Wizard's Bridge
by Karen McCullough

When invasion by a coalition of unfriendly neighbors threatens her home town, Alsa knows the seed of their salvation lies within her. But her talent for wizardry won't help them unless she can learn how to use and control it, so she goes to the local wizard, who lives in a castle high on the side of a mountain. To reach his home, she must brave a bridge that appears to be made solely of light and the wizard's ferocious guard dragon.

Neither the bridge nor the dragon is exactly what it seems. But then Alsa finds that a lot of things on the wizard's mountain are not what she expects, including the wizard himself. The bargain she has to make with him to get the lessons she needs shocks her, and the training itself bears no resemblance to what she anticipated. Alsa has a lot of adapting to do and not much time for it. It will take every bit of her intelligence, courage and compassion to master the magic, her home's enemies, the dragon, and even the wizard himself.

Other Books by Karen McCullough

Beneath a Christmas Moon

Shadow of a Doubt

Witch's Journey

A Question of Fire

The Rainbow Bridge

Karen McCullough's Bio

Karen McCullough began dreaming of other worlds somewhere around the sixth grade when a friend lent her a stack of speculative fiction books that included Poul Andersons's THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS, Heinlein's METHUSALEH'S CHILDREN and STARSHIP TROOPERS, and Arthur C. Clarke's CHILDHOOD'S END. After working her way through all the SF and fantasy books she could find in the local library, she began writing her own stories. At the same time, she began to devour books in other genres as well, particularly mystery and romance. That love of multiple genres continues to be a theme in both her reading and writing.

In the years since that formative reading bout, Karen has written approximately two dozen novels and seen nine of them published. She's had four novels of romantic suspense published by Avalon Books, two romantic mystery/thriller books published by LTDBooks, and a fantasy role-playing game book set in Tolkien's Middle-earth published by Iron Crown Enterprises.

Her most recent (November 2002) release was a romantic fantasy from ImaJinn Books. In its orginal electronic form, WITCH'S JOURNEY was a finalist in both the Eppie and Dream Realm Awards, and was voted favorite SciFi/Fantasy Romance of 2001 in the "Affaire de Coeur" Readers' Poll.

Karen has three more books coming out from ImaJinn. WIZARD'S BRIDGE, in its original electroniclly published form as THE RAINBOW BRIDGE, was a finalist in the PRISM Contest sponsored by the Futuristic, Fantasy & Paranormal chapter of Romance Writers of America, the Rising Star Award contest, and it won the first-ever Eppie Award for Fantasy. It's due to be published in early 2004. Two other books, as yet untitled, a pair of sequels to WITCH'S JOURNEY, are also planned.

Karen has placed numerous short stories in a variety of small-press science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and romance publications. She has a day-job gig as Senior Web Editor at Reed Business Information and does some freelance Web design. Interview