Sophia

In which Sophia tells everyone about her date with Nicholas, then with just her closest friends makes a definitive declaration of her dedication to remaining single and asks for their prayer and support.

In which Sophia meets Nicholas at the zoo for their date, and finds his intentions for her are not what she had expected.

In which Sophia describes to her friends the details of how Nicholas asked her out, and they discuss the impending date in the context of her Christian walk and her earlier decision to stop dating.

In which Sophia and her friends discuss her date with Balthazar, and Sophia decides to try to stop looking for love in every new guy she meets.

In which Balthazar gives Sophia a tour of his home, which is a little like a palace but more like a museum, and she begins to realize she's been looking at him the way Barry had looked at her.

In which Sophia is nearly overwhelmed getting ready for her date with Balthazar, though the results are amazing, then is underwhelmed by the opera itself.

In which Sophia is set up on a date with Balthazar, who arranges to have a world-famous designer create an evening gown for Sophia to wear to the opera.

In which Sophia attends a new church for the first time, then later finds herself very grateful to have a couple of good, new friends she can talk to about what she's been going through since moving out.

In which Barry accompanies Sophia home and their date takes a turn Sophia realizes she isn't comfortable with.

In which Barry takes Sophia shopping on their second date, buying her new shoes and clothes and gifts.

In which Sophia attends her first college classes in person, and finds she already has friends from among some of the online classes she'd already taken.

In which Sophia has a reasonably pleasant first date with Barry.

In which Sophia consents to additional donations which leave her little more than a head and a heart, and after a long and painful recovery returns home to find an intriguing invitation waiting for her.

In which Sophia's dramatic failure of a first date leaves her shaken, and she agrees to a radical and extensive organ donation to save another little girl from having to face eternal life in the body of a child.

In which Sophia tries to recover from her painful, personal ordeal while preparing to see Joshua again that night, then finds herself in yet another situation unlike anything she'd been through before.

In which Sophia fixates on the idea of Joshua, writing about him in her journal, imagining her first date with him, and finding herself fantasizing about him in ways she's never experienced before.

In which Sophia's larger purchases are delivered and she gets her apartment furnished and decorated, then she goes to the blood center to donate blood and has another encounter with Joshua.

In which Sophia goes shopping for the first time in her life, buying all new clothes and furniture and household items, considering how to make the best impression on Joshua with each purchase.

In which Sophia experiences the feeling of falling in love at first sight with Joshua, the young man tasked with keeping her continuously supplied with blood while she recovers from her surgery.

In which Sophia goes through her first organ donation, struggling through the pain of starvation, then of having her corneas cut out and her bone marrow extracted, with the comfort of her faith to help carry her through it all.

In which Sophia talks to Franz about the blood hunger she'd never felt before fasting for surgery, then briefly heads to her old home to gather her things and say goodbye to her parents again.

In which Franz gives Sophia a quick tour of the vampire influences on the city, and of the history of human-vampire integration, before helping her find an apartment of her own.

In which Sophia goes to the Office of Vampire Affairs (OVA) to get her back-pay from a decade of blood donations and meets Franz, her point of contact at the OVA.

In which Sophia bakes her own birthday cake and, not long after midnight, has her parents take her to the DMV to get her ID card - surprising her parents with her plan to get a place of her own that very night.

In which Sophia's concept of her identity as a vampire, and of the integrations with and separations from society experienced by vampires in the modern world, are explored from her limited perspective.

In which Sophia goes to church on the 10th anniversary of her "resurrection day" - the day she died and was turned into a vampire, at age 7. Now nearly 18, Sophia looks forward to the chance to move out and get away from the protective environment her parents created and kept her in.