ABOUT THE AUTHOR

April Martins started scribbling down ideas for this story in the year 2000, when she was thirteen years old. It took her a year and a half to finish the first draft in its entirety, and another six months to proofread it; it was considered a mere side project for about a year, until a friend convinced April the idea was worth building upon.

Being the victim of countless road trips, April first got the idea for The Legend Of Shadow while gazing stupidly out the window at the passing traffic on the highway. Soon she began imagining a creature of some sort bounding from car to car, riding along on the roofs, and the Red Bat was born. Soon the Bat had a history, a personality, and a few friends to socialize with. April began writing down all she thought of during those tedious trips and, before she knew it, she had a story to write. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Legend Of Shadow was, at first, greatly influenced by cartoons April would spend time watching on Saturday mornings-rather lighthearted and simple. After a time, however, the story began taking on a life of its own, modeling itself after Tim Burton movies and Japanese animation.

Once April hit high school, things really got interesting. Characters were dropped or added, subplots were totally transformed, characters were given deeper personalities and tragic pasts. The end result is, to say the least, the biggest collage April has ever had the pleasure of working on.

April spends most of her spare time reading the works of Garth Nix, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Russell Moon or movie novelizations. Having completed ninth grade with the third highest average out of 169 students, she manages to maintain her grades despite the time she's spent developing The Legend Of Shadow and the countless other works in progress.

To her father's great irritation, she prefers to listen to music while working on something important. Another hobby of hers is drawing, which is usually perfected during math class. April also enjoys playing music, whether it's the piano or the flute (or the radio), although she hasn't taken music lessons since age six. Since then, she struggles to figure out what all those dots on paper mean without completely losing the flow of the tune.