The White Dragon (In Fire Forged, Part 1)

By the author of In Legend Born

It is a time of vast changes in the island nation of Sileria. Oppressed for centuries by one conqueror after another, this land of fierce pride and ancient rivalries awaited the prophesied Firebringer, who would free them. Josarian, a mountain peasant, survived his leap into the volcano to become the Firebringer. He united the impoverished shallaheen, the magical fire-wielding Guardians, and the vastly powerful mages known as Waterlords in an unprecedented alliance that defeated the foreign Valdani who had ruled Sileria for too long. But now Josarian is dead, betrayed by the alliance and slain by the ice-dragon of Kiloran, the most powerful Waterlord in Sileria. Tansen, Josarian’s second-in-command, has taken up the banner of independence, and leads the shallaheen and the Guardians against the Waterlords so that Sileria can be free of a tyranny far worse than Valdani rule. As the volcano goddess Dar rumbles her displeasure in earthquakes and lava flows, the forces of fate, prophecy, and magic combine to create new heroes--from the desolate mountains, from the water-starved cities, from the sea, and even from beneath the earth. Ancient forces join with unlikely allies to fulfill the prophecies that inspire revolt and excite religious fervor. But in Sileria, betrayal has long been a way of life, and it wears many faces as the ambitions of the high and the low ensnare the fates of people across the land, wreaking havoc among the faithful.

With consummate narrative skill, Laura Resnick brings to life the excitement and adventure of this magical land in its epic struggle to find its true leaders, heal ancient wounds, and chart a path out of chaos to a new day of peace.

Laura Resnick was born in Chicago, Illinois. A childhood of being thrown by horses, bitten by dogs, and terrorized by the Resnicks' notorious exploding water well helped prepare her adequately for her future in the publishing industry.

Resnick went on to study French, Italian, and linguistics at Georgetown, graduating cum laude. Shortly thereafter, she tramped around most of the Old World, looking at lots of cool paintings, working in France, and winding up on a kibbutz in Israel for a while. She studied acting at the Webber Douglas Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in London, and spent a volatile but happy year teaching English at the University of Palermo in Italy.

By the time she was thirty, Resnick had sold a dozen romance novels, all but one of them written under the pseudonym Laura Leone, and Romantic Times magazine named her the best new writer in her genre. She then went on an overland journey across Africa. Everything you could ever want to know about that 8-month journey is recounted in the award-winning nonfiction book, A Blonde In Africa.

While she was in Africa, Resnick won the John W. Campbell Award as Best New Science Fiction/Fantasy Writer in recognition of the short stories she had been writing. Having thus warmed up her muscles, she wrote her first fantasy novel, In Legend Born -- a project which made crossing Africa overland seem easy by comparison.