Literature / The Tenebrous Trilogy

Great. Just great. First day of fall break, and a student's already been attacked.

The Tenebrous Trilogy is a young adult urban fantasy series by new author Addison Taylor Rich. The first book in the series, Gloaming, is set in Chicago 2015. It opens with college freshman Lee Lowell being mauled by a werewolf, only to be rescued by her roommate Bella Graves and their classmate Ariel Montgomery. Surprise — Bella is actually a hundred and eighty year old vampire, and Ariel is a son of the oldest family of monster hunters in the world.

The world of Tenebrous has been in hiding ever since the signing of the Night Treaty two hundred years ago. Now, vampires, werewolves, and mages live in relative peace with mortals, with hunters acting as enforcers of the treaty's laws while protecting humans and Tenebrans alike from Gloambeasts — creatures of pure darkness that feed on the living.

---

This series provides examples of:

• Aerith and Bob: Played with. Arabella was a normal name for the time, but is now out of fashion and its user goes by Bella. Accalia, however, is definitely unique, and a big clue that the character is The Hero.
• The Ageless: Vampires. They’re just as easily hurt as humans, though it takes silver (or a few other special techniques) to permanently kill them. Some mages can also enhance their longevity and have lived for centuries.
• Agent Peacock: Morgan Montgomery, a very effeminate gay man, and said to be one of the most skilled hunters in the city.
• Appearance Angst: Lee is understandably distraught after being left disfigured in the attack that turned her into a werewolf.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Are they ever. Augustus is implied to be working with Blanchard as a ploy to regain his lost status.
• Artificial Limbs: Ariel has a prosthetic arm made of silver.
• Artificial Limbs Are Stronger: Downplayed. Though Ariel’s silver arm has magically enhanced durability, allowing him to use it in combat, he’s still no stronger than a human and actually has to wear a glove whenever he’s not fighting to avoid developing argyria.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Magic. Anybody who is Gloamtouched can in theory immediately start warping reality, but doing so will leave them a gibbering wreck.
• Badass Family: The Montgomeries, the family that brokered the Night Treaty and have kept up the hunting tradition through the generations. Other hunter families would presumably apply.
• Big Brother Instinct: Morgan and Ariel to Jessie, and Bella to Elena and Aaron.
• Big Brother Worship: Elena really wants to be a vampire like her older sister.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: Ariel lost both his father and his arm on his thirteenth birthday. He’s spent every birthday after visiting his father’s grave, rather than celebrating.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: Appears to be set up between Lee, Bella, and Ariel. The resolution? They all get together.
• Blessed with Suck: While vampirism and lycanthropy both have some great benefits, there are definite downsides: vampires are burned by holy objects, and werewolves lose their minds when forcefully transformed by the full moon (or by wolfsbane). And that’s not even getting into how magic works in this world...
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Ariel is blond, Bella is brunette (or black haired), and Lee is the redhead.
• Blood Magic: The alchemical bloodstones Madame Blanchard created to make werewolves go insane.
• Bonding over Missing Parents: Ariel helps Lee to finally open up about what happened to her family.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Vampires grow stronger with the amount of blood they drink, but if vampires wish to be skilled fighters regardless of however many people they feed from, this trope applies.
• Boyish Short Hair: Lee, though hers is a very short bob rather than a pixie cut.
• Cannot Cross Running Water: As in, literally cannot cross running water. Bridges allow vampires to circumvent this, as does walking over underground pipes, or getting a piggyback ride over the river.
• Cast from Sanity: How magic works. Anybody could snap their fingers and warp reality, but the bigger and flashier the spell, the more they lose of themselves. The most experienced mages play with low-level spellwork and actively warn others against the practice.
• Cast Full of Gay: The main trio are queer, and many of the supporting characters are as well.
• Chromatic Arrangement: Bella, the most outgoing of the group, is red; Ariel, the closed-off hunter is blue; Lee, who falls between the two, is purple.
• The Clan: Again, the Montgomeries. According to Ariel, family reunions can easily get up to over a hundred guests.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Lee’s life in general is this: Her parents being on vacation in Rome when she was born prematurely meant she was born under a blood moon, which left her able to control her transformations as a werewolf at all times. The fact she ended up in the city where the Big Bad had set up base, and befriended/romanced the son of the Big Bad’s scapegoat, and befriended/romanced the granddaughter of The Dragon, is just even more improbable.
    • Lampshaded by Lee: "That’s gotta be a bigger than million-to-one odds."
  • Subverted somewhat with Augustus asking the trio to work together. He knew the ties they had, and planned to use it to his benefit.
• Council of Vampires: The Sanguine Lords, vampires who act as representatives for the vampire community.
• Create Your Own Hero: Madame Blanchard’s experiments on the werewolves results in Lee getting bitten, thus setting off the plot.
