Midnight's Daughter Series Overview

Midnight's Daughter/Dorina Basarab by Karen Chance

This post will contain spoilers for the entire series and the Cassandra Palmer series. You have been warned.

So, the Midnight's Daughter/Dorina Basarab series. I found it to be much tighter in terms of plot than its sister Cassandra Palmer series. The characters were much more vivid and well rounded. It actually felt as though Dory's story took place during war times. Dory was much more informed and actually engaged with her story than I felt Cassie was. Even her cadre of side characters had stakes. Honestly, if I were to recommend one series over the other, I'd recommend Midnight's Daughter/Dorina Basarab. I will now try to focus on Midnight's Daughter/Dorina Basarab and not compare it to the Cassandra Palmer series further... they really are too different to compare very much anyway.

I do have a numbers question that’s been niggling at me for at least the last two Dory books. How many vampires are there? How many fey end up on Earth, like population-wise? How many Silver Circle mages are there? The Cassie books make it sound absolutely dire for them to be dying due to the whole Artemis’ spell thing, but there are enough to be running a crime scene back in the Dory books? The sheer number of supernaturals running around makes it seem like the humans should at least be aware of them, but they’re not. And like, why not, really? I mean, I also get that the various supernatural races don’t really play well together, so a coherent government might not work well, but like… I’m just confused as to how all of it works to begin with. The vampires apparently have MASSIVE numbers given the amount Dory mentions as being in Mircea’s family alone and what we see from Cassie’s bodyguard contingent. It really seems like this should be a world where the supernaturals mesh with human society rather than being utterly separate.

I believe I've ranted some about Mircea in my Cassie Palmer reviews, if not the overview, but he's gonna get his own section here. I, uh, pretty much hate Mircea. He's utterly selfish and a complete ass to those who he professes to love. He's so obsessed with his dead wife that he courts Pythias across his centuries of life to see if they'll consent to bringing her back to the present instead of her just dying. It's made worse in Cassie's case due to his a) not knowing if she was going to by Pythia in the first place; b) putting a really gross charm/curse thing on her when she's really young; c) passing off the way used to break said charm/curse to someone else; d) vampire marrying her under the influence of the charm/curse gone wrong; and e) not mentioning his ulterior motive for any of this to her until well after he'd established a relationship with her. Like, what the hell? In regards to the Midnight's Daughter/Dorina Basarab series, Mircea's big thing is about Dorina. Keeping Dorina separated from Dory well after he should have. Not even wanting to explain anything to Dorina before or after separating them. Not even wanting to talk to Dorina after discovering he hadn't quite locked her down as much as he thought he had. Oh, and 500-something years after the fact, painting Dorina as the absolute worst creature ever in order to get Dory to consent to trying to lock Dorina away again. Sir, that is your daughter, whether you like it or not. I understand locking Dorina away essentially saved both Dory and Dorina from certain death, but once they were adults, you really should have, I dunno, asked for their opinions on the matter. I also get that Dorina doesn't seem that angry with him about it, but I'll stay angry on her behalf. While he was locking Dorina away, Mircea also wiped Dory’s memory of her life, ostensibly to protect her, but it’s not until Time’s Fool where we find out just how much of her memory he wiped. She doesn’t even recognize him when he hires her to take care of some revenants. What the hell, Mircea? To make matters worse in the present, Mircea goes swanning off during a WAR after his not-as-dead-as-previously-thought wife... 500-something years after her supposed death. Yeah... fuck Mircea.

I really enjoy how Fae/Fey play a role in Midnight's Daughter/Dorina Basarab. Mostly the so-called "Dark Fey" in the form of the trolls who live with Dory and Claire. Claire herself with her dragon-half and cadre of "Light Fey" bodyguards is a nice grounding influence. Not sure I love the dichotomy of Claire being a vegetarian and her dragon half definitely carnivorous, but she's an otherwise great character. I love Olga to death. She's the kind of community mom that Dory seems to need around. Caedmon I could probably do without... but, ya know, gotta have those allies in this big war that's going on in the background. Olga's sons of nephews (I can't be bothered to remember or look up which they are) are alright and just kinda there for the most part.

I'm a big fan of Ray. He's mostly comic relief when he's introduced, but it turns out he's a lot more valuable to Dory and Dorina than anyone originally thought. I like how stubborn he is about protecting his vampire family. I like how he is with Dorina, not coming across as condescending or anything to a being who's basically a child. Ray's resourceful and funny and I just really enjoy his character.

I will say, Karen Chance does have a habit of introducing random characters to the series in info-dumpy kind of ways. One that really stands out is the War Mage Jacob, probably because he was kind of a big deal in Shadow's Bane. For some reason, though, this sort of thing works well in that we're meet Dory present day with some 500 years of experience under her belt. It's not as though she hasn't had time to make connections we just haven't seen.

So, after a couple days of slogging through four pages of Time's Fool, I've decided to drop the Midnight's Daughter/Dorina Basarab series. I was just really disappointed in how Karen Chance chose to go from a cliffhanger at the end of Queen's Gambit to jumping to the 1500s and completely away from the modern-day storyline. Maybe I'm just used to my series going chronologically from one event to the next, but I'm annoyed with the whole thing now. It's actually kind of sad, because I really enjoyed Queen's Gambit and was otherwise enjoying the Midnight's Daughter/Dorina Basarab series. I might look up the next Dory book when it comes out, but it's not on my priority list the way something like the Anita Blake series is. You can read more about this decision in my Time's Fool review.

Overall, the Midnight's Daughter/Dorina Basarab series is delightful. Quick-paced action and somewhat funny interludes and actual compelling mysteries serve the series well. The character work is well done, too. I definitely did not do it justice in this overview.