The Fire Opal »

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 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.

Deep in the sun-drenched desert, priestess Ginger-Sun carries the power of shape mages. And whispers abound: Is she descended from the beloved Sunset Goddess, or are her nighttime rituals filled with wickedness? Ginger herself is uncertain, until a stranger is left for dead at her feet.

Thence her magic begins to burn.

Fate makes Ginger the stranger's wife and therefore a target for those who would murder this man to crown another—and force her magic into twisted ferocity. For unless Ginger masters her dark powers, violence will rein in Taka Mal—and in her soul.

Jackie Cassada - Library Journal

When a dead man is brought to Ginger-Sun, priestess of the Sun Dragon, she prepares to give him the rites of the dead until he proves to be very much alive. As she learns more about the soldier called Darz, she finds herself drawn to him against all the laws of the temple. When her enemies among the temple elders bring unfounded charges of witchcraft and lewdness against her, Ginger-Sun finds an inner strength and the magic of shadows to resist them-but at the cost of everything she has known. Asaro's "Skolian Empire" novels have established her as a skilled crafter of dynastic space opera. Her latest novel, set in the same fantasy world as The Misted Cliffs, displays her talent for romantic fantasy and magical intrigue. Purchase where the author has a following.