The hot sun seemed to go right through me, reflecting off the aluminum bleachers to warm me from my feet up as I stood beside Nakita and cheered Josh on. He was running the two- mile in an invitational, and they were doing the last bit right on the track. The front three runners had begun to pick up the pace for the last hundred yards. Josh was ahead, but the guy behind him had saved some push for the last bit, too.
“Go, Josh! Run! Run!” Nakita yelled, and surprised, I lowered my camera to look at her. The dark reaper didn’t especially like Josh—she’d almost killed him once—and her excitement was unusual. Her pale face was flushed, and her eyes, usually a faded blue, were bright as she leaned forward and grasped the chain-link fence between us and the track. She was wearing a pink top with matching pink nail polish to hide her naturally black nails. Open-toed sandals and capris helped her blend in, and she looked nothing like one might imagine a dark reaper, capable of “smiting” lost souls.
Kim Harrison is a pen-name of American author Dawn Cook. Under the name of Harrison, she is best known for her Rachel Morgan urban fantasy series set in an alternate history where a worldwide pandemic caused by genetically modified tomatoes led to the death of a large portion of the world's human population. Under the name of Dawn Cook, she is best known for her Decoy Princess and Truth series, published in the first few years of the 21st century.
At first, Harrison tried her hand at writing traditional science fiction, but began writing contemporary fantasy after deciding to focus more on character development. She spent the better part of a decade struggling as an aspiring author before meeting her current agent at a writing convention. He then introduced her to Diana Gill, who became Harrison's editor. Together, they produced Dead Witch Walking, and her first book was published in paperback by HarperTorch in 2004. Since then, she has written ten more books in the Hollows series, also called the Rachel Morgan series, (most with titles punning off Clint Eastwood movies) and contributed to multiple anthologies, with prequels to the Hollows books, and one with a young adult story.
After the success of her first novel, Harrison was able to resign from her day job, devoting herself to writing full-time. Her favorite author is Ray Bradbury. She references music as one of her strongest writing influences, providing song lists for several of her characters.[5] In her spare time, she communicates with fans via her self-maintained website. She currently splits her time living in South Carolina and Michigan.[6]
Harrison is a member of the Romance Writers of America and Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The first two Truth books were originally one book, which was split into two separate books for publishing.[7] That the two are the same, and that Cook was Harrison, was disclosed in a May 2009 Locus magazine article.[8]
"I'm glad it's out in the open, because it is hard to maintain these two separate identities, and remind your friends or family when you go out, 'I'm Kim today, so don't call me Dawn.' The division has served its purpose. I'm still going to be Kim, but now if somebody calls me Dawn I won't have to say 'Shut your mouth!'"
