Christina Skye

http://www.christinaskye.com

Chritina Skye has eaten snake meat in Shanghai and armadillo in Canton. A Ph.D. graduate in Chinese literature, she has translated for Chinese generals, dissident poets, and fifth-generation puppet masters. In 1981 the Ohio native was nearly arrested when a businessman she was working for insisted she help him smuggle two "ladies of dubious virtue" into Peking's prestigious State Guest House.

The armed PLA soldiers at the gate were not amused, she notes. But these days Skye's greatest love is England, especially the fog-swept southeast coast. Here she first encountered the portrait of a proud-faced, sad-eyed aristocrat and a great gray cat sitting protectively beneath it. Adrian and Gideon haven't given her a moment's peace since.

Two Draycott novellas later (one appeared in Avon Books' Haunting Love Stories and one in Bewitching Love Stories), the award-winning author of four historical romances is deep at work on a new novel set at magical Draycott Abbey.

A descendant of Revolutionary War hero Adam Helmer, Christina Skye currently lives with her husband and young son in New Jersey, where she prudently avoids snakes and anything that resembles an armadillo.