Born of Night

Author's Note:

Authors will always tell you that every book they write is special. That they all hold a tender place in our hearts. This is very true, but some of them are particularly precious.

For me, this book is one of them. Nykyrian and Syn were actually my childhood playmates. As a latchkey kid, I used to turn the kitchen chairs on their backs and pretend I was flying through space with my best friends by my side. I know it sounds silly, but I was hooked and I adored them.

Over the years, I wrote down many adventures I took with them and when I was in college and had decided to write my first “real” novel, i.e. one I was actually going to submit to publishers, there was no one else I wanted to write about.

I spent a year drafting Born of Night by hand– yeah, that was entertaining. Anyone who has ever attended a signing knows how illegible my writing is. During Christmas break 1986, I sat down to type it out and decipher my horrible penmanship. Of course, I didn’t own a typewriter and was trying to find one I could borrow.

As with so many other times in my life, my older brother came to my rescue by borrowing one from his roommate. I spent every spare minute when I wasn’t working at my jobs, typing the manuscript. When I finished, my brother came for the typewriter and I can still remember the smile on his face when he said, “I know it’s a winner, baby. I can’t wait to read it.”

My brother died a few weeks later and I didn’t have the heart to send the manuscript out. It would be three years before I’d find the courage to pursue my writing again– and to that I owe two very special people in my life. Diana Porter Hillock- my best friend from high school and my husband, Ken. But for them, I’m not sure I’d have ever written again. I know without Ken having bought me a Brother Wordprocessor (we couldn’t afford a computer), I would definitely not be writing today. I can never, ever thank the two of them enough for the gift they gave me. For the precious gifts of love, support and companionship that my husband continues to give to me everyday– I definitely don’t deserve him. I hope everyone has someone in their life like my Ken, because I don’t know how I’d make it through without him.

Born of Night was bought in 1992, but wasn’t published until 1996. There’s a long story there and maybe one day I’ll tell it. It was the last book I published until 1999. Another long story that you can read about on my website.

It is one of only three novels I’ve ever had to go out of print and thanks to St. Martins, all of them will be back in circulation in the next few months. Thank you SMP, Monique, Matthew, Sally and Jen for giving me the chance to soar and for all you, and the rest of the team, do day in and day out to get the books to the stores. I couldn’t ask for a greater group of people to work with.

Those of you who have read or who own the original Born of the Night will notice the size difference. In this version, I was able to return the original scenes to the book that were edited out because they were deemed too harsh for the market at the time it was originally published. Because the original League books were all released by different publishers, I also had to break them apart, change character names and such to make the series look like it wasn’t related. All that’s gone and the books now read like the series they were intended to be.

I hope you enjoy your adventure in the Ichidian Universe. This is the place where I grew up and where I roamed the streets with an assassin, a thief and a bounty hunter. Yeah, I was a really strange child LOL. And I hope you’ll return here with next month’s release of Born of Fire.

~Sherrilyn Kenyon