Alex Lidell is a YA fantasy writer and author of ABNA Finalist THE CADET OF TILDOR (Penguin, 2013). Alex started writing at 2 am. 2 am is when the night turns to introspection, when dorm-room conversations flourish to life. The ones where you ask "what if" - realizing that if an answer seems obvious, then you don't know the whole story. The ones where you sketch plans for your next project, your future business, your quest for peace in the middle east - or for teaching kids to read - and you know that you can succeed. If you just try hard enough. Alex's 2 am project, which she started after getting her Masters in International Peace and Conflict Resolution, was her book. THE CADET OF TILDOR - 2010 finalist in Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards (under the title SERVICE OF THE CROWN) - tells the story of sixteen-year-old Renee, who struggles to keep up with her male classmates at a grueling military academy while facing a friend's forbidden magic and her mentor's shadowy past. CADET is upcoming from Dial Books for Young Readers (Penguin) on January, 10, 2013. Although English is Alex's primary language, it wasn't her first. Coming from Russia, Alex learned english in elementary school and fell in love with reading when the school librarian put Tamora Pierce's ALANNA into her hands. Years later, in college, it was another book that re-united Alex with russian, which she had shunned in adolescence. The Three Musketeers.* Alex thanks both books, and the writers who created them.Alex Lidell is a YA fantasy author. She is also a photographer, a horseback rider, and a paramedic. The latter two go hand in hand more often than one would like. * The Three Musketeers was originally written in french, however the high quality russian translation has made the novel more popular in Russia than anywhere else. Having read the book in english, russian and french, Alex agrees with the general consensus.