Night World — (1996-2010) Young adult. These have been re-released in omnibus editions, but you can find used copies of the original versions by clicking through to Amazon. The first omnibus contains Secret Vampire, Daughters of Darkness, Spellbinder. The second omnibus contains Dark Angel, The Chosen, Soulmate. The third contains Huntress, Black Dawn, Witchlight. Publisher:
The pain was something Poppy couldn't ignore. The diagnosis was death. There was no hope — until James appeared in the darkened hospital room. James, her best friend and secret love, the handsomest boy in El Camino High. But this was a James she didn't know, menacing yet irresistible as he offered Poppy the gift of eternal life. Only he could open the door to the Night World, and spirit her into its lonely, secret universe. One dizzying kiss and she can see into his soul. She finds that he has always loved her. They're soulmates — but can she follow him into death and beyond? It's a desperate choice, and Poppy's time is running out...
   
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 The Night World: Volume 1
So This is the Night World…
First published between 1996-1998, Lisa Jane Smith's Night World series was released as a ten-book series...only the final book never arrived. Smith took a ten-year hiatus from writing, leaving the final book unwritten and the steadily-building story incomplete. But now, finally, the end is in sight. Simon and Schuster are republishing the series in three-book omnibuses in anticipation for Strange Fate the last in the series that has left us hanging for over ten years.
Like so many, I was a teenager when I first began reading her books and it was a certain sense of nostalgia that brought me back again. Although her stories stretch a certain amount of credibility, they are undoubtedly superior to most run-of-the-mill supernatural teen books. The basis premise is a winner: "the Night World" is a secret society made up of vampires, witches and shapeshifters that live in total secrecy among humankind. The superior numbers of humans have driven them into hiding, but they still consider themselves superior to the "vermin" that surround them. As such, there are only two rules regarding their treatment to the human race: that they are never to be told about the Night World, and never to fall in love with one of them.
What follows is a series of somewhat interrelated stories that tell just what happens when (wait for it) these rules get broken. Although the beginning of the series tells more stand-alone stories, later on the series begins to deal with plot-points and characters that cross-over from book to book, including the coming apocalypse and the measures that both good and evil take in order to prepare for it. Although the first four or so books tend to be less exciting than later installments, they do set the ground-work for the series as a whole, introducing us to several concepts and characters, as well as the mythos and history of the Night World that provide background and resonance. One fun aspect is the use of cameos and namedrops of characters that appear in past/future books (Ash pops up frequently), and a surprisingly complex history of the Night World.
Secret Vampire deals with life-long friends vivacious Poppy and stoic James, who reassess their relationship when Poppy is diagnosed with cancer. Since it is terminal, James comes up with a new solution: turn Poppy into a vampire, like himself, despite the fact that such a thing is forbidden by the laws of the Night World.
It is an intriguing premise, but not quite as strong an opening into the series as it could have been. Poppy is a bit of a nitwit, doing something amazingly stupid toward the end of the story, and there's a contrived dues ex machine ending (yes, it's foreshadowed...but still).
Daughters of Darkness follows a murder-mystery plotline, as three vampire sisters arrive at Briar Creek only to find that the great-aunt they've arranged to stay with has been staked through the heart. From a nearby hill, astronomer Mary-Lynette watches with astonishment as the girls bury a body-bag in the front garden, and soon has her young brother Mark helping her investigate the three newcomers.
But when the girls' older brother Ash comes to town in order to drag his sisters home, he finds himself caught up in the mysteries that pervade Briar Hollow, particularly his strange connection to Mary-Lynette. Ash is probably one of Smith's most popular characters, and the Ash/Mary-Lynette relationship is the only one in which the destined-soulmates deal actually works for me. Maybe it's because neither character is too keen on the idea, maybe because the story ends a little bittersweetly. Either way, Smith pulls it off.
Finally, in Spellbinder Smith turns her attention away from vampires and focuses on witches, namely two witchy cousins: Thea and Blaise Harman. Thea tries to stay out of trouble, whilst Blaise enjoys playing with the human world for fun — making boys fall in love with her before discarding them. But Thea is the one in deep trouble when she falls in love with a human, something that only endangers him from both Blaise and the Night World.
