Description
A captivating tale, from bestselling and award-winning author, that reveals the healing power of duty and honour, love and honey.
Mirasol is a beekeeper, a honey-gatherer, with an ability to speak to the "earthlines"—the sentient parts of Willowlands, where she lives. The concerns of Master, Chalice, and Circle, who govern Willowlands, have nothing to do with her-until the current Master and Chalice die in a fire and leave no heirs to take their places. The Master's closest relative has been a priest of Fire for the past seven years; he is not quite human anymore. And then the Circle comes to Marisol and tells her that she is the new Chalice, and it will be up to her to bind the land and its people with a Master, the touch of whose hand can burn human flesh to the bone. . . .
About the Author
Born in her mother's hometown of Warren, Ohio,Robin McKinleygrew up an only child with a father in the United States Navy. She moved around frequently as a child and read copiously; she credits this background with the inspiration for her stories.Her passion for reading was one of the most constant things in her childhood, so she began to remember events, places, and time periods by what books she read where. For example, she readAndrew Lang's Blue Fairy Bookfor the first time in California;The Chronicles of Narniafor the first time in New York;The Lord of the Ringsfor the first time in Japan;The Once and Future Kingfor the first time in Maine. She still uses books to keep track of her life.McKinley attended Gould Academy, a preparatory school in Bethel, Maine, and Dickinson College in 1970-1972. In 1975, she was graduated summa cum laude from Bowdoin College. In 1978, her first novel,Beauty, was accepted by the first publisher she sent it to, and she began her writing career, at age 26. At the time she was living in Brunswick, Maine. Since then she has lived in Boston, on a horse farm in Eastern Massachusetts, in New York City, in Blue Hill, Maine, and now in Hampshire, England, with her husbandPeter Dickinson(also a writer, and with whom she co-wroteWater: Tales of Elemental Spiritsin 2001) and two lurchers (crossbred sighthounds).Over the years she has worked as an editor and transcriber (1972-73), research assistant (1976-77), bookstore clerk (1978), teacher and counselor (1978-79), editorial assistant (1979-81), barn manager (1981-82), free-lance editor (1982-85), and full-time writer. Other than writing and reading books, she divides her time mainly between walking her "hellhounds," gardening, cooking, playing the piano, homeopathy, change ringing, and keeping her blog.