Welcome to a (late) edition of Readers Ask, now moved to Wednesdays!

As always, send me your burning questions to questions at colleengleason dot com for a chance to win an advance copy of The Bleeding Dusk.

My email buddy David Jebb, an American currently living in Spain, has been carefully rereading Rises the Night, which has caused him to pepper me with the following questions about…Venatrixes (his word, not mine….but I kinda like it).

He asks: I have a question about the Venator system.  Zavier tells Victoria that only women directly related to the first Gardella can assume the legacy, whereas a male Venator can be a direct descendent, an off-shot or be completely unrelated and go through a series of trials, like Max.  Is this just because of the social conventions of the time?  If, say, there were a 21st century female Venator, could she be a non-Gardella because women have more choice today?

Great questions! Okay, first…the Gardellas are a very fruitful family and they've spread their roots throughout the world. So Gardellas–or at least, members of the family tree–can pop up everywhere, including The New World. And the Venator "sense" or "calling" can be found in both men and women.

However, only very few women throughout the ages have had the Call (and have answered it–remember, Lady Melly was called, but she didn't accept the Call) to be a Venator, and it seems–by virtue of genetics or design, I'm not sure–that only those women who are directly descended from the Gardella lineage have received the Call. 

At least, so far as Zavier knows.:-) (No, that's not a hint.)