Chicagoland Vampires Vk

[Elia Khensamphanh]

They killed me. They healed me. They changed me. Sure, the life of a graduate student wasn't exactly glamorous, but it was mine. I was doing fine until Chicago's vampires announced their existence to the world---and then a rogue vampire attacked me. But he only got a sip before he was scared away by another bloodsucker...and this one decided that the best way to save my life was to make me the walking undead. Turns out my savior was the master vampire of Cadogan House. Now I've traded sweating over my thesis for learning to fit in at a Hyde Park mansion full of vamps loyal to Ethan "Lord o' the Manor" Sullivan. Of course, as a tall, green-eyed, four-hundred-year-old vampire, he has centuries' worth of charm, but unfortunately he expects my gratitude---and servitude. Right. But my burgeoning powers (all of a sudden, I'm surprisingly handy with some serious weaponry), an inconvenient sunlight allergy, and Ethan's attitude are the least of my concerns. Someone's still out to get me. Is it the rogue vampire who bit me? A vamp from a rival House? An angry mob bearing torches? My initiation into Chicago's nightlife may be the first skirmish in a war---and there will be blood.

Vampires generally aren't afraid of things that go bump in the night, but Merit and Ethan are extra jumpy after a recent attack by a dark sorcerer. So when they learn someone is messing with graves in Chicago's cemeteries, they fear their powerful foe might be back for even more magical vengeance. But after a specter begins haunting Cadogan House - and targeting vampires - they realize they're being taunted by an altogether different sort of monster. A ghoulish villain straight out of the Windy City's urban legends is on the prowl - and he won't stop until he's killed again....

Merit, the Sentinel of Chicago's Cadogan House, is pregnant. She's ready to meet her daughter but also excited to see her feet again. While out on an evening walk, Merit stops to help a man in need, only to find herself the victim of a kidnapping attempt. Someone with a serious debt to some very serious people thinks Cadogan House will pay a rich reward for Merit's return.

Since Merit was turned into a vampire, and the protector of Chicago's Cadogan House, it's been a wild ride. She and Master vampire Ethan Sullivan have helped make Cadogan's vampires the strongest in North America, and forged ties with paranormal folk of all breeds and creeds, living or dead ... or both.

But now those alliances are about to be tested. A strange and twisted magic has ripped through the North American Central Pack, and Merit's closest friends are caught in the crosshairs. Gabriel Keene, the Pack Apex, looks to Merit and Ethan for help. But who - or what - could possibly be powerful enough to out-magic a shifter

Chloe Neill was born in the south of the USA and currently resides in Nebraska. SOME GIRLS BITE was her debut novel and the first in the Chicagoland Vampires series. She is also the author of the YA Dark Elite series.

Along with ghosts, vampires are solidly in the pantheon of go-to horror staples. What makes this one unique is that the story is told from the perspective of the vampires, humanizing them, so to speak. It treats their hunting and feeding as natural and necessary functions.

This book (and series) lean more toward the paranormal romance side of urban fantasy, but it also has a dark and gritty noir feel that walks the line of horror. This genre mash-up checked all the boxes for me, keeping me invested in the characters, the world, and the heart-pounding plot.

I was born and raised on the beautiful Canadian prairies and prefer to spend my time outdoors with my family, kayaking, skating, fishing, and hunting. I love to read and write about vampires, witches, fae, and zombies that get to find their own version of happily ever after.

Anyone looking for an addictive urban fantasy series needs to read this. Merit is a strong female lead character that rises to the challenges that come with her new undead way of life. Intense world building with lots of vamp politics. Just the right amount of mystical blended with reality to give me hope that vampires really walk among us.

As a writer who's struggled through building a lot of worlds and making them credible, I always admire a writer who can make me believe their world from the first paragraph. That conviction should go beyond belief. The reader should have great anticipation watching this world unfold, in learning how it works. All the writers I've mentioned achieved this goal, and exceeded it. My hat is off to them.

The Chicagoland Vampires is a Urban Fantasy series by Chloe Neill that takes place in a world where vampires have come out to the public. Caroline Merit is a 28 year old graduate student who is savagely attacked by a vampire on the university grounds, only to have an Emergency Transformation by 400-year-old vampire lord Ethan Sullivan.

