reissued in ma.s.s market paperback, the novella would then be included as bonus material in that release.

It all sounded great to me...until they mentioned they wanted me to give them Gideon and Savannah's story to use as the ebook original novella.

Well, no way. Out of the question. As longtime readers of the series know, Gideon and Savannah met and fell in love thirty years before the timeline of Kiss of Midnight. To release their story on its own toward the big finale in Book 10 would make no sense in the fabric of the series. And on top of that, I wasn't about to pull their story-a true series prequel-out of the Companion, which is where I felt it belonged for many reasons.

I said no, and I figured that was the end of the ebook original conversation. But Random House really wanted me to write something to fill that void, so I started thinking about secondary characters and storylines that could exist if not within the overarching plot already in progress, then running parallel to it.

My first choice was Danika. And since the ebook novella would be coming out in early December, I decided to write a holiday story and set it somewhere other than where the series had been so far. Naturally, that sent my imagination to Conlan MacConn's homeland of Scotland. Edinburgh, to be specific.

In A Taste of Midnight, I wanted to craft a story that I hoped would respect the relations.h.i.+p Danika and Conlan enjoyed while he was alive, yet introduce a pa.s.sion that readers could believe in, especially considering the short storytelling timeframe a novella dictates. Danika had to fall in love fast and deeply, so I decided to give her Malcolm MacBain, a Breed male she and Con both knew very well, a very long time ago. Both Danika and Mal had lost people they loved, so giving them a happily-ever-after together seemed fitting to me.

In A Taste of Midnight, we also meet a new and intriguing Breed male from the Enforcement Agency named Thane. Although I don't have a storyline in mind for this black-haired, ruggedly handsome and mysterious man, I have a feeling we haven't seen the last of him.

A Taste of Midnight released in ebook December, 2011. It is the only Midnight Breed story not available in print on its own in the United States. Readers can only find this story in ebook, and in the back of the ma.s.s market paperback of Darker After Midnight. Danika and Malcolm's story is available as a standalone in Germany through Egmont LYX in both paperback and ebook.

Darker After Midnight BOOK 10.

Romantic Leads Sterling Chase Tavia Fairchild Plot Summary Separated from his brethren of the Order and struggling with an addiction that threatens to consume him, Sterling Chase has fallen far from grace-but he soon finds his best hope for redemption in beautiful, mysterious Tavia Fairchild, a woman unlike any other the world has ever seen.

Primary Story Locations Order's compound headquarters in undisclosed location in Boston Lazaro Archer's Darkhaven in northern Maine Dragos's island lair off coast of Maine Various locations in and around Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.

Playlist Down with the Sickness by Disturbed One Last Breath by Creed Awakening by The d.a.m.ning Well Bodies by Drowning Pool In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel Story Background After plotting out the bones of this story, the tenth of the series, back around the time I was writing Midnight Rising, when I finally approached the first chapter of Darker After Midnight it was with a mix of excitement, pride, trepidation, and even a bit of sadness.

As Lucan, Gideon and Tegan-the Order's longest-standing members of the cadre based in Boston-began to detonate the explosives that would seal the compound forever, I was right there with them, knowing it had to be done, yet not really sure what the future would hold for the Order and their world once this chapter closed.

I knew the series would continue because I had just signed with Random House for the next two books, but I didn't know if readers would be interested in a new generation of characters and a twenty-year leap into the future where the Breed no longer hid from mankind, but was struggling to find a place of peace among them. Nevertheless, the first arc of the Midnight Breed series was drawing to a close right here and now, and I had a lot of threads to finish off in Darker After Midnight.

Chief among them was the resolution of Sterling Chase's fall from grace and his ultimate redemption and healing. Things with Chase had gone from bad to worse as his story opened here. Through his bad att.i.tude and reckless behavior, he had lost the respect and friends.h.i.+p of his brethren in the Order. His spiral toward blood addiction was dancing him closer to the edge of going full Rogue. And of his own volition, he was now in human police custody, being charged in a shooting at a prominent Ma.s.sachusetts senator's private residence.

The very last thing Chase needed was to race to the rescue of a beautiful young woman who had stepped into the crosshairs of Dragos's escalating war against the Order. Then again, maybe that's just what he needed. And I'd been waiting all this time-six books' time-for Chase to come face-to-face with Tavia Fairchild and the big secret that her very existence would finally bring to light.

One thing I felt had been sorely missing from the Midnight Breed series from fairly early on was the possibility of a female Breed. Going into the series as first a trilogy, then a s.e.xtet, it wasn't long before I started chafing against my own world rule that all of the Breed were born exclusively male. But I'd also had a world rule stating that the race as a whole forbade biological and technological interference when it came to conception and birth. Aha!

