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Holly Lisle
Holly Lisle has been writing fiction professionally since 1991, when she sold FIRE IN THE MIST, the novel that won the Compton Crook Award for best first novel. She has to date published more than thirty novels and several comprehensive writing courses. She is currently working on the second... show more

Holly Lisle has been writing fiction professionally since 1991, when she sold FIRE IN THE MIST, the novel that won the Compton Crook Award for best first novel. She has to date published more than thirty novels and several comprehensive writing courses. She is currently working on the second book in her Cadence Drake series. Holly had an ideal childhood for a writer...which is to say, it was filled with foreign countries and exotic terrains, alien cultures, new languages, the occasional earthquake, flood, or civil war, and one story about a bear, which follows:"So. Back when I was ten years old, my father and I had finished hunting ducks for our dinner and were walking across the tundra in Alaska toward the spot on the river where we'd tied our boat. We had a couple miles to go by boat to get back to the Moravian Children's Home, where we lived. "My father was carrying the big bag of decoys and the shotgun; I was carrying the small bag of ducks."It was getting dark, we could hear the thud, thud, thud of the generator across the tundra, and suddenly he stopped, pointed down to a pie-pan sized indentation in the tundra that was rapidly filling with water, and said, in a calm and steady voice, "That's a bear footprint. From the size of it, it's a grizzly. The fact that the track is filling with water right now means the bear's still around.""Which got my attention, but not as much as what he said next. " 'I don't have the gun with me that will kill a bear,' he told me. 'I just have the one that will make him angry. So if we see the bear, I'm going to shoot him so he'll attack me. I want you to run to the river, follow it to the boat, get the boat back home, and tell everyone what happened.'"The rest of our walk was very quiet. He was, I'm sure, listening for the bear. I was doing my damnedest to make sure that I remembered where the boat was, how to get to it, how to start the pull-cord engine, and how to drive it back home, because I did not want to let him down."We were not eaten by a bear that night...but neither is that walk back from our hunt for supper a part of my life I'll ever forget."I keep that story in mind as I write. If what I'm putting on paper isn't at least as memorable as having a grizzly stalking my father and me across the tundra while I was carrying a bag of delicious-smelling ducks, it doesn't make my cut."Cheerfully,Holly Lisle
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Community Reviews
AmyM
AmyM rated it 12 years ago
I read the Advanced Reader's Copy at the library as I preferred its design elements over the real copy, so this review may be slightly different. I'll actually have to reread this one, so I can better convey my thoughts and to continue with the next book.
Bibliophilic Monologues
Bibliophilic Monologues rated it 13 years ago
This is a fun, fun, fun premise to what promises to be a wonderful series. It’s straight up fantasy with an alternate world and an original mythology that, while making use of some aspects of a myriad of myths, has a fresh approach to it. Lisle’s world building skills are to be lauded as she painsta...
staciebnsn
staciebnsn rated it 13 years ago
The characters and plot of this light fantasy juvenile fiction were interesting enough to keep me going, and I would definitely recommend it for any young readers (or adults looking for an easy read), but I think it's definitely more of a library book for me, as opposed to a must-buy. Looking forwar...
Kaethe
Kaethe rated it 14 years ago
Holly Lisle is apparently not very bright, although I'm sure that reposting this rant has earned her enthusiastic support from some people.
Miss Clark
Miss Clark rated it 15 years ago
Um, really is a 2.5It is an interesting idea and fairly original (for me at least), but I desperately wanted more backstory on the wider range of the country's history and the prophecies floating around, etc.The characters were decent, but not striking. Action good. Magic a bit vague and too conveni...
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