In the Forests of the Night is a
fantasy novel by
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. It was
published in 1999 by
Laurel Leaf (a
branch of
Random House), when she was fifteen, and was her first published
book. It is 147
pages long.
Barnes and Noble and
Amazon have it for 5 dollars.
The book is rather like Cryptonomicon in that it tells two different, but related, stories and switches between them every chapter or two. It is also worth noting that the book opens with a poem: The Tyger, by William Blake. The second line of the poem is "In the forests of the night." However, it's anybody's guess as to whether Atwater-Rhodes got the title from the poem or picked the poem to fit the title.
The protagonist in these stories is Risika, a vampire. She was known as Rachel Weatere before she was turned into a vampire.
The first story, which takes place from 1701 - 1704, tells of how Rachel was turned, what she did after she was turned, and how she gradually came to accept her new form.
The other story, which takes place "now", spends the first chapter debunking most of the common vampire myths. After that, it tells the tale of Risika's power stuggle against Aubrey, another vampire whom she has hated since he killed her brother.
I'm very bad at reviewing books, because I think there's no such thing as a horrible one, but I'll give it a try anyway, just so you can decide whether to buy a B&N latte or this book. I thought this was a pretty good book. I just checked out a bunch of books by other vampire authors (I've only read a couple so far, not enough to compare them) and I will update this with my comparisons after I finish reading them all. Atwater-Rhodes has both a good writing style and an interesting story. The predator and prey mindsets are also very well done. In my opinion, this is the best of her books.