Cassandra Palmer is the lead character in eleven novels: Touch the Dark, Claimed by Shadow, Embrace the Night, Curse the Dawn, Hunt the Moon, Tempt the Stars, Reap the Wind, Ride the Storm, Brave the Tempest, Shatter the Earth and Ignite the Fire. A powerful seer, she was brought up by a vampire who wanted to monopolize her gift. She escaped him, but soon her past caught up with her, although not in the way she’d feared. The Pythia, the supernatural community’s chief seer, was dying and she tapped Cassie to replace her.

That stuck Cassie with a lot of power she didn’t know how to use and a metric ton of new enemies. To make matters worse, a war broke out in the supernatural community forcing Cassie to have to battle to stay alive long enough to figure out how to use the power of her office, and to determine what to do with it when she does.

Mircea Basarab is a bridge character, playing an important role in both the Cassandra Palmer and Dorina Basarab novels. He also has his own book, Masks, describing some of his history. And he has a lot of it, being a five-hundred-year-old master vampire and a member of the powerful Vampire Senate.

The Senate is currently vying with the Silver Circle, the world’s chief magical organization, for control of the new Pythia and the power she commands. Cassie is personally drawn to Mircea, but sometimes suspects that his interest might have more to do with her power than with her person. Other times, she’s not sure she cares.

John Pritkin is from the Cassandra Palmer series. He was a war mage–a member of the supernatural community’s police force–with a specialization in demon killing. But then his bosses sent him on a new mission: to kill the upstart pretender to the Pythia’s throne, one Cassie Palmer. They didn’t want an unknown occupying such a powerful position and possibly interfering in their affairs. And they didn’t think a demon-hunting assassin would have a problem with a spot of political murder.

They thought wrong.

Now Pritkin is a former war mage and the Pythia’s new bodyguard. So far, the move has brought him no pay, long hours, constant stress and has almost gotten him killed at least a dozen times. He’s shown here about to embark on a demon hunt to get a little rest.

The Consul is featured in both the Cassie Palmer and Dorina Basarab series, something she would say is only her right as the leader of the dreaded North American Vampire Senate. And no one is likely to argue with her, since she is as powerful as she is beautiful, and as deadly as the snakes that serve as her emblem. And speaking of power, she wants Cassie’s under the control of the senate and no one else.

It is needed because the consul is currently involved in a struggle with the leaders of the other five senates for control of the vampire world. That world is at war and must unite or perish. But unity implies a single ruler, something that has never happened in all of vampire history. And the other leaders also want the top spot. So whether Cassie likes it or not, she has just become the consul’s ace in the hole.

Claire Lachesis is from the novella “Buying Trouble,” in the On the Prowl anthology. She is also a supporting character in the Dorina Basarab series of novels. Until a year ago, Claire was a poor auction house employee, using her ability as a magical null to calm down volatile items before they killed off the customers. Then one of those customers, a handsome Fey with royal connections, swept her off her feet and all the way to Faerie.

Now, Claire is living a fairy tale: marriage to a handsome prince, travel to distant lands, wealth and magic. And separation from the only world she knows, isolation among very strange strangers and people constantly trying to kill her and her newborn son. Frankly, she’s beginning to think this happily-ever-after stuff is a bunch of crap.

Caleb Carter is from the Cassie Palmer series, making his debut in Curse the Dawn as one of Pritkin’s friends and a fellow war mage who knows when to bend a rule. In Hunt the Moon, he also becomes the only person, aside from Cassie, to learn the truth about his friend’s less-than-conventional background. Then, in Tempt the Stars, he subs for the absent Pritkin, helping Cassie on an insane rescue attempt straight into the jaws of hell.

All in a day’s work when you’re a member of the War Mage Corps.

Here he is on another typical day, chasing a bus-sized, homicidal dragon through the darkened streets of Las Vegas. Like you do.

Long ago, before the war that currently rages in the supernatural comunity, a greater one was fought between creatures from another universe who had found a way into ours. Ours quickly became their playground, for their power far surpassed anything that could be mustered here. The Fey learned to serve them; the demons learned to fear them; and the humans . . . did not learn much of anything, for they were busy dying by the thousands under the lash of these harsh new masters.

Until Artemis, greatest of the ancient gods, used her power to banish her kind back to their universe, and to slam the door shut behind them. But in doing so, she trapped herself on this side of the divide. And left a hungry, vengeful foe clawing at the way back in. Will the time she bought humanity be enough to find a way to resist? Or will it prove to have been no more than the calm before the storm?

Kit Marlowe is a crossover character, appearing in both series of novels. He also features in two short stories set in Elizabethan England, “The Queen’s Witch” and “The Gauntlet.” “The Gauntlet” was published in the Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2, but it and its companion story are available for free on this web site or in paperback form from Amazon.

