So what is different in The Master's Daughter?
The Master's Daughter series starts approximately seventeen years after the events of Danse Macabre. Danse Macabre, incidentally, is my point of departure from canon, since that was the most recent book when I began the series. Events of the books after DM may be hinted at, but may also be contradicted by MD fanon.
The main departure from canon, obviously, is the existence of Jean-Claude and Anita's daughter, Marvelle "Mara" Blake. I've also played with some things Laurell hinted at but never elaborated upon, like the bigotry facing preternaturals among human society and "Vlad syndrome" being the fastest-rising birth defect in the US. Those two small revelations made me think, what would happen with a rising population of children with vampire parents? Hence my idea of hybrids and hybrid society was born.
Monica Vespucci's baby with Robert was never mentioned in canon past the fact of her pregnancy. I used that as a basis for Bobby, Mara's friend and fellow hybrid.
Anita mentioned in canon that "safehouses" are maintained for lycanthropes, but in practice function more like prisons that are almost impossible for shifters to get out of. In my fanon, the ACLU won the court battles and got the safehouses shut down not long after, but the "safehouses" for military personnel infected with lycanthropy lasted much longer. (It is a sad fact that when they choose to join the armed forces, military personnel lose their own access to many of the rights civilians take for granted, even as they defend them for the rest of us.) The military safehouses were only shut down a little over a year before the events of "Friends With Fangs", over a decade after the last civilian safehouse was shut down.
There have been some changes in the intervening time for our favorite characters as well:
- Jean-Claude is now a daywalker. He can 'sleep' in the daytime when he wishes, but he rises early and can be 'woken' by someone with sufficient power.
- Jean-Claude and Asher are lovers, with and without Anita. It was they who took most of the responsibility of raising Mara since she was five years old.
- Malcolm has accepted (albeit unhappily) Jean-Claude's control over him and his vampires. In addition to blood-oathing the Church's vampires, Jean-Claude also regularly sends his own people to help train the new vampires in use of their powers (including those things which Malcolm refuses to teach), and maintains a "helpline" for them to contact someone of his kiss with questions or problems. Avery Seabrook (a LKH character from Incubus Dreams) often serves as intermediary between them.
- Richard and Anita are officially broken up, and have been since not long after Mara's birth. Richard is still the third of their triumvirate, but maintains only a cool and businesslike relationship with Jean-Claude and Anita.
- Jason is now married, to an alpha werewolf named Selene. He is still Jean-Claude's pomme de sang, and still works at Guilty Pleasures, though as a choreographer rather than a stripper. They live at the Circus, where Selene aids with security and sometimes acts as an animal to call for Jean-Claude.
- Gil has moved into the Circus as a pomme, and also maintains the websites for Jean-Claude's businesses.
- Sampson, Cris and Tom, the sons of Samuel and Leaucothea, have been brought into their powers as sirens. All three became sirens, but Sampson is far more powerful than the twins. Samuel's territory has since expanded south all the way down to Virginia, where Sampson maintains his area from his base in Richmond. The twins have areas of responsibility closer to home.
- Sampson and Mara became friends when she reached her early teens, sharing their common interests in music and modern technology as well as the unique problems of being children to Masters of the City.
- Narcissus was defeated in combat and kicked out by Haliaka, a powerful female werehyena. She has abolished many of his rules and habits, and maintains a more mixed groups of hyenas. She is a good ally, but like many good leaders, puts her own people's welfare ahead of outsiders. She and her hyenas are members of the Furry Coalition and allied with the vampires.
- Elinore and Meng Die have both found their own territories.
- Bartoleme no longer lives in St. Louis, but Valentina chose to remain.
More coming soon! Want to help? Send me a question!
Please note: If I don't answer your question, it's probably because the answer would be a spoiler for upcoming events in the series.
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Roguefemme, 2008