Once again, this installment is a little weak. The main plot has too many fits and starts, and is littered with numerous subplots. There are several elements that have been borrowed by Smith's previous trilogy The Secret Circle (in fact, Thea and Blaise themselves are pretty much carbon-copies of Diana and Faye) and Thea/Eric simply aren't that interesting, especially on the heels of Ash/Mary-Lynette.
If you enjoy teen-supernatural-romance-thriller type books, but find that this particular omnibus is a bit bland, then I'd recommend hanging on for just a bit longer. On the whole, the three stories are interesting and competently told, despite a few shortcuts taken in the narrative (often they rely on someone acting like an idiot, and the concept of "soulmates" is a way of forming insta-couples out of thin air). But they are still entertaining reads, and the series as a whole improves significantly by book five.
Even though this series is veritably full of good-looking vampires, the female protagonists have more to do with their lives than moon over them incessantly. They have their own friends and family, their hobbies, dreams and ambitions, and more often than not choose humanity over vampirehood. Furthermore, they themselves play essential parts in decision-making, take personal responsibility for their actions, and more often than not, end up saving both their love interests and the day.
Many teenage girls goes through a stage of crushing on a fictional vampire anti-hero and wishing they could be a female protagonist in a book. They could do worse than one of LJ Smith's characters. MUCH worse.
For a trip down memory lane, it was great to catch up with this familiar “world-within-a-world” and the characters that inhabit it. LJ Smith has recently begun a new trilogy that serves as a sequel to her most famous series The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Nightfall, which sadly has not been well-received by readers. Let's hope things shape up before Strange Fate. —Rebecca Fisher
 The Night World: Volume 2
There Is Plenty of Darkness...
The first omnibus edition of The Night World sets up the basic premise of the Night World, introducing several concepts and characters that pop up again in later books, and are quick, entertaining reads. But it's not until the fifth story (found in this collection) in the series that things really get moving, and Smith begins to draw on her established history of the Night World, bring back past characters, and begin to set the scene for more epic things to come.
Dark Angel is unfortunately the weakest book in the entire series, namely because it has little to do with the Night World at all. Gillian Lennox is walking home from school one day when she's overcome by hypothermia and succumbs to the cold. Yet on her way up the infamous "tunnel of light" she is met by a spirit who calls himself her guardian angel and sends her back to earth, claiming that it is not yet her time.
But when she revives, she realizes that her "Angel" has come with her and acts as her guide in gaining much-coveted popularity in her school, as well as the attention of her long-time crush David. And yet, as time goes by, Angel starts to make more sinister demands of her that begin to have dangerous repercussions to those around her.
To introduce a character by having her wander off alone into the woods to investigate a strange noise is certainly not the best way, and Gillian never comes across as particularly bright. Likewise, her connection with David is undoubtedly the blandest romance in the entire series (and he doesn't seem to be a particularly good catch anyway, only noticing her after she's changed her physical appearance, and almost kissing her whilst already having a girlfriend). Although Gillian does have a connection to the Night World, and we do get a cameo appearance from Ash, it doesn't make up the bulk of the story, and this story would have been better as a stand-alone novel rather than a book in a series.
But it is the next two stories in this collection in which things really start to get interesting.
The Chosen centers around Rashel Jordan, a young woman whose mother and brother were killed by a vampire when she was just a child. Now she spends her nights hunting down vampires, sometimes with a group of fellow vampire-hunters, but often by herself. However, during a mission to investigate the disappearance of several girls in the area, she is horrified to discover that she's compelled to let a captive vampire go free after her fellow hunters resort to torture.
Thus she is forced to act alone when she rescues a teenage girl and discovers that the vampires in the area (including the one she spared, Quinn) have been kidnapping humans for the slave trade. Going undercover, she plans to get into the local club, become one of Quinn's "chosen" and get herself into one of the hidden vampire enclaves. Of course, it doesn't quite go as smoothly as that, but The Chosen is suspenseful, surprising and even rather poignant at times.
