In the Forests of the Night critics. The title refers William Blake's poem "The Tyger", which appears in the beginning of the book. Atwater-Rhodes' second book, "Demon in My View", was published in 2000 when she was 16 and is the sequel to "In the Forests of the Night". "Persistence of Memory", published in 2008, makes mention and 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 only the first she ever published. The inspiration for the novel came from an assignment
William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job identified with Job, as he spent his lifetime unrecognized and impoverished. Harold Bloom has interpreted Blake's most famous lyric, "The Tyger", as a revision of God's rhetorical questions in the Book of Job concerning Behemoth and Leviathan. Blake also depicted the story of Job throughout his career as an artist. The song of Enion in Night the Second of "The Four Zoas" also demonstrates that Blake identified with Job. Blake used symbols extensively in the illustrations; most notable is the use of right and left limbs in the figures. The right limb represents the spiritual and the good; the left,