The Forests of the Night the war as it really was, as James Kirkup observed, an "acid portrait of those who played at being members of the [French] Resistance". The novel's theme and title come from the opening lines to William Blake's poem "The Tyger": "Tiger, tiger, burning bright - in the forests of the night." "The Forests of the Night" was translated in 1951 into English by Nora Wydenbruck; it has not been re-printed since. Francis is the son of the Comte de Balansun, whose family resides in the French town of Saint-Clar, near the Pyrenees. Francis, in the beginning of the novel, skips
In the Forests of the Night tiger and cares about her deeply. According to Risika, the two have a strong understanding of each other and they keep each other company. Tora is later killed by Aubrey, to hurt Risika. When Risika had discovered the body she noticed Aubrey had tied the tiger up before stabbing her with a knife. 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. She revealed that Risika, as well as Aubrey and Ather, is part of a line