Synopsis and Characters
Synopsis of First Light
Sloane is a nineteen-year-old fledgling vampire who lives with her sire, Karhi, and works at a bar. While working, Sloane recognizes an old friend, Corvine, Queen of the Ravens, sitting at a table. Corvine has auditory hallucinations that go away with proximity to Sloane. Corvine calls her a cursebreaker and tells her that she owes Sloane a favor for her cursebreaking abilities.
Sloane has a dream of her adoptive brothers Mickey and Bell, who she’s assumed are dead, where they meet her mother, and she gives them each a gift of soulsilver. Sloane wakes up to a call from her childhood friend Mira telling her that their friend Mikko is missing, and their other friends, Genie and Frankie, are in foster care after finding their parents dead. Sloane leaves for Phoenix to help her family and find Mikko.
Karhi receives a call that he is expected in Phoenix for the Samhain festival. Going to alert Sloane, Karhi learns that she is gone. He goes to Phoenix and meets with his abusive sire, Ilona. She threatens him and Sloane upon finding out that Sloane is missing.
Sloane’s return home is disastrous with her family shunning her for being a vampire. She runs into Mickey and Bell and flees, unable to deal with the unexpected, painful reunion. Sloane tries to find information on the missing Mikko and instead finds out that Genie and Frankie have been arrested.
Sloane runs into Lunette, Karhi’s sister, who can’t find Karhi. Sloane agrees to help Lunette find Karhi if Lunette helps her get Frankie and Genie out of jail. They go to the city’s vampire brothel and find Karhi there high on heroin. When Karhi is sober, they infiltrate the police station with Lunette’s help pretending to be a social worker to get Frankie and Genie out. Outside the police station, it’s revealed that Mikko has been kidnapped and is being held somewhere and tortured. Sloane uses her favor with Corvine, who finds Mikko in an abandoned warehouse and brings him back to Sloane.
Sloane goes to a club and runs into Theron Kaiho, a vampire hunter, as well as two vampires named Angus and Ava who try to antagonize her and Theron before being kicked out of the club. She calls Karhi outside, but is interrupted by Angus and Ava, who turn out to be two of Ilona’s children. They overpower Sloane with dead man’s blood and torture her before killing her. Karhi finds Sloane and manages to stabilize her through a process known as double-siring.
Together with Mira, Karhi confronts Theron and his partner, Zero, who they believe may be involved in what’s been going on but it’s another dead end. Karhi and Mira leave, and they’re hit by a truck driven by Ilona. She takes Karhi and leaves Mira with a note for Sloane to meet her at the Samhain festival.
It’s revealed that Ilona is behind everything that has happened up until now. At the festival, Sloane confronts Ava, Angus, and Ilona. Ilona monologues about how she did this because Sloane kept Mira and her abilities from Ilona. Ilona attempts to force Sloane to submit to her, but Sloane overcomes the compulsion. She kills Ava and Angus and burns Ilona using her soulsilver before Ilona’s partner is able to Jump them away.
By attacking Ilona, Sloane has broken the covenant of Samhain which says there is no violence on the grounds of the festival. She is given a court date for sentencing. They learn that Sloane’s soulfire did so much damage to Ilona that she will likely die soon. Sloane also learns she is a free vampire, untethered to any sire. With Ilona gone, Sloane and Karhi talk about having a newfound freedom to explore.
Characters
Primary Characters
- Sloane Briallen is a human vampire with advanced healing abilities. Her mother died when she was nine and she grew up as a chronic foster care runaway. She built a family in Phoenix of magics and other foster runaways. At sixteen, she was adopted by her childhood best friends. At nineteen, she was turned into a vampire.
- Karhi Emelyn is a century-old human vampire with the ability to make people forget things by looking at them (fuscopathy). He was turned into a vampire in the 1500s by a sadistic sire, Ilona Emelyn. He was tortured and abused by his sire over the course of his entire life until Sloane all but killed Ilona. He has a heroin problem and sleeps with anything that consents.
