By Natalie J. Case

I meant to introduce you all to Zero last week, but I completely spaced it. I’ll blame it on the combination of pain and pain meds. So today, I want to do that, but yesterday my publisher emailed me with the cover for In Gathering Shade, and as an added bonus, he included the re-designed cover for Through Shade and Shadow.

It’s gorgeous, don’t you think?  I’m in love with it!

Okay, let’s talk about Zero. I started writing Zero’s character originally thinking she was the start of something new.  Then I discovered that she was a part of Shades and Shadows.

We first meet her as a prisoner of sorts, the subject of some mysterious experimentation.  Zero is sixteen, the daughter of a Chinese Sage who was seduced and eventually controlled by an American Shadow with questionable ambitions.

Zero is something of an escape artist, an adept thief, and particularly good with glamors. She doesn’t trust easily, so when she throws in with Raven and Evan she’s also got one foot out the door, and her eye on all the exits.

Even she doesn’t fully know what the experiments did to her, but she knows she doesn’t want to wait to find out.  She has seen first hand what the man behind her captivity could do to the minds of others and she’s scared that he might have done the same to her.

Zero is both Sage and Shadow, and no one knows the full extent of what she can do.  In many ways, Zero is a broken glass held together with duct tape.

I know, I know…what you really want is to see the cover for In Gathering Shade, right?

With no further ado…This cover is beautiful!  I can’t stop staring at the two of them together!