The Morganville Vampires

Series

Novels

1. Glass Houses
2. The Dead Girls' Dance
3. Midnight Alley
4. Feast of Fools
5. Lord of Misrule
6. Carpe Corpus
7. Fade Out
8. Kiss of Death
9. Ghost Town
10. Bite Club
11. Last Breath
12. Black Dawn
13. Bitter Blood
14. Fall Of Night
15. Daylighters

    Short stories

• "All Hallows" in The Eternal Kiss or
• "The First Day of the Rest of Your Life" in Many Bloody Returns or
• "Murdered Out" in the UK version of Carpe Corpus or
• "Dead Man Stalking" in Immortal Antholgy and ' or
• "Wrong Place, Wrong Time" exclusively
• "Grudge" exclusively
• "Sam's Story" exclusively
• "Lunch Date" exclusively
• "Myrnin's Tale" exclusively
• "Amelie's Story" exclusively
• "Drama Queen's Last Dance" in '
• "Worth Living For" in UK version of Ghost Town
• "Anger Management" exclusively
• "Automatic" in '
• "Let Them Eat Cake"
• "Dark Rides" exclusively
• "Home: A Morganville Story" in '

  Characters

• Claire Danvers, the main protagonist of the series, comes to the town of Morganville when she becomes a student at Texas Prairie University. Graduating high school early and attending university at the age of 16, she is one of the youngest characters in the series, but is exceptionally intelligent for her age which causes many people to take a special interest in her. Although intelligent in most subjects, Claire is exceptional at science and her intelligence can cause some to dislike/misunderstand her. She is the assistant of Myrnin and was assigned to the job by Amelie, the Founder of Morganville and the oldest vampire in the world. Claire becomes close friends with Myrnin because of their similar intellectual interests; although their relationship has been strained at points by Myrnin's impulsive, uncontrolled conduct due to both his vampire nature and the effects of a disease some vampires contract with age. At one point Bishop takes an unwilling Claire to be his minion, partially as a 'slap' to Amelie as Claire is one of the few humans the founder is shown to care for. Claire is dating town bad boy Shane Collins, which her parents don't appreciate, stating that they think she is too young to have a boyfriend. After moving to Morganville themselves, they frequently insist that she move back in with them. Claire is best friends with the town goth, Eve Rosser, and also with musician Michael Glass and enemies with Monica Morrell, who despises and torments her initially but has since developed a grudging respect for her. From the beginning in Glass Houses, Claire is somewhat naive but as the series moves forward, she quickly shows herself to be tough and clever, and has incorporated herself into Morganville's vampire-ruled world better than most of the other human population. She is well known by vampires and humans alike, sometimes respected and sometimes hated by individuals from both sides as vampires tend to think she is allowed too much liberty, and humans often view her as a traitor and puppet of the vampires. As of Last Breath, Claire was killed by the master draug, Magnus, but the Glass House saved her like it did Michael, by making her into a ghost but trapping her within the Glass Houses walls. Claire is described as small and short with brown hair, although towards the end it's described as mostly red than brown thanks to Eve. At the end of Bitter Blood Claire get permission to leave Morganville to go to MIT, a gift from the founder for all the work she has done for the town. She briefly attends MIT but after discovering the Daylight Foundation she returns to Morganville to find they've taken over, she then aids in the rescue of the vampires and the bringing down of the Daylighters.
• Michael Glass, is a Morganville native and owner of the Glass House. His grandfather is Sam Glass. When the series begins, Shane and Eve are already living with Michael when Claire joins them as a fourth roommate. After Michael's mysterious disappearance during the day begins to strain his relationship with his housemates, Michael is forced to explain his strange behavior. After being attacked in his house and left for dead by Oliver, Michael has become a "part of the house"—he is effectively a ghost, vanishing by day and corporeal at night. In this state, Michael can draw power from the house itself, making him extremely powerful inside it ; however, he cannot leave the house, which leaves him intensely frustrated with his inability to protect his friends when they are out of his reach. To escape this fate, he convinces Amelie to turn him into a vampire, which puts further pressure on his friendship with Shane. Michael is very responsible, mature, and charming, with a kind, noble, generous nature. For all his loving, patient manner he is very protective of his loved ones and quite aggressive when provoked. He is an amazing musician and in the book Kiss Of Death he is offered a record deal, and a chance to leave Morganville for recording. He records a demo cd but nothing is stated to come of it afterwards. In the last book he is forcibly given a cure to vampirism with a low success rate, fortunately he survives and turns back into a human. He starts a relationship with Eve early into the series and they marry twice. Michael is described as very good looking by many female characters in the series. He is tall, lean built, has sincere blue eyes and blonde hair.