The Phoenix Family
- Mira Ríordan is a neuropath who can read minds and use telepathy and mind control. She is the only member of Sloane’s Phoenix family who was never in foster care. Her mother was a meth addict who was hardly around, and Mira’s now-deceased grandmother raised Mira. At age 16, Mira had a child, Evelina “Lina” Ríordan. Her moniker is “the White Psychic”. She has a contract with the house of living vampires for protection, which is what draws Ilona’s ire.
- Mikko Lawrence is a human. He was horribly abused by his parents to the point of losing an ear and most of the hearing in that ear. His parents’ rights were terminated, and he went into foster before becoming a runaway due to more abuse in the foster system. Sloane found him and didn’t like him at first, but overtime, she grew to love him. Mikko developed a cocaine problem as a teenager. With the help of Sloane and the rest of his family, he was able to kick it after a couple of relapses. He is held prisoner by Ilona.
- Annie Falk a halfshifter lost her mother when she was a kid, no dad in the picture. She ended up in foster care where she met Sloane. To make money, she boxes in an illegal underground boxing ring.
- Frankie Cirocco is a human and Genie Carwyn is a kinesiopath (supernatural balance). They came as a pair, also foster runaways. Genie is deaf and the reason why all of Sloane’s family knows ASL. Frankie and Genie met in a foster home together and have never been separated. They were adopted by a couple, Shirley and Rolando Castillo, who were later killed by Ilona’s minions.
- Lina Ríordan is Mira’s five-year-old daughter. She has the same abilities as her mother.
The Adoptive Family
- Bell and Mickey Blackthorne are werewolf cousins and Sloane’s adoptive brothers and childhood best friends. They turned into wolves for the first time on Sloane’s eighteenth birthday and were taken in by a mentor and were forbidden from contacting Sloane. They were presumed dead until they showed up at Mira’s doorstep looking for Sloane. They are now the heads of a pack comprising their distant cousins.
- Mauve and Leah Blackthorne are two human sisters. They were Sloane’s mother and have known Sloane since she was five. They tried to adopt her after her mother died, but it didn’t work. They were successful in adopting her as a teenager.
The Emelyns
- Ilona Emelyn is a human vampire. She is the sire of Karhi, Onyx, Carry, Zeren, Lunette, and Carrick Emelyn. She is sadistic and would regularly torture her children. She is the primary antagonist of book 1, having killed Genie and Frankie parents, tortured Mikko, and attempted to kill Sloane through two of her other blood children, Ava and Angus. Sloane nearly killed her by burning her with soulfire. Her whereabouts and condition are unknown, but she is presumed alive for now.
- Onyx Emelyn is a human vampire and Karhi’s blood sibling (turned by the same vampire). She can make people hallucinate (illusopath). She is married to Carry.
- Carry Emelyn is a human vampire and Karhi’s blood sibling. She has advanced strength and speed (velocikinetic). She is married to Onyx and is biologically related to Zeren, another of Karhi’s blood siblings.
- Zeren Emelyn is a human vampire and Karhi’s blood sibling. He is a neuropath who can influence people’s emotions. He is biologically related to Carry.
- Lunette Emelyn is a human vampire and Karhi’s blood sibling. She can make people feel pain with just a look (a cruciopath).
- Carrick Emelyn is a human vampire, Karhi’s blood sibling, and Ilona’s partner. He can make portals to other places (a Jumper).
Characters that are mentioned but never seen
- Hazel Ruaidhrí is a living vampire and the queen of the House of Living Vampires. She has a contract with Mira where Mira works for her for payment or favors. She is Ilona Emelyn’s biological sister.
- Aoife Muireadhach is a living vampire. She gave Mira the moniker “the White Psychic” and is Mira and Sloane’s connection to the House of Living Vampires, the governing body of all living vampires.
- Amos Black is a shapeshifter that would help out the Phoenix family occasionally. He is a private investigator and Sloane’s art mentor.
- Carlos Vásquez and Timber White are shapeshifters that would help out the Phoenix family occasionally.
Kpeds Creates 