Atwater-Rhodes' second book, Demon in My View, was published in 2000 when the author was 16 and is the sequel to In the Forests of the Night.
Persistence of Memory, published in 2008, makes mention and features an appearance of the main character's brother.
According to Atwater-Rhodes' official site, The Den of Shadows, In the Forests of the Night is one of seven novels that she had finished writing and is the first she published.
During the writing process, Atwater-Rhodes suffered from writer's block and a computer crash, causing her to lose most of her work on the novel, and thus resulted in some changes to the plotline.
In the Forests of the Night was republished in paperback with a new cover to mark the series in July 2009,[1] while all four books were released in an omnibus called The Den of Shadows Quartet on August 11, 2009.
The book centers around Risika who born in 1684 as Rachel Weatere, a God-fearing seventeen-year-old who lived with her father, half-sister, Lynette, and her twin brother, Alexander.
One day, an unknown stranger appears at their home, who is later revealed as Aubrey and gives Rachel a black rose, which pricks her finger, drawing blood.
Eventually Aubrey learns of Tora's existence and in an attempt to get Risika to lie low, he kills the tiger.
Wounded once more, Risika takes on the tiger's stripes in her hair and finds a note with the name "Rachel" written on it and covered with tears.
Accepting this, Risika transforms back to herself and takes Aubrey's blood but before allowing him to leave she takes the knife he carries, which she had found out nearly 300 years ago contains magic from one of the witch's clans, and slashes him in his collarbone, avenging the scar he had left on her not too long after she had been transformed and tells him to remember the events of that day and warns him that even though she has taken his blood it did not make up for the death of Tora or Alexander.
He reveals that the reason Ather changed her was out of revenge against Alexander for having interrupting her trying feed on Lynette.
Born as Rachel Waetere in 1684, she was transformed against her will into a vampire, when she was seventeen, by Ather in 1701 and lives in the fictional version of Concord, Massachusetts.
Risika can transform into a hawk, as she enjoys flying over the power of mental teleportation, which is most commonly used by other vampires.
[4] Atwater-Rhodes later revealed that Risika and her twin brother's mother was originally a witch of the Light Line.
For the longest time it was unknown to Risika that he was not dead, prior to her contrary belief, though he was looking for her knowing that she was alive and that she was a vampire, and upon the death of Tora and saddened by his sister's lost he sent her a note which he had cried upon with her birthname written upon it.
[4] On December 8, 2009, a little over ten years after In the Forests of the Night was published, Atwater-Rhodes revealed background information about the characters and their world on her official site.
Before it was taken over, she had fled to a town called Vieton where she met and married Rachel and Alexander's father.
[6] In the Forests of the Night was applauded as "Insightful...and imaginative" by Publishers Weekly[7] and "remarkable" by Voice of Youth Advocates.
School Library Journal praised it stating "This first novel by an author with great ability and promise is sure to be popular."