• Shane Collins is one of the Glass House residents and is a Morganville native. He is hotheaded with a penchant for getting in trouble, often by his own doing. Regardless, he is very protective, a quality which extends especially to Claire, Michael, and Eve. He has a fierce hatred for vampires which causes strife especially between him and Michael, but has slowly started to accept that not all vampires are bad, like Michael. He initially returned to Morganville on a mission from his father, Frank, to find out ways to kill the vampires. He despises Monica Morrell because he believes she killed his sister, Alyssa, in a house fire. Soon after the fire, Shane and his parents left Morganville, hoping to escape the reminder of Alyssa's death. Shane's family quickly began to fall apart. His father's alcoholism worsened, causing him to become abusive, and his mother's memory block began to fail, allowing her to remember Morganville and the vampires. Shane and his father believe that she was killed by vampires at Amelie's bidding, though the death was made to look like a suicide. This leads Shane and Frank on a vengeful path to destroy the vampires. Shane eventually rejects his father's violent agenda, furthering the rift between them. Shane frequently struggles with his anger and has been known to cave in to his urges toward fighting and violence, which becomes especially problematic in Bite Club, although since then it appears that he is genuinely trying to change his behavior. He is described as very tall with a lot of muscle. He is very good looking and has brown eyes and hair.
• Eve Rosser She is a Morganville native, but turned down Protection from her family's vampire Patron/Protector, Brandon, who appears to have been sexually harassing her starting when she was around fifteen, she refused and he may have started abusing her younger brother, Jason instead. She dresses quite extravagantly in all-Goth clothing and makeup, partly as a way to make fun of the vampires. Although she is generally very upbeat, energetic, and independent, she tends to be emotional and occasionally melodramatic. She is smart-mouthed and at times outspoken to the point of recklessness, and has, at some point, offended nearly all of the vampires in town. Eve has a deeply troubled past with her younger brother, Jason, who is a criminal and claims to have murdered many girls, and later threatens to kill Claire. Eve drives a very old black Cadillac; in the book Kiss of Death her Cadillac gets destroyed and she buys a black hearse to replace it. In Fade Out she plays the theater role of Blanche DuBois, one of the two leading ladies in A Streetcar Named Desire. When the series begins Eve works at Common Grounds and is strongly attached to her boss, Oliver; however, this affection quickly turns to hatred and she quits the job when Eve discovers that Oliver is not only a vampire, but killed Michael. Eve spends some time working at the university coffee shop instead, but by Kiss of Death has returned to work at Common Grounds. She and Oliver's relationship remains quite uneasy, but has softened once again from the state of mutual hatred that they harbored for a while; although most of their interactions consist of Eve going out of her way to annoy him and the two pushing each other's buttons, they do still seem to like each other on some level, even reportedly sharing a dance in Bite Club.Eve is described as being a tall and pretty girl. She dresses in a very extravagant manner, as a goth mostly to mock the vampires in Morganville. Eve had a crush on Michael before the start of their relationship which started early on in the series, they marry twice.
• Sam Glass is Michael Glass's vampire grandfather. He helps Claire out a lot. He also loves the founder, Amelie. He wants to try to make things better for everyone. He hates Bishop, because Bishop is cruel to Amelie, although it is extremely likely he hates him just because he is a horrible person. Sam is one of the kindest vampires, and often prefers human company. In one case, he saves Claire Danvers from getting raped in The Dead Girls' Dance. He has red hair and freckles with the same blue eyes as his grandson Michael. He was the youngest vampire in Morganville until Michael was turned. Sam was killed by Bishop draining him which resulted in Bishop being poisoned.
• Amelie, a vampire, is the founder of Morganville. Her vampire and blood line father is Bishop even though she hates him. She is also Claire's Patron. She is also the lover of Michael Glass's grandfather Sam Glass but at the end of Ghost Town she starts to fall in love with Oliver. She is described to be very short and lean woman with silvery blond hair and has an icy personality. Claire nicknames her "ice queen". As with all vampires, she looks very young but is around 1500 years of age. She is considered to be the high queen of Morganville. Amelie has shown throughout the series a connection to Claire; she seems to see her as a daughter. She is willing to do things Claire's way and shows she feels a growing sense of affection for Claire, though she seldom shows it. And at the end of Last Breath, Amelie was bitten by the master draug, Magnus, and starts to become one in Black Dawn. Although she does survive.
