Since it's friday, it's vampires ' day.... however being quite sick i haven't managed to read a book i could share with you so i decided to make a short comparison between two series Black Dagger Brotherhood series written by JR Ward and the Midnight Breed Series by Lara Adrian. Why? because while speaking to a friend with have come to see the similarities and differences beteween these series and i thought i could share that with you.
First i will precise that i'm reading those series in French so there are a lot of books not translated yet, perhaps my opinion will change later but so far here i'm.
In both series, we are confronted to a class of warriors who are not really accepted by the vampires’ society. They are outcast with a reputation to be barbarians, violent, for some they should not exist anymore. With the violence and attacks becoming more frequent their reputation is a little better but still they aren’t invited to the famous reunion and people prefer to avoid them.
In the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, there is a little difference in the way that they also have a school for future warrior (a way to recruit those who fit the role) and that there is a hierarchy so if the warrior come from a noble family then he still has that power even if he is a warrior.
In the Midnight Breed series, the hierarchy comes with the blood: the less generation you have between you and the original aliens the more powerful you are (GEN1 are the sons of the original aliens.) Because yes, here vampire are in fact aliens descendants. However, for the ones who are several generation below, the hierarchy comes with politics alliance and such and for them warrior are the problem not the solution.
The plot: we have several similarities in the stories but the main one is how the story is told. In both series we start with the leader romance, in both series we have one warrior emotionally scarred, one disfigured or with a physical weakness so reading both can give you an impression of “déjà vu” sometimes.
One big difference for me is the women’s status. In the Midnight Breed series vampires are all male. Their women are human female who have a special mark somewhere on their body. By regular blood exchange those can see their life expanded. Normally when they are found, because rare, they are precious, a blood exchange create a definitive link so blood isn’t a little matter. Often they grow in vampire community where they are protected and cherished. However some are found later or never and are in the “human world”. The thing is that these special women all have a specific power (they transmit it to their son) can be seeing ghosts, healing, telepathy, etc.
In the Black Dagger brotherhood series, vampires can be male or female, some female are in a sacred cast, kind of priestess, normally at the service of the warrior cast. They are supposed to give their blood to unmated warrior etc. Because, yes, here vampires drink vampires blood. They could drink human one but it’s not sufficient. The “divinity” is female but I really don’t like her, she is too cruel to my taste. The rest of the vampire females are under the power of their father, bother or mate, not really free. Supposedly it’s for their protection but for long nothing was done to those who abused that power.
It’s the female part that makes my heart prefer the Midnight Breed series, I love the fact that they aren’t puppet, they have power and don’t hesitate to use it to help the men the love and to protect them. In the Black Dagger brotherhood, they are more submitted, some are different but they are considered less and it bothers me. I will still continue both series a bit but the one by Lara Adrian has my preference so far.
Did you read those series? What do you think?
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