So natural births produced male babies every time, but had anyone ever attempted to fiddle with biology? Certainly someone like Dragos would not be opposed to breaking Breed law to further his own mad plans....

So, back at Book 4, when I took a leap of faith and a.s.sumed the series might run as long and as far as I wanted to take it, I decided that one of the final twists in the overarching story arc would be the existence of a female vampire. But not just a female Breed, a genetic splicing of Ancient and Breedmate DNA, which would give this first-of-her-kind female the ability to blend in among humans-so long as she maintained strict medical monitoring and treatments.

She would be as strong and as powerful as any Gen One, yet have the ability to walk in the daylight and consume human food. And if she reproduced, it opened up the very real possibility of more females among the Breed-perhaps even a daywalker or two in the future.

Introducing Tavia to the series-writing the scene where Chase first realizes what she is-was one of my favorite parts of Darker After Midnight. And it was awfully fun introducing Tavia to the other members of the Order in all her hissing, vampiric glory, when Tegan, Hunter, Niko and Renata arrive at Mathias Rowan's Darkhaven in Boston to haul Chase in for some Breed-style intervention back at headquarters.

But Tavia wasn't the only big surprise in store as the series rolled toward its climax.

In Darker After Midnight, Jenna reveals through her link to the Ancient's memories that the otherworlders were not the only preternatural beings on Earth at the time of their crash-landing thousands of years ago. There was another powerful race of immortals-Atlanteans-with whom the Ancients had been fighting in a private war of their own. Some of these Atlanteans, despite being forbidden by their queen to mate with humans, had produced hybrid offspring of their own on Earth....

Daughters born with the Atlantean symbol of a teardrop falling into the cradle of a crescent moon.

This explanation of the Breedmates' origins was, I'll freely admit, an afterthought that came to me only when a reader at one of my events in Germany during my first book tour there pointed out the lack of logic in this part of the series. It bothered her, the fact that Breedmates were somehow, inexplicably special and could be born with different genetic makeup than any other human female. This reader wanted the "why" of it, and I came home determined to find an answer that not only made sense, but that would fit within the already established lore and text of the series.

Now, you might be scratching your head and thinking, Altanteans?

But go back to Kiss of Midnight. You'll find a line in the book mentioning the various civilizations that the Ancients wiped out after their arrival on Earth. One of them was Atlantis. All I had to do was find a way to connect Atlantis to the Breedmates, make sure I hadn't written myself into any corners with the histories of the Breedmates already introduced in the series, and also figure out why no one in the story world thus far would know about this connection.

The answers to all of those questions finally came to light in Darker After Midnight. Even more exciting to me, as I was putting those pieces together a few books back, I realized I also had the basis for some intriguing new characters and storylines-even a powerful new enemy, once Dragos was given his just desserts. I imagined all kinds of possibilities for the continuation-the evolution-of the Midnight Breed series, taking it in a whole new, exciting direction.

Which brings me to what I feel is the biggest twist in Darker After Midnight: the outing of the Breed to mankind.

This is another of those events in the series that I'd been writing toward since around the fourth book. One of the worst things to happen to a long-running series is stagnation. While I hadn't gotten bored writing Midnight Breed books yet, and certainly not when I was just halfway through the eventual ten-book storyline, I didn't want to fall into the trap of keeping my series on artificial life support just because it was a success and readers wanted more.

So, I started planning early for a way to shake things up. I wanted to give the series a finite resolution, while still leaving the door open in case I did want to take it further. One way to do that was to kill my darlings. No, not literally. But remember how I said in another section that happy characters make for boring fiction? The same can be said of your story world.

Granted, removing such a large piece of what made the Midnight Breed series popular with readers-the secret, hidden aspect of life among the Breed-was a risk. But I believe it was the most authentic way to close the original story arc. After all, Dragos wouldn't go down without one h.e.l.l of a fight. And he'd given plenty of evidence for anyone to a.s.sume he would be just mad enough to orchestrate a retaliation so awful and irrevocable.

Although the world they once knew no longer exists, at the end of Darker After Midnight, the Order and their mates have made it through the fire, a little battered perhaps, but unbroken. There is new life already arrived, and still more on the way.

And in the end, for all the darkness, there is also hope.

Darker After Midnight released in hardcover at the end of January, 2012, debuting on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list at #9, and on the ebook and print combined list at #8. It remained on the New York Times list for two weeks, and on the USA Today bestseller list for two weeks as well, where it reached a career high for me of #17.

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

DEDICATION.

For every reader who asked me to share this story.

Thank you for loving Gideon and Savannah. I hope this glimpse into their past will make you love them even more.

CHAPTER 1.