• Creature-Hunter Organization: The Gloam Hunters, as the name suggests.
• Daywalking Vampire: A standard for the setting. Vampires are not burned by sunlight, though they do have their powers diminished until night.
• Delinquent Hair: Morgan Montgomery, who dyes his a violent shade of blue and styles it rather provocatively.
• Department of Child Disservices: Lee, after losing her parents, was raised in an uncaring system that was only concerned with making her somebody else’s problem. She ran away several times from different foster homes.
• Dhampyr: Averted. The child of a vampire (or vampires) will always be human.
• Disability Superpower: Downplayed. Ariel’s prosthetic arm is made of silver and enchanted to be more durable than normal, but he has to wear a glove when not fighting because constant exposure to silver is toxic to humans, and its capabilities are not beyond that of a normal prosthetic in daily use. It makes him a very effective combatant against creatures of the night, however.
• Disappeared Dad: Ariel’s father, who was killed before the start of the story. Ariel still harbours massive Survivor's Guilt over it.
• The Dutiful Son: Morgan stepped up to look after his siblings after their father died and their mother grew increasingly distant.
• Eternal Love: Bella’s parents have been together for nearly two centuries and a lot of challenges.
• Extreme Omnisexual: Most vampires have, at the very least, experimented. Apparently, living forever makes one open to trying new things.
• Foster Kid: Lee, who bounced around the system until she eventually aged out of it.
• Freudian Trio: Bella, the outgoing and upbeat vampire is the Id; Ariel, the cold and detached hunter is the Superego; Lee falls somewhere between the two and acts as the Ego.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: The standard for vampires in this setting. Most don’t want to hurt humans (permanently) and would rather just coexist peacefully.
• Functional Addict: Lee and Ariel both smoke and drink quite a lot to cope with their respective traumas. Bella, though not as deep into it as the other two, likes to drink Spiked Blood on the regular.
• Fur Against Fang: Downplayed before being painfully enforced. Werewolf saliva (while they are transformed) is toxic to vampires, but otherwise the two communities try to live in relative peace. At least, until the werewolves start going out of control…
• Gender-Blender Name: Lee and Ariel both. The Montgomeries seem to follow this as a general rule.
• Given Name Reveal: Bella tells hers almost immediately. The big name reveal is from Augustus, aka Dragomir.
• Handicapped Badass: Ariel lost an arm when he was younger and it hasn’t slowed down his hunting one bit. Even without his prosthetic, he can take down enemies single-handedly. Lee, meanwhile, has a permanent limp, but still manages to hold her own in a fight.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: Bella, being mixed-race, has dealt with this for most of her life.
• How Dad Met Mom: Bella’s parents share the story of how they met over Thanksgiving dinner.
• Hunter of Monsters: Ariel, both as a Gloam Hunter and a Montgomery. He’s able to kill a werewolf with nothing but his bare hands and escape unscathed.
  • Applies to anyone who is a Gloam Hunter, natch.
• An Ice Person: Neve Blanchard (“snow white”), whose favoured spells involve ice and snow.
• I Am Not My Father: Beatrice staked her own father to escape his cruelty and run away with her beloved.
• I Love You, Vampire Son: Frequently, the children of vampires decide to become vampires themselves upon reaching adulthood.
• Immortality Begins at Twenty: Enforced. It’s a law of the Night Treaty that the immortality of vampires only be gifted when the recipient is able to consent, and as such many vampires prefer to be frozen with Eternal Youth. Otherwise, immortality freezes its recipient at their current age.
• Immortal Immaturity: Bella is very bright and chipper despite all the hardships she’s seen in her life. It turns out to be somewhat of a facade; she’s just using it to hide some deep hurts.
• Immortal Procreation Clause: When vampires do happen to have children, they are always human. Vampirism is only passed on by having a human drink vampire blood.
• Involuntary Shapeshifter: Werewolves, during the full moon. Otherwise, they can transform at will with practice.
• Lesbian Vampire: Bella, though actually bisexual, has preferences that lean towards women.
• Little Big Brother: Ariel is the middle child and towers over the rest of his family.
• Living Forever Is Awesome: Though they do acknowledge the downsides of immortality, almost all presently-living vampires feel this way, and anticipate the advancements awaiting them in the future.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Bella is very feminine and romantically prefers women.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Ariel. Oh so much.
  • Bella describes him as “The cute blond twink with the prosthetic arm.”
• Long-Lost Relative: Augustus turns out to be Dragomir, Bella’s grandfather and Beatrice’s father.
• Lunacy: Werewolves lose their sense of self and go feral during full moons, necessitating they be locked up. Lee was born during a total lunar eclipse of a full moon, granting her greater control over her wolf transformations. She is also able to maintain her sanity and human form during the full moon, a fact that allows her to expose Madame Blanchard’s experimentations on the werewolves.
