A blogger called T.S. Hathaway recently reviewed all 12 books in my Saga Of Darren Shan / Cirque Du Freak series. I provided links for the first three a while back (they're also in the April issue of my monthly online newsletter: https://darrenshan.com/news/shanville-monthly), and here are the reviews for books 4 to 6, the Vampire Mountain story arc.

Book 4: https://tshathaway.com/2022/01/vampire-mountain-by-darren-shan/

Book 5: https://tshathaway.com/2022/02/trials-of-death-by-darren-shan/

Book 6: https://tshathaway.com/2022/02/the-vampire-prince-by-darren-shan/

Although Cirque Du Freak remains my most popular single book -- it's the one that most of my readers start with, and is taught in lots of schools -- I think these three books provide the most popular of my story arcs among fans who've read the whole series (or, indeed, my other series). This is where everything moves up a level (or several levels!) and we truly and properly enter the vampire world. The first three books teased us with glimpses into what it's like to be a creature of the night, but this is where we get to see what the society of such a nocturnal, tough, long-living group of people might actually be like, and this is what most readers of the series genuinely fell in love with.

The first three books serve as an intriguing prologue to the main story, and the next six carry things through to their not-so-natural end, with plenty of twists and turns and new fan-favourite characters to enjoy (for instance, we don't meet Vancha and Evanna until book 7). But this was where the story escaped the human world, and I think they're the key to the series' long-lasting success, even though Book 4, as T.S. points out, "does not include a lot of action or movement." Heh -- I was so worried that Vampire Mountain was going to prove a turn-off, since it DOES have the unenviable task of setting up all the excitement and action, while having very little excitement or action of its own to speak of. But it hit home with readers in a way even I hadn't anticipated, and while some get a little impatient with it, many more revel in its slow-burn world-building. It's why I often allow myself a secret little smile whenever a fan brings a copy up to me at a signing and says it's their favourite of my books... :-)

Oh, and these covers, by the way, are the second generation American paperback covers. The cover for The Vampire Prince is possibly my favourite out of ALL the American covers that have been produced over the years. You check out the rest of the covers by clicking on the following link, to see if you agree: https://darrenshan.com/covers/country/usa-the-saga-of-darren-shan