THE PRETENDERS CROWN - CE MURPHY

PUBLISHER: DEL REY

JACKET TEXT:

Belinda Primrose is no longer anyone's pawn. Lured by the sensual dark magic of Dmitri, envoy to a neighboring throne, yet still drawn to the witchlord embrace of her former lover, Javier, Belinda has entered a realm where power and control go to those who can master and manipulate their fiercest desires. For the witchpower depends on the skill its wielder holds....

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

According to friends, C.E. Murphy "is a thin veneer over a woman who is constantly moving and shaking. In between walking to Mordor and back, swimming, dancing, and attending Bon Jovi concerts, she squeezes out a book or two every three days."

She disagrees. It takes her a minimum of six weeks to write a book, and usually it's more than that. Also according to friends, she began her writing career when she ran away from home at age five to write copy for the circus that had come to town. It is clear to her that she should let her friends write all of her biographies, because they're much more interesting that way.

Her own recollections suggest she began writing around age six, when she submitted three poems to a school publication. The teacher producing the magazine selected (inevitably) the one she thought was by far the worst, but also told her--a six year old kid--to keep writing, which she has. She has also held the usual grab-bag of jobs usually seen in an authorial biography, including public library volunteer (at ages 9 and 10; it's clear she was doomed to a career involving books), archival assistant, cannery worker, and web designer. Writing books is better, and she now has close to a dozen in print. In her down time, she writes comic books and is working on a screenplay, which may be why her editor and agent independently suggested she get a hobby that *wasn't* writing.

She was born and raised in Alaska, and now lives in her ancestral homeland of Ireland, which is a magical land where it rains a lot but winter never actually arrives.