Feral Nights (27 page)
Authors: Cynthia Leitich Smith
Feral Nights
is set in a fantastical multi-creature-verse that serves as a stage for many of my novels, and the events in
Feral Nights
are simultaneous to those in
Diabolical,
my immediately preceding book.
Diabolical,
along with
Tantalize, Eternal,
and
Blessed,
was inspired by Bram Stoker’s classic,
Dracula.
Those four books may be read either as stand-alone novels or together to form what we authors call a super-arc. Big, building story. Big payoff.
You get the idea.
Feral Nights
isn’t part of that conversation with Stoker or its overarching story line. It’s a spin-off, a new story line, but one with roots. Some of the settings, characters, and plot threads were introduced in the earlier quartet.
Feral Nights
grew out of letters from readers asking for more of popular secondary characters like Clyde, Aimee, and Brenek. It grew out of questions like “What ever happened to Ruby Kitahara?” and “Where did that werebear rug come from?”
Around the same time, I became ever more fascinated with the question of whether, over the ages, different species of the
Homo
genus have shared the earth at the same time.
I’d already begun to explore that idea by including the various species of natural-born shifters alongside
Homo sapiens
in the fantasy universe, when it occurred to me to wonder, What if there was another branch of the family tree — an older yet crafty and sophisticated one — prospering unknown to the rest of the world?
That said,
Feral Nights
is written especially for everyone who’s told me — if not in so many words — that they loved spooky adventure and sweeping romance and inspiring gallantry but saw themselves more as a first mate, a second-stringer, or a best
amigo.
Speaking of y’all readers . . . Although the
character
of Cameron isn’t based on him, a student named Cameron that I met during a Houston/Pasadena area high school visit suggested I use his name in my next novel, preferably in connection to a demon king. Consider it done.
On a related note, the fictional Cameron’s mention of “hobbits” was a reference to
Homo floresiensis,
not the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Just in case you were worried.
Avid readers and pop-culture fans may also notice references to Aesop, L. Frank Baum, Pierre Boulle, Johnny Capps, Lewis Carroll, Chris Carter, Bob Clampett, Richard Connell, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Bill Finger, Ian Fleming, Gardner Fox, Gary Friedrich, William Golding, Hanna-Barbera, John Hughes, Carmine Infantino, Michael Jackson, Julian Jones, Bob Kane, Robert Kanigher, Rudyard Kipling, Jack Kirby, Noel Langley, Glen A. Larson, Stan Lee, C. S. Lewis, George Lucas, Bela Lugosi, Robert McKimson, Irene Mecchi, Jake Michie, General Mills, Sheldon Moldoff, Julian Murphy, Andrew Nance, George Papp, Charles Perrault, Mike Ploog, Jonathan Roberts, Jerry Robinson, Gene Roddenberry, Joe Ruby, Florence Ryerson, Louis Sachar, Franklin J. Schaffner, Leon Schlesinger Productions, Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, Ken Spears, Sir Henry Morton Stanley, David Stern, Jimmy Stewart, Roy Thomas, John Updike, Manuel R. Vega, John Walsh, Mort Weisinger, H. G. Wells, Joss Whedon, E. B. White, Woodrow Wilson, Edgar Allan Woof, Linda Woolverton, and Brian Yansky (who would make a fine necromancer, if he ever set his mind to it).
Alas, Daemon Island, Enlightenment Alley, Basement Blues, and Sanguini’s are fictional locales, as are the characters’ homes and various referenced publications. My apologies if you’re disappointed. I’d dearly love to sample Nora’s cognac-cream fettuccine Alfredo with broiled alligator and pine nuts, too.
On a final note, when Clyde and Aimee muse on themselves as a parallel couple to Dick and Barbara or Ollie and Dinah, they’re thinking of the good times.
As Aimee says, “Love is scary hard, even for superheroes.”
It’s also worth it.
My deepest appreciation to my editor, Deborah Noyes Wayshak; her assistant, Carter Hasegawa; my paperback editor, Hilary Van Dusen; and the additional editorial/production/design/marketing/sales rock stars — especially Tracy and Jenny — who, day after day, make magic in the form of books.
I’d also like to thank my agent, Ginger Knowlton; her assistant, Anna Umansky; and the whole team at Curtis Brown Ltd.
Closer to home, cheers to the Austin children’s and YA literature community, particularly P. J. Hoover and Lisa Parker; to my very cute husband, Greg Leitich Smith; and to our own merry band of (were?)cats — Mercury, Bashi, Blizzard, and Leo, who raise the expression “wild things” to a whole new level.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2013 by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Cover photographs: copyright © 2013 by Tore Thiis Fjeld/Getty Images (island);
copyright © 2013 by Morton Beebe/Corbis (cat)
Photograph on title page copyright © Image Farm Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2013
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2012942377
ISBN 978-0-7636-5909-7 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7636-6368-1 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at
www.candlewick.com
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