Finally Soulmate really brings Smith's idea of the soulmate principal to the fore, in the installment that is probably more centered on romance than any of the others (and has the most convincing couple since Ash/Mary-Lynette). Hannah Snow goes to a psychiatrist in order to understand the reason for her nightmares and the strange warning notes that she's subconsciously writing to herself. Undergoing hypnosis, Hannah travels back through her numerous past lives in which she is apparently the victim of a vampire that stalks her down through the ages.
Despite several plot-holes, Soulmate is one of the better ones simply because we get a large chunk of the Night World's history as well as plenty of foreshadowing as to what's to come (namely, our first mention of the apocalypse) and appearances from nearly all of the main characters of the previous books. Smith has always had fun with cameos and namedropping in previous books, but for the first time we finally get a sense of the collective movement of certain organizations and the impact they have on Smith's created sub-world.
The Night World series shouldn't be mistaken for anything other than light reading for young teenagers, but there is a certain weight and gravitas to Smith's stories that lift them above your standard vampire/supernatural/romance fare (or maybe that's just the nostalgia talking). In either case, the series goes from strength to strength, as by the next omnibus, things get even darker for our assorted heroes. The female characters are intelligent, self-sufficient, and never wait around for their boyfriends to come save them, and the stories themselves are brisk, interesting, and build on a solid-gold premise of mystery and danger.
Although the "soulmate principle" does feel like a somewhat lazy way of bringing too people together without them having to get to know each other (hmm, sounds like another vampire/human girl couple I know...) at least in this case the concept has a purpose in the larger story-arc of the Night World and humankind reaching some kind of peace together, and both parties have to work in order to enjoy their togetherness. Hopefully, our ten-year wait for the final book in the series Strange Fate, will be worth it.
—Rebecca Fisher
The Night World: Volume 3
Four to Stand Between the Light and the Shadow...
Whereas the first Night World omnibus set up the basic concept for the Night World and the rules in place for its existence, the second began to give the sense that all the stories were interconnected rather than one-off stories. With each installment, more was learned about the history of the sub-world, the concept of soulmates, and (particularly in this final omnibus) the coming of the end of the world. Such was the case for the first nine books in this series, but unfortunately, the final book in the series was never published, leaving readers hanging as to how the story ended.
For example, despite the fact that each book features a new female protagonist, other secondary characters often pop up in cameo appearances, and there is the sense that the world around them is changing as each book goes on. Concepts such as Circle Daybreak and the soulmate principal grow and adapt in meaning, and we get assorted clues that we are headed toward an apocalyptic battle between good and evil.
This is especially clear in this, the final omnibus in the series, in which Smith introduces the idea of the Wild Powers and the apocalypse. It is prophesied that at the turn of the millennium (hmm, since that's come and gone without a hitch, I think we can assume that the good guys were successful) the world will be plunged into chaos and darkness, and only four individuals known as the Wild Powers have any chance of stopping it. But since the prophesied "chaos and darkness" is of the unspecified sort, many Night World inhabitants believe that this is their chance to take back control of the world and see the Wild Powers as a threat.
Therefore, it is up to Circle Daybreak, an organization committed to securing peace between all the races, to not only identify the Wild Powers, but to keep them save from the Night World, secure their cooperation in the coming battle, and help them harness their inherent ability to call up blue fire. All they have to help them in this task is a prophesy that provides clues as to who these Wild Powers are:
One from the land of kings long forgotten,
One from the hearth which still holds the spark,
One from the Day World where two eyes are watching,
One from the twilight to be one with the dark.
Huntress concerns Jez Redfern, a young vampire who is horrified to discover that her mother was a human, making her an unheard-of human/vampire hybrid. Leaving her close-knit gang of vampires, she turns her back on her past and joins Circle Daybreak, living with her mother's human family and secretly hunting down renegade Night World citizens in her spare time.
She isn't quite successful in juggling her double-life (especially not with her suspicious cousin Clare), but that's hardly her most pressing concern when Circle Daybreak recruits her for a new mission. It would seem that they have information on a Wild Power: someone in the Night World claims to have found one. The reason Jez has been chosen is because the person who is proposing to sell this information to the highest bidder is none other than Morgead Blackthorn, a member of her old gang.
