J. Ellen Ross

A native Texan, I now live in Canada with my husband and my three rescue dogs. I work in high tech, which has nothing to do with fantasy or writing, so I need outlets for my creativity. When I'm not busy chasing dogs around, I love to read and play video games. I travel to visit castles and historic sites. \n\nWriting is something I came to by a circuitous route. I've always had stories in my head but never felt the urge to get them down on paper. That all changed several years ago when I became frustrated with a painting I was working on. It looked bad. It wasn't coming together like I hoped it would. So, I thought I'd do something else for a while. Four months later I had a very rough, very bad manuscript for 'A Gift Freely Given.'\n\nTwo and half years later, Fear and Bitter Thorns is the third novel in my fantasy series ‘The Tahaerin Chronicles’. I wrote these books because I love strong female characters and because sometimes it's the damsel who saves the hero. But it's also because I wanted to tell a story of cobbling together a family from the most unlikely of places.