A spy since Elizabethan times, Marlowe currently employs his abilities on behalf of the Vampire Senate. Of course, he isn’t just any old spy; these days, he runs the Senate’s spy network and he does it very well. He’s best known for being handsome, charming, and knowledgeable . . . and cunning, sneaky and utterly ruthless.

Francoise is a character from the Cassandra Palmer series of novels. She doesn’t have a last name because she was born a poor village girl in seventeenth century France. She doesn’t have much of anything else, either, after being transported to the twenty-first century through a series of alarming events.

Well, that’s not entirely true. She still has her magic–and while it’s seriously outdated, at least the Inquisition isn’t after her anymore. And she has a new boyfriend who would be perfect if he wasn’t possessed by an ancient demon. But Francoise has learned the hard way–you have to take what you can get out of life. And she’s busy taking everything she can.

Tomas features in the Cassandra Palmer series of novels and also in a free short story, “The Day of the Dead,” available on this website.

Like Francoise, Tomas doesn’t have a last name. He was born in Peru during the conquest, the bastard son of a priestess of Inti and a Spanish conquistador. His father didn’t stay around long enough to impart his surname–or much of anything else–but Tomas could have taken his master’s name once a life-challenged Spanish nobleman took a liking to him. But after being forcibly changed into a vampire and treated as a slave for four hundred years, he wasn’t feeling too chummy. Now, all he wants is his hated master dead–permanently. He’ll figure out the rest later.

Rosier pops up from time to time in the Cassandra Palmer series of novels, usually to make sure that a bad day becomes a worse one. He only has the one name, since demon lords are like Madonna: everyone already knows who they are and–in Rosier’s case–usually, wishes they didn’t. You wouldn’t think that would be the case, as incubi tend to be one of the more happy-go-lucky versions of hell-spawn, and often get a warm welcome. But Rosier isn’t an ordinary incubus, and he frequently causes havoc whenever he bothers to show up. But he’s powerful, too, and occasionally comes in handy when an ally, if not a friend, is needed in low places.

Really, really low.

Anyway, here he is, in the weeds as usual.

Louis-Cesare de Bourbon is featured in both the Cassie Palmer and Dorina Basarab series, although he spends most of his time in the latter. And half the time, he doesn’t know whether he’s enjoying that fact or not.

As a four-hundred-year-old master vampire and the former dueling champion of the European Senate, Louis-Cesare thought he’d seen it all and mastered most of it. Until he met his family patriarch’s annoying, seductive and completely maddening daughter, Dorina.

Dorina Basarab is a dhampir, a monster that good little vampires are warned to stay well away from. But Louis-Cesare has never been particularly good, and he intends to get to know Dorina a great deal better. He just hopes she doesn’t kill him first.

Marco Carales shows up in the Cassie Palmer series as a senior member of Mircea’s household–and a 1500 year old vampire.

That makes him roughly three times as old as his current master. But it’s power that counts in the vampire world, not age, and Mircea has more of it. But Marco is no slouch, either, and experience also counts for a lot. So, when Mircea was faced with the prospect of finding somebody up to the task of keeping his walking disaster area of a girlfriend alive, there was just no contest. Marco was it.

Now, this former gladiator is faced with a more daunting challenge than any he ever had in the arena. So far, he’s managed it with style, humor and at least a modicum of affection for his young charge. And a lot of pain for anybody who tries to hurt her.

Jonas Marsden, shown here as a young man, is head of the magical organization known as the Silver Circle. A demon expert, he was John Pritkin’s trainer in Pritkin’s early days with the Corps and remains a staunch friend. The pretty young woman with him is Lady Phemonoe, better known to Cassie by her birth name of Agnes. The former pythia, she had a long-running relationship with Marsden which they kept under wraps to maintain the image of pythian neutrality. They’re shown here on an ill-fated date, when one of Jonas’ famous flying cars ended up unexpectedly earthbound.

Dorina Basarab, Mircea’s daughter, is featured in her own series of novels, which so far include Midnight’s Daughter, Death’s Mistress, Fury’s Kiss, Shadow’s Bane and Queen’s Gambit (2020). She’s a dhampir, a cross between a human and a vampire, who makes a tenuous living taking on mercenary jobs for the supernatural community. Lately, her most frequent employer has been her long-estranged father, Mircea, who needs all the help he can get with the war tying up his usual sources of muscle. That has brought her closer to the vampire comunity than she–or they–would like, as has her dangerous attraction to Louis-Cesare, a master vampire who keeps forgetting that Dorina is supposed to be his sworn enemy. That wouldn’t worry Dorina too much, except that, whenever he’s around, she keeps forgetting it, too.