Going undercover into her old territory, and hiding the terrible secret of her lineage as she investigates Morgead's claim, Jez attempts to uncover the mystery of the potential Wild Power before any of her former-friends catch on to what she's really up to.
It is in Black Dawn that a suspenseful complex story and the strongest protagonist of the entire series are united in order to make the undisputed best book of the entire series. When Maggie Neely learns that her brother disappeared and is presumed dead whilst mountain climbing, she immediately suspects that his girlfriend's story is a lie. Trailing Sylvia back to her apartment, she confronts the older girl, only to pass out and wake up in a slave-trader's cart.
While unconscious, Maggie has been transported to a secret enclave within the Night World: a hidden kingdom in the mountains that is permanently cut-off from the human world save for the kidnapping of slaves to work in the castle that lies at its center. Along with three other slaves (that include a mysterious young blind girl) Maggie manages to escape only to find herself caught up in the fate of the kingdom and the people therein.
Even out of the context of the rest of the series Black Dawn is a great story. Smith manages to juggle several subplots, including Maggie's search for her brother, her escape from the slave-traders, her relationship with the vampire Prince Delos, the identity of the next Wild Power (the one from "the land of kings long forgotten"), and the political machinations that go on in the Night World. Maggie is without a doubt her strongest, most realistic protagonist who manages to be both tough and compassionate.
In Witchlight Smith finally turns her attention toward shape-shifters, the race that we know the least about. Here, a werepanther called Keller leads a three-person team consisting of herself, a witch and a vampire to retrieve the third Wild Power. As well as this, Iliana Dominick also happens to be the Witch Child: the young woman prophesied to marry the son of the First House of shape-shifters and in doing so unify the shape-shifter and witch families.
Keller's problems are threefold. Firstly, Iliana is a "lost witch," raised as a human, who has no knowledge or intention whatsoever in doing what is expected of her. Secondly, Keller is horrified to discover that a dragon (one of the original shape-shifters) has been awakened, and instigating serious trouble among the shifters. Thirdly, she herself has fallen in love with Galen Drache, the man to whom Iliana is to be betrothed to in order to secure peace.
Witchlight was my favorite when I was young, and so it was perhaps inevitable that it would be a little disappointing on revisiting it. There's so many plot-holes, unlikely scenarios and assorted silliness that credibility is stretched a little too far, even for what is essentially a series that was never meant to be taken too seriously. Why does the team risk war just because Iliana wants to go to a party? Why doesn't Keller recognize her own crown-prince? What exactly does it mean to be the "Witch Child" and why haven't we ever heard of it before? And why, why, WHY does an elite swat team, specializing in covert missions and secrecy drive around in a white limousine? Yes, you read that right. A white limousine.
As a general critique, I've never been a big fan of "the soulmate principal," which basically concerns two characters falling in love without taking the time to get to know each other, just because they're "destined" for one another. This concept in the previous books has always been hit-and-miss, sometimes successful (Ash/Mary-Lynette, Thierry/Hannah) sometimes unconvincing (Thea/Eric, Gillian/David). By this final omnibus, it just feels formulaic. Two characters meet, have a weird outer-body experience with pretty lights in which they find themselves able to read each other's minds, and then announce themselves in love (whether they like it or not).
But on the whole, this final installment in the series contains three of the best stories in the series, in which threads that have been started in previous books begin to weave together in preparation for the final book. There is plenty here that Smith needs to wrap up, including the final line of the prophesy "one from the twilight to be one with the dark," the cryptic words of the dragon who claims it was awoken by "a witch who is not a witch," and the ominous words of the Night World portend which says: "In blue fire, the final darkness is banished. In blood, the final price is paid."
And as a special bonus, we get a sneak peek at the first chapter of the forthcoming final book in the series.
I've waited ten years for the end of this series. My inner-teen has been embraced, a space has been cleared on my bookshelf. I'm all primed and ready for Strange Fate. —Rebecca Fisher
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The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Nightfall
The Forbidden Game
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