Elphame's Choice »

P.C. Cast was born in Illinois and grew up being shuttled back and forth between there and Oklahoma, which is where she fell in love with quarter horses and mythology (at about the same time). She could ride before she could walk, and she read every horse story she could get her hands on until her father introduced her to The Lord of the Rings when she was about ten years old. She went from that to Anne McCaffrey's Pern-and was hooked on fantasy for life.

Five days after graduating from high school, she joined the United States Air Force, which is where she began speaking professionally. After her tours with the USAF, Ms. Cast attended college as a literature major with a secondary education minor.

Her first novel, Goddess by Mistake, was published by a small press in 2001. Thoroughly shocking the author, it won a Prism, a Holt Medallion and a Laurel Wreath, and was a finalist for the National Readers' Choice Award. Since then Ms. Cast has gone on to win numerous writing awards. Ms. Cast is thrilled that with her Parthalon series for LUNA Books she has been given the opportunity to continue the world she created in her first book.

P.C. Cast lives and teaches in Oklahoma with her fabulous daughter, her spoiled cat and her Scotties--better known as the Scottinators. The daughter attends college. The cat refuses higher education. The Scottinators are as yet undecided about their future.

I was marked from birth as belonging to the Goddess Epona--but that didn't make my life easy. Because of my "blessings," I was set apart, worshipped, unable to make real connections with others. Then came the Feeling, and with it a glimpse of my destiny. It led me to the MacCallen castle of legend, deserted since the terrible Fomorian war.

I followed the wordless call to breathe new life into a place long dead, but I didn't realize there were dark remnants of the war lingering in the nearby forest--victims and survivors who remained hidden. Others marked as different, powerful. Feared.

My choice was now twofold. I could keep to the happiness and safety of my newfound home, or I could choose a path that led to something more terrible, more dangerous, more thrilling than anything I'd ever expected.

And in that future I might never be alone again. . .