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Similar but Better

Been thinking back to two vampire novels I read back before Twilight, and how similar they are to the “epic saga” while still doing a lot of plot points better. Hold onto your hats, folks, this is going to be a long one!

The books in question are Got Fangs and it sequel Circus of the Darned by Katie Maxwell. To my current knowledge there are no more in the series (which is shame) but even together I feel they hit a lot of plot points Twilight has now somehow made classic while doing it better. The books focus on Fran, who is with a touring carnival in Europe with her Wiccan mother while her dad hangs out with his new trophy wife. Fran end up meeting vampire Benedict and they find out they’re technically soul mates. Meanwhile something big is going down in both books leading Fran to get Benedict and her pals to investigate the problems plaguing the carnival.

Lead Relationship

Fran and Benedict’s relationship feels a lot more natural than Ed and Bella’s, mostly because Fran does in fact freak out over the soul mate thing and she and Benedict essentially agree to just try dating. This means that unlike Ed and Bella, we do occasionally see the two of them hanging out, exchanging likes and dislikes, arguing (and I mean arguing) and seeming like a normal couple. The fact that Ben is hundreds of years old does in fact come up rather often, of example when she’s peering into his memories she sees things from way into the past. His sister also reminds Fran that his date ideas are pretty old fashioned and mostly to try to have fun with it anyway if he does something a bit too cheesy.

Our Heroine

Fran hits a lot of the same notes as Bella. Finds herself unattractive, has weird abilities, dates a vampire, etc. However, Fran is better explained. She thinks she’s unattractive because she’s a bigger girl who is tall with wide shoulders (Imogen and other constantly call her out on this, and even she admits she can doll up a bit). Her powers are where if she grabs someone bare-handed she can see their memories, so she usually wears flash-colored latex gloves under fishnet gloves to counteract it. She is Benedict’s “Beloved” (this is treated in-universe as a technical term), but even she’s a bit iffy on that.

Fran has a personality of her own. She wants to be normal but at the same time enjoys the weirdness of the carnival and the people she’s met there. She’s friends with Imogen, Benedict’s sister who she knew long before Benedict, and in the second book gains a posse of Viking ghosts at her beck and call despite her best efforts to be rid of them. She’s headstrong and even sometimes too rash, holding onto grudges longer than she should and this is shown as not being a good thing. She buys an old horse off a man who was going to have to sell it for glue and has nursed it back to health. Essentially, she does stuff. We see it. And that is good.

Our Vampire

Benedict is, unlike Ed, not treated as the perfect man. Like Fran he has a bit of a temper, and when his pride gets involved too it get can very complicated. He cannot go out in the sun unless well-covered, and even then usually lingers in the shade. His fangs are usually only visible when drinking, and he doesn’t really like the idea of Fran seeing them (though he does let her feel them in a French kiss). While he can drink animal blood (when injured in one book someone rushed off to bleed a cow for him) that’s really not a preference and he mostly sticks to nibbling on guests, or his sister if that won’t work.

In this universe, only guys are classic vampires. Girls get the lifespans, but don’t have to drink blood or hide from the sun, so really Imogen got a better deal than him. She’s also the older sibling and can throw her weight around with that when needed. Benedict also cannot drink Fran’s blood but for a good reason: as his Beloved if he does, he can only drink her blood for the rest of time and he knows better than to put that kind of pressure on her.

Other Concepts:

Near Breakups: Fran and Benedict do clash and have time apart, but usually its due to the stubbornness of both parties. While Ben was gone for a long time between books, he does have to face tge music for that one since Fran points out you don’t drop a bombshell like “You’re my Beloved” on a girl and then take off for a while.

The Plots: Both books have solid plots. Book A has someone stealing money from the carnival followed by what seem like demon attacks. This also lets us have Fran suspect Benedict for a bit with it still feeling natural. Book 2 has Fran accidentally summoning a bunch if Viking ghosts and the god Loki after her horse. The Viking ghosts alone make the book, but Fran is determined to get them to Valhalla. The villains present genuine threats to Fran and her current way of life while not being all about her to the point where you wonder why.

Other characters: Zomg! They have purposes! We have Imogen, Ben’s sister who is snarky, nearly always right, and the focus of a villain. Fran’s mom, a scatterbrained Wiccan who tries to help with the ghosts and lays down the law for Ben more than once. The Viking Ghosts, who managed to discover shopping and videogames. Elvis the demonologist, who’s both slick and creepy at the same time. Soren, who’s like a brother to Fran and often pulls a non-romantic-version-of-Jacob on Ben (he does take not being a possible boyfriend for Fran a bit hard when it comes up, but gets over it—you know, that thing people do).

In conclusion: WAY BETTER THAN TWILIGHT! I just felt it bore comparison due to the similarities that I’ve recently noticed.

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