Coop de Book Pick ~ Children of the Night by Mercedes Lackey (Miss Carriger Recommends)

September’s book pick, for those of you participating in the read along, is Children of the Night by Mercedes Lackey. This is a reread for me, but a welcome one.

Originally published in 1990, this is the second book in Lackey’s short lived but much beloved Diana Treagarthe Investigates series. (There’s wild rumors as to why she gave up on this series ~ buy me a drink sometime and I’ll tell you about them.) I’m not a huge fan of the first installment, and I think Children of the Night stands well enough alone, so that’s why I chose it.

Perhaps more importantly, Children of the Night introduces us to André. I thought you all might enjoy reading not only my first encounter with urban fantasy but also the origin (in Gail’s psyche) of the sexy vampire archetype. I think Lackey does it better than anyone else and to this day I love André with an undying devotion.

This is going to be interesting for me, I’ve never read this book with my critic/writer hat on.

Cogent information:

• There are three books in this series: (Burning Water, Children of the Night, and Jinx High).
• There’s some suggestion Diana’s world might jive with some of Lackey’s other urban fantasies (like the elves in LA series), but no concrete evidence.
• There are three Diana shorts as well, if you really like the character. “Arcanum 101” is in Trio of Sorcery and features Diana in college. Two (written before the books) can be found in Werehunter: “Satanic, Versus” in which Diana attends Romance Writers’s Halloween costume party (also featuring Robert Harrison from Lackey’s role-playing game Bureau 13: Stalking the Night Fantastic) and “Nightside,” the first Diana story which grew to become Children of the Night.
• Andre, my first romantic vampire influenced not only how I write them, but Quesnel’s character in The Custard Protocol series.

Don’t want to read this book? I’ll probably also be reading the follow up to last month’s Clockwork Heart, Clockwork Lies as well as rereading Diana.

{What is Gail’s Book Group reading for September? Children of the Night by Mercedes Lackey}

GAIL’S DAILY DOSE

Your Moment of Parasol . . .

1866-1868  The Philadelphia Museum of Art

Your Infusion of Cute . . .

Your Tisane of Smart . . .
The Barn Looks Like It’s Wearing an Invisibility Cloak

Your Writerly Tinctures . . .  
Colonels of Industry

Book News:

@TheTwinsRead  on Twitter “Nicole’s Nails inspired by @gailcarriger ‘s Etiquette and Espionage”

Quote of the Day:
“Everything I eat has been proved by some doctor or other to be a deadly poison, and everything I don’t eat has been proved to be indispensable for life.  But I go marching on.”
~ George Bernard Shaw