There was a LONG Spanish language review of my Saga Of Darren Shan / Cirque Du Freak books a while back, on the site La Biblioteca de Mictlán. It includes a lengthy summation of the series, and the author spends a lot of time focusing on the character and concept of DesTiny, and how that added a vital fascinating element to the books for them. You can read the whole review in Sapanish by clicking on the following link -- if, like me, you can't read Spanish, simply copy the text and paste it into a translation engine like Google Translate, for a fairly accurate English translation:

https://www.labibliotecademictlan.com/2022/04/darren-shan-una-historia-vampirica.html

I found it interesting that the author starts by saying they never liked vampires, but these books won them over. At one point in the article, they explain: "for the first time, vampires are really interesting to me. I liked this version of vampires a lot, since they are a warrior species, with many customs that were created and adopted by them."

I think this was a key to the series' success with many readers. As much as I looked to vampire literature and movies for inspiration, I also looked at warrior tribes and how they functioned sociologically, figuring that a tribe of night-dwelling, blood-drinking, centuries-living individuals would most resemble a group like the Samurai, Masai Mara or Ancient Celts. This seemed to resonate a lot with readers, and while the first three books did very well when they first came out, the series' popularity just blossomed and thrived once we struck out for Vampire Mountain and began delving into the day-to-day (well, night-to-night!!) lives of the members of the Clan.