• Magic A Is Magic A: Played straight with the werewolves’ and vampires’ powers.
  • Played with regarding the magicians. The more outlandish a mage’s spell, the likelier it is to leave them a gibbering wreck. It can theoretically be left up to chance, but the wisest and most experienced magicians know keeping it simple is the way to go.
• Maligned Mixed Marriage: Bella’s parents, who were born in the early 1800s and had to deal with a race, class, and species gap.
• The Masquerade: Discussed, and enforced: the magical community has been hunted for centuries, and unlike the Masquerade Paradox would have you believe, there’s no easy way out for the people in the know. Vampires, werewolves, and magicians are just as easily killed as humans, with some caveats, and have no interest in becoming the subject of government experimentation. The Night Treaty was created just as much to protect them from humans as it was to protect humans from them.
• Meaningful Name: Seems to be a staple:
  • Accalia Lowell, a werewolf with a wolf-themed name (see Werewolf Theme Naming below). This was deliberate on her parents’ part and serves as a Plot Point.
  • Arabella Ward: Arabella means “yielding to prayer”, and as a vampire she is repelled by holy things. Ward, meaning protector, also fits her, since she makes it her mission to protect Lee from whatever is making werewolves go feral, and is a protective person by nature, spending much of her immortal life studying medicine.
  • Ariel Montgomery: Ariel means “lion of God”, as befits a hunter of monsters. Doubles as a Shout-Out name for Leon Belmont.
  • Neve Blanchard: Means ‘snow white’ and she is indeed very pale and trails snowflakes in her wake.
• Million to One Chance: Lee’s parents were on vacation in Rome when she was born, which just so happened to be during a total lunar eclipse (which would not have been present over the United States, where she otherwise would have been born). This left her Gloamtouched, but also afforded her a never-before-seen degree of control over her transformations when she just so happened to get bitten by a werewolf. When the trio figure this out, Lee faintly remarks the odds had to be more than a million to one.
• Missing Reflection: Played with. Since silver is deadly to vampires, silver-backed mirrors won’t show their reflections. Modern mirrors—and modern photography techniques—work just as well on them as on humans.
• Muggle Born of Mages: Vampires who have children always have human children. Elena can’t wait to grow up to an acceptable age to be turned.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Bella is the nice one, quick to apologise for her wrongdoings and is always ready with a kind word and a smile. Ariel, suffering from the trauma of being raised as a Child Soldier and losing his father young, is the mean one who holds people at a distance for fear of being hurt again. Lee lashes out at people as a result of her trauma but has a gentle soul by nature, and is the in-between.
• No Medication for Me: Inverted. Lee was diagnosed (incorrectly) with a slew of mental illnesses as a child because nobody believed she could see shadow monsters. The medication didn’t stop her from seeing strange things, but she repressed a lot of what she’d seen in an attempt to cope with the reality everyone told her was imagined. This kept her from getting the treatments she would have actually benefited from.
• Obviously Evil: Madame Blanchard’s appearance just screams evil from the start. Everyone is (rightfully) wary of her, but tolerate her because of her usefulness.
• Oddly Small Organization: Averted with the Gloam Hunters. They’re large enough to actually serve as an effective power worldwide. Though the main characters only interact with a handful of them, others are mentioned or have lines over the radio, although they are never seen on-screen.
• One True Threesome: Lee, Bella, and Ariel.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Though a lot of inspiration came from Dracula, there are still some key differences: Garlic doesn’t affect them, and the most effective means of disposal are silver weapons.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: The full moon forces a transformation where they lose their minds, but otherwise werewolves can learn to transform at will; their saliva is toxic to vampires, and they’re vulnerable to both silver and wolfsbane.
• Parental Abandonment: Lee’s parents were killed by Gloambeasts. Ariel’s father was killed by a vampire, and his mother grew increasingly distant and emotionally abusive after the fact.
• Power at a Price: Sure, you could easily be the most powerful mage in the world… if you don’t mind the insanity that comes with it.
• Power Crystal: The blood rubies used to control the werewolves.
• Practically Different Generations: Try totally different generations; Bella is nearly two centuries older than her sister.
• Promotion to Parent: Morgan stepped up to look after his younger siblings when their father died.
• Quirky Curls: Bella is very upbeat and energetic and tends to play by her own rules, and has the hair to match.
• Reality Warper: Any magician, who has since realised their capacity for magic, could be this. The price, however, is their sanity. How much are you willing to sacrifice for power?
• Rescue Romance: Both Ariel and Bella work together to save Lee from death by werewolf at the start of the story, and this kicks off the Love Triangle.
• Scars Are Forever: Downplayed. Though Lee’s scarring is certainly gruesome, they fade somewhat with time.
• Shed the Family Name: The Wards, specifically to distance themselves from Beatrice’s abusive father and William’s former master.
