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Catherine Asaro was born in Oakland, California, and grew up in El Cerrito, just north of Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. in chemical physics and M.A. in physics, both from Harvard, and a B.S. with Highest Honors in chemistry from UCLA. Among the places she has done research are the University of Toronto in Canada, the Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik in Germany, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Her research involves using quantum theory to describe the behavior of atoms and molecules. Catherine was a physics professor until 1990, when she established Molecudyne Research, which she currently runs.

A former ballerina, Catherine has performed with ballets and in musicals on both coasts and in Ohio. In the 1980s she was a principal dancer and artistic director of the Mainly Jazz Dancers and the Harvard University Ballet. After she graduated, her undergraduate students took over Mainly Jazz and made it into an organization at the college. Catherine still teaches ballet in Maryland.

Catherine's fiction is a successful blend of hard science fiction, romance and exciting space adventure. She has published nine novels, seven of which belong to her Saga of the Skolian Empire. Catherine has been nominated for many awards. Among those she's won are the Nebula Award for best novel of 2001 for The Quantum Rose and the Romantic Times Award for Best SF Novel for both Spherical Harmonic and Ascendant Sun.

Her husband is John Kendall Cannizzo, an astrophysicist at NASA. They have one daughter, a young ballet dancer who loves math.

For centuries the women of Aronsdale have lived freely among the green and misted valleys. Creatures of exotic beauty and sensuality, they possess powerful skills of enchantment…and young Allegro is no different. But her life—and Aronsdale's independence—is threatened when Jazid nomads invade, carrying Allegro into the desert as a prized trophy…or worse.

Until an unexpected ally falls under her spell. From the moment feared Jazid warrior Markus Onyx sees the alluring beauty, he knows he has found his queen.

But even the promise of love cannot quell Allegro's determination to save her homeland. Summoning her powers, she casts herself north—out of passion's grip—and into the dark heart of conflict.…

Publishers Weekly

Nebula-winner Asaro gives her tried-and-true romance formula another run in the passionate fifth installment of the Lost Continent series (after 2007's The Fire Opal). Beautiful young novice mage Allegra, abducted from her homeland by violent desert raiders intent on selling her into slavery, desperately plots her escape from the male-dominated Jazid culture, where women are legally animals, but finds herself irresistibly drawn to her handsome owner, the renegade prince regent Markus Onyx. Her unusual mage skills may gain her freedom, but the intense bond between her and Markus could give her the political power to change their lands forever. Asaro offers intriguing glimpses into Jazid society amid the sweaty bedsheets and intense machinations over treaties and wars. Though reminiscent of her earlier works and a bit heavy on the stereotypes, this rousing adventure of forbidden love, daredevil exploits and magic will captivate readers who like a little fantasy and politics in their romance. (July)

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