• Oliver, is a vampire elder and Amelie's second in command, though they have their differences, they get along. He is from England. He is very proud, arrogant and cold and is described appropriately as the 'Don of the local Morganville mafia'. However it is revealed later on in the series that he has strong feelings for Amelie. In Ghost Town Oliver challenges Amelie. He then takes the place as head of Morganville. Later Amelie forgets and takes it back. Further into the series, they become equals. His character is based on Oliver Cromwell and is implied to be Oliver Cromwell. He runs one of the local coffee shops, Common Grounds, which is a place where vampires and humans can meet equally and safely. He pretends to be a hippie. He appears to hate everyone, but throughout the series is shown to care some about Amelie, Claire and Eve, though appears not to be able to care less about Shane. During Black Dawn, Oliver takes control again when Amelie is sick.
• Myrnin, a Welsh vampire from Conwy, is an ancient alchemist searching for a cure to the vampire disease and Claire's Patron, Amelie, told Claire that she had to become his apprentice. Myrnin loves bunny slippers with fangs as well as flip-flops, silk vests, pirate boots, and old Victorian ensembles. Myrnin has killed almost all of his previous assistants in his thirst for blood except for Claire. Myrnin was still in love with his old assistant and lover, Ada. When he killed Ada he saved her brain and hooked it up to a machine that runs the whole town of Morganville as a favor to her, Amelie, and himself. After Ada's machine breaks and she dies for good, he hooks up his own brain to the machine that runs Morganville, which causes the whole town to forget the past three years and believe that it is 3 years prior. To fix this, Myrnin takes advantage of Frank Collins' death and uses his brain for the machine in place of his own. Myrnin is incredibly smart but can be reckless and crazy. He develops strong feelings for Claire and cares for her deeply, despite knowing how Claire feels about Shane, Myrnin does kiss her at one point.
• Monica Morrell is a beautiful, yet cruel, psychopathic college student who is Claire's initial antagonist in the series. Her father is the human mayor of the secretly vampire-controlled town. She hates Claire because Claire made her look stupid after correcting her about China's involvement in World War Two. A few years before the series she had a crush on Shane and he rejected her, it is implied that she then burned down his house, which killed his sister, or at least that's what everyone believes while she profusely denies doing so. Nearly every time Monica has an encounter with Claire, she's mean to her. However, throughout the series, Claire and Monica develop a kind of truce, as Monica develops a bit of respect for Claire because of her braveness and courage; however, most of the time Monica doesn't show this.
• Mr. Bishop is Amelie's father through both her immortal and mortal bloodlines. He is portrayed to be ancient and is often described as "old school evil." Bishop seems to have a world-domination mentality and has the adamant idea that all humans are beneath him, therefore handy slaves/walking blood bags. He enters the series at the end of Midnight Alley with his sidekicks Francois and Ysandre. He wants revenge on Amelie and Myrnin for trying to kill him hundreds of years ago. He also wants to rule over Morganville and all of its inhabitants - vampire and human. He returns in Bite Club and still wants to rule all of Morganville as its sole vampire ruler. Although he is later killed.
• Frank Collins is Shane's dad. They have a rough history with each other, starting with the deaths of Shane's mother and sister. Shane's dad physically abused him frequently and it is witnessed several times throughout the series. Frank sent Shane back to Morganville as part of a large plot to kill all of the vampires in revenge for the death of Shane's mother. Frank is later turned into a vampire by Mr. Bishop. Frank sacrifices himself to save Shane and Claire, and later becomes the 'Brain' controlling Myrnin's Vampire Super Computer. He makes Claire promise not to tell Shane, because then Shane can move on with his life, but in the end Shane does find out.
• Ada was Myrnin's lover and Myrnin's first assistant to die by his hands. After her death, Myrnin turned her into a vampire. In a bout of madness, Myrnin killed Ada and turned her into the town's vampire super computer. Over time, Ada is fed Myrnin's disease-ridden blood and eventually loses her sanity and tries to kill Claire because she's afraid Claire is stealing Myrnin from her. Just before dying, Ada regains lucidity and apologizes to Claire and asks Claire to also tell Myrnin that she's sorry. Ada uses the self-destruct code and kills herself because she knows how much of a threat she is to Morganville if she stays alive. Ada dies a noble death and Myrnin is grief-stricken.
• Magnus is the master draug that has been hunting the vampires forever. In Last Breath, he kills Claire and catches most of the vampires, like Michael, Oliver, and Amelie's blood sister Naomi. He also bites Amelie, causing more chaos.
• Hannah Moses serves as the town's police chief, she was briefly mayor but due to Oliver's hold on Amelie, Hannah is forced to step down and is replaced as mayor by Flora Ramos. Hannah regains her role as police chief. Up until shortly before her introduction in the series Hannah was a US Marine that was stationed in Afghanistan.
• Richard Morrell was the town's mayor, after his father's death. He is also Monica's brother. It is implied that he and Hannah have feelings for each other but nothing comes of it as he is killed by the draug.

  Synopsis

Key locations

The Glass House

Myrnin's Lab

Texas Prairie University

Common Grounds

Founder's Houses

Adaptations

Morganville: The Series