• Significant Birth Date: Lee, being born under a total lunar eclipse, has full control of her transformations and isn’t affected by the full moon. The werewolves initially experimented on were also all born under a full moon, which is why they were targeted.
• Silver Has Mystic Powers: It’s the go-to weapon against creatures of darkness.
• Spiked Blood: Why Bella likes to go out clubbing when she feeds. It’s the only way for vampires to become intoxicated.
• Strong Family Resemblance: All of the Montgomeries have pale blond hair. Bella and Elena are also described as strongly resembling their parents, with Bella taking after their mother and Elena after their father.
• Stumbled Into the Plot: Lee decided to go for a walk one night, only to get attacked by a werewolf. The rest, as they say, is history.
• Really 700 Years Old: Bella was born in 1835 and looks to be in her early twenties. Her parents are barely twenty years older than her and appear about the same.
• Stoic Woobie: Ariel, who lost his arm and his father in the same night, often comes off as cold and distant.
• There Are No Therapists: Discussed, downplayed, and averted — Connor O'Connor is a werewolf therapist. He's a werewolf who is a therapist for werewolves, and anyone else who needs to talk about the craziness of Tenebrous.
• Token Trio: Ariel is the white male, Lee is the white female, Bella is the black minority. Played with to hell and back, however; all three are bisexual, the nonbinary Lee is also heavily implied to be intersex, and Ariel has a prosthetic arm.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Lee and Bella. Lee wears her hair short, dresses in plaids and black, and has a multitude of piercings; Bella is The Fashionista, though is just as willing and able to get down and dirty in a fight.
• Total Eclipse of the Plot: Werewolves temporarily regain control during a total lunar eclipse. Blanchard’s attempts to make werewolves go feral without the influence of the full moon were finally successful after an alchemical experiment conducted during one such eclipse. It’s also why Lee is unaffected by her magic and has such great control over her shapeshifting; she was born under another total eclipse, leaving her immune to the lunar cycle.
• The Twink: Ariel is tall, thin, and wiry, and keeps his hair somewhat long. Bella explicitly refers to him as “the cute blond twink”.
• Two Girls and a Guy
• Vampire Doctor: Bella's multiple medical degrees speak to her passion for the subject.
• Vampire Hunter: The Montgomeries, and other hunters, got their start as this. Now that the Night Treaty is in place, they act more as enforcers to keep the peace between the supernatural and mundane worlds.
• Vampire Procreation Limit: Children of vampires are always human. As for how new vampires are made, it requires the victim to be gorged on the blood of another vampire.
• Vampires Are Rich: Played straight for most families. Inverted and called to painful attention with the Wards, and for good reason: William is black, and Beatrice was unable to own property or have her own bank account without a (white) husband until recent decades. Bella, as their child, had the double whammy of being mixed race and female.
• Vampire-Werewolf Love Triangle: Inverted. The vampire and the werewolf end up in a mutual relationship with the Vampire Hunter.
• Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Discussed. The Night Treaty was formed in part to prevent this.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Werewolves can learn to transform into their wolf form at any time (except during the full moon, when it happens regardless of desire).
• Wainscot Society: Tenebrous, made up of the four councils (hunters, vampires, werewolves, and mages) to maintain The Masquerade.
• Welcomed to the Masquerade: “Accalia Lowell, welcome to the world of Tenebrous.”
• Weirdness Censor: The Gloam, or “the barrier that separates magic and mundane”. It prevents normal humans from seeing the dealings of the Gloamtouched while allowing them to live unhindered by the inherent problems trying to fit into a human society would present. The Masquerade is upheld to keep those who can see through the Gloam but are not in the know from exposing the night world.
• Werewolf Theme Naming: Accalia (Lee’s full name) was the foster mother of Romulus and Remus. Lowell means “young wolf”. Her parents named her this because of the unexpected circumstances of her birth. Needless to say, Lee was doomed from the start.
  • Connor O’Connor. “Connor” means “lover of wolves”. Fitting, seeing as he runs the werewolf support group.
  • Diana Guadalupe, the werewolf representative on the Chicago council. Diana was the Roman goddess of the moon, and Guadalupe means “valley of wolves”.
• White Anglo-Saxon Protestant: The Montgomeries.
  • Bella's response to Ariel saying his family has owned their land for centuries is to cough very pointedly.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Mages actively try to prevent humanity from learning about the existence of magic because of this. The most powerful are also the most insane; magic is instead used in more subtle ways to influence reality rather than outright warp it.
• Wooden Stake: Used to paralyze vampires, but cannot permanently kill them.
• Your Vampires Suck: “And before you can bring it up, no, we don’t sparkle.” Becomes a Brick Joke when Bella (who was watching Lee and Ariel sleep) is asked if she’s sure she doesn’t sparkle after they wake up and are less than pleased.