GENRE:
Paranormal Steam.
SETTING:
Southern Louisiana, and elsewhere around the globe.
SEX:
That Cole’s website’s tagline is “Passion is power” should tell you pretty much all you need to know on that score.
OUR HEROINE(S):
Smart, powerful and sexually liberated. (Plus, y’know. Beautiful.)
OUR HERO(ES):
Tormented, solitary and intriguingly inexperienced. (Plus, y’know. Beautiful.)
LOVE RIVAL(S):
Oddly? None, really.
SIDEKICKS:
The Valkyries and Witches of Cole’s are friends and, for lack of a better word, colleagues. Pixilated Valkyrie soothsayer Nix is one of the finest comic creations in this genre ever.
VOICE:
Third person.
VAMPIRE MYTHOLOGY:
The world is secretly populated with mythical creatures – not just Vampires, but Furies, Fey, Shifters, Valkyries, and you name it. Their world is called The Lore. Lorekind walk among us as human… but they are not human. Every five hundred years or so, a battle for supremacy among the various factions, the Accession, erupts.
STATUS:
Secret.
SOCIETY:
Modern, with some flashbacks to the good old days.
NOTABLE POWERS:
Cole’s vampires can teleport, but only to places they’ve already been.
CREATION:
Humans can be turned, and in fact the powerful Vampire army known as the Forebearers consists of turned humans.
WEAKNESSES:
A male Vampire must take a Bride, an eternal mate; until he does so, he walks as the undead, with no breath or heartbeat. No word about what female Vampires need. Isn’t that always the case?
FOOD SOURCE:
Blood, although some vampires refuse to drink directly from the flesh as a matter of principle.
OTHER LEGENDS:
See above: Furies, Fey, Lykae (lycans), Wendigo, Seers, pretty much anything else you can think of, and quite possibly a few that you haven’t.
BOOKS:
Sixteen so far. They start with novella The Warlord Wants Forever (2006), followed by A Hunger Like No Other (2006) and the titles get progressively more, um, evocative: No Rest for the Wicked (2006), Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night (2007), etc.
RECENT:
Sweet Ruin came out in 2015.
FORTHCOMING:
Both Shadow’s Seduction and Wicked Abyss are out in 2017.
OTHER MEDIA:
There is an Immortals After Dark Role Playing Game, if you’d like to join.
MERCHANDISE:
Nothing of note.
ANALYSIS:
Cole’s “kitchen sink” approach to storytelling (Vampires! Werewolves! Sex! Fey! Valkyries! More Sex! Still more sex!) ensures that there’s pretty much never a dull moment in her books.
WEBSITE:
QUOTE:
“‘Once I faced a female with diamond skin,’ Nix said breathlessly. ‘I was transfixed–even as she was choking the life out of me.’
‘Really?’
‘No, I saw that character on X-Men. I just wanted to commiserate. Alas, I have no weaknesses.’” — Pleasure of a Dark Prince (2010)