Less than pleased at having her life upended by the handsome aristocract, Merit still finds herself developing into an extremely capable vampire warrior. She is soon named Sentinel of House Cadogan, one of the twelve noble houses of the American vampire nation. What follows is a struggle to integrate vampires (and other supernaturals) into the rest of the world while constantly dealing with those who would destroy them.

• All Myths Are True: Certainly a lot of them with fairies, vampires, mages, and shifters.
• The Beautiful Elite: All non-Rogue vampires are selected for beauty, wealth, and talent. The vampire race can afford to be choosy with immortality.
• Blue Blood:
• The Merits of Chicago are one of the city's richest families. Merit, by contrast, is a blue jeans and t-shirt sort of girl.
• Vampires are this themselves, as they're all divided into noble houses led by vampires, except for Rogues.
• Brainless Beauty: The nymphs are gorgeous, buxom, thin, and apparently none too bright.
• Derailing Love Interests: Morgan continually sides with Celina against Merit until he is dumped by her.
• Emergency Transformation: Merit had her throat torn out and had to be transformed into a vampire to save her life.
• Fantastic Racism: One of the chief conflicts of the setting is that the people of Chicago gradually turn against the vampires of the city, due to all the craziness which goes on around them. This includes riots, hate groups, and vampire hunters.
• Feudal Future: More like Feudal Present, with vampires operating via feudalism in the modern era.
• Food Porn: Every book will spend a chapter or so describing Chicago fried food in loving detail, which the vampires of this universe can eat and enjoy without consequence.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampires: Some of the friendliest in fiction. They drink artificial blood, don't need to kill to feed, cannot turn unless they have permission, and don't have mind-control powers or a Horror Hunger. Indeed, most vampires don't even drink blood from humans.
• Fur Against Fang: A Downplayed Trope example. Shifters don't like vampires and vice versa. Averted in later books after they form an alliance.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Ethan throws himself in front of a stake to save Merit and dies. He gets better, though.
• Hufflepuff House: House Grey serves as this for the first half of the series, not contributing anything to any of the stories. Averted when they join House Cadogan in rebelling against the GP.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Merit would prefer to be a grad student versus an immortal sexpot. She eventually gets over it.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Despite being a European house, House Cadogan and the other vampire houses use katana.
• Magical Sensory Effect: Different aromas are given off when magic is used. A vampire with the ability to Mind Rape people who appeared in the novel Dark Debt smelt like Whisky, as an example.
• Shout-Out:
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer gets a lot of nods.
• Ethan has never seen The Godfather, which horrifies Merit.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: When Seth Tate is replaced, the next mayor proves to be a supernatural hating bigot.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Ethan Sullivan takes this attitude with Merit for awhile. While Merit blames him for turning her without her permission, Ethan points out she would be dead otherwise and that she's been given a great gift from his perspective. It informs a lot of their early tension.
• Our Vampires Are Different: They can eat food (and derive great pleasure from it), they don't have to drink from living subjects, they're killed by sunlight, they're very fast, they're very strong, they can't change shape, only some of them can "glamour" people, and they live forever unless killed. Wooden stakes will kill them but a wooden bullet will also do it.
• Vampires Are Rich: House Cadogan certainly is. It's a Downplayed Trope example as while they do all live in an enormous mansion, it's more like a dorm and they get a comfortable but not ludicrous stipend.
• Vampire Monarch: Every house is headed by a Master who rules over it as a king. Indeed, every vampire in them has to address them as "my liege." They are all under the Greewich Presidium, which is headed by a vampire council.
• Weird Trade Union: The Order, which heads up America's sorcerers, is explicitly a union rather than a ruling body. It primarily negotiates the services of sorcerers.

Chicagoland Vampires is a series of urban fantasy/paranormal romance novels by American author Chloe Neill. The Chicago-based series follows a 28 year-old English lit Ph.D candidate named Merit who has been turned vampire and now joined the prestigious Cadogan House. Not only are vampires present in the series, but there are other beings, including shapeshifters, sorcerers, witches, nymphs, fairies, angels, demons and trolls. Vampires are so far the only supernatural beings who have gone public with their existence.

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