In 2003, Atwater-Rhodes, who so far had published novels about vampires, took a change of course and began a series of books based on a world of shapeshifters that Atwater-Rhodes would call, The Kiesha'ra Series. All the novels in the series are told in first-person narrative, a feat she had not done since her first novel. The first volume in the set of novels was released in July 2003, titled "Hawksong". Despite the change in the subject topic the book was just as successful as her previous novels being made an ALA Quick Pick, it also won the "School Library Journal" Best Book of the Year, and was selected by "Voice of Youth Advocates" for their "Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror". "Hawksong" tells the story of a young woman named Danica Shardae, who is a princess and hawk shapeshifter of the Avian court, who also narrates the story. She tells of how all she has known all her life is war and all that she wants is to put an end to it.