Iron Night (American Vampire #2) by M.L. Brennan

Having accepted the reality that he is part of the vampire world, Fortitude Scott has made some significant changes to his life.  He is now working out seriously several times a week with his older brother, feeding more frequently from his mother, has even found himself a new job and shocker of shockers, a roommate who actually pays his half of the rent on time.  Finally, Fortitude has achieved the stability he has longed for but unfortunately for Fort, it's short lived.  When he awakes one morning to find his roommate Gage drained of blood, missing body parts and dead, Fort is determined to get justice for him and not allow his powerful mother to sweep Gage's death under the carpet.  Fort's investigation brings him closer to crafty kitsune Suzume Hollis, as together they race against time to discover why bodies are starting to pile up.  If that were not enough, Matt, the one human Fort has loved since childhood is starting to get suspicious.  Can Fort get justice for Gage, while keeping Matt in the dark, in order to save his life?

In Iron Night, Brennan enlarges the world and we learn about the necessity of vampires as apex predators to police their territory.  We get a very strong sense of the hierarchy amongst the supernaturals and how delicate the balance of power is with humanity.  As Fort's vampire nature continues to mature, he begins to change.  Now Fort makes the necessary decisions to accomplish his ends no matter how difficult. He doesn't want to be like his sociopath sister Prudence but at the same time, he is highly aware that he cannot allow people to fun roughshod over him anymore.

American Vampire is one of the few series with a male protagonist but the women in Iron Night play exceptionally strong roles. Suzume continues to delight me with her trickster nature and I love that Fort is continually left off balance by her antics.  Though Fort is supposedly in charge of the mission, Suzume is not a side kick who follows blindly; she is an equal partner.  Suzume is not only highly intelligent, physically she is clearly more capable than Fortitude. This naturally subverts gender roles and Brennan manages this while allowing Suzume to remain feminine.  Madeline, Fort's mother though clearly on the decline, rules with an iron fist.  Prudence plays the role of Fort's enforcer and while there is no doubt she is a sociopath, her relationship with Fort is extremely complex.

Generation V (American Vampire #1) by M.L. Brennan

 

Fortitude Scott has a degree in film studies and unable to find anything in line with his education, he works in a little coffee shop and struggles to pay his bills, though his family is enormously wealthy.  He avoids seeing them as often as possible because Fortitude is a vampire who at this early stage in his development, is far more human than vampire and his beliefs and concern for humanity does not mesh well with his vampire family.  This means not feeding from his mother as often as he should and being a vegetarian but if it will stave off the final change, it's a sacrifice Fortitude is more than willing to make.

Unfortunately, not being fully transitioned means that Fortitude is far more vulnerable than he even realises at first.  When Luca enters his mother's territory and makes clear that he has a penchant for abducting and abusing young girls, Fortitude's far too human nature will not allow him to look the other way.  His mother is forced to hire protection for him in the form of Suzume Hollis - a crafty Kitsune.  Suzume turns out to be so much more as she helps Fortitude explore a world of supernaturals that he spent his entire life trying to avoid after his sister Prudence killed his human parents.  To rescue a missing child, Fortitude must immerse himself in super natural culture and face the reality that no matter how human he appears, he is indeed a vampire.

When I picked up Generation V, what I expected was the typical angsting vampire story that we have been treated to, especially because of Fortitude's desire to remain human.  This has long been a common trope in urban fantasy when it comes to vampires and it makes very little sense. Brennan deals with this by showing the cruelty of vampire nature as an absolute negative.  None of the vampires in Fort's family cares that Luca is a murdering pedophile and that is reason enough for me as a reader to see the coldness of a vampire nature as something to avoid, rather than to aspire to.  Brennan has also made other changes to what we have become accustomed to as modern day vampire lore.  Rather than being immortal for instance, vampires are simply long lived.  They reproduce by creating Renfields and then breed them with each other to produce a child.  This causes vampire reproduction to be very slow and in Europe, they are actually in danger of becoming extinct. They also become more vulnerable to the sunlight as they age.   So as you can see, there are just enough changes in vampire lore to keep it interesting.