After a slightly shaky beginning, plot and characters gain momentum, making this an exciting tale of magic and adventure. An unlikely friendship ensues, and the foursome sets out to restore Kandaki to her rightful throne and to quash the villainous uprising. Kandaki is rescued by Prahotep and Baki (heroes of the previous novel) as they travel upstream in search of fellow dragons for their own dragon, Hathor. Her parents' murderer, meanwhile, sets himself up as king and spreads falsehoods about the deposed royals. Next in line to die, Kandaki is lashed to a rock, a sacrifice to the ever-hungry and widely feared water dragon of Derr.

The novel opens dramatically, with Princess Kandaki of Nubia hearing the terrifying screams of her parents as they are slain by traitorous guards. They have four children and a dog.In this action-filled sequel to The Dragon and the Thief, Bradshaw conjures up a world of treachery, politics and hasty war where goodness, bravery and quick wits eventually triumph. She and her husband now live in Coventry. Between books and children she never did get a Real Job, and she's been writing novels ever since. However, while there, she discovered she could live on her income as a novelist and also met her husband, who was completing his doctorate in physics. She decided to stay in Cambridge another year to write another novel and think about what to do for a Real Job. Gillian attended the University of Michigan, where she earned her BA in English and another in Classical Greek, and won the Hopwood Prize for fiction with her first novel, 'Hawk of May.' She went on to get another degree at Newnham College, Cambridge University, England in Greek and Latin literature, and she sold her first novel while preparing for exams. They didn't move around quite as much as one might expect after such a beginning: Washington was followed merely by Santiago, Chile, and two locations in Michigan. She was born in Washington DC in 1956, the second of four children. Gillian Bradshaw's father, an American Associated Press newsman, met her mother, a confidential secretary for the British embassy, in Rio de Janeiro.

Hawk of May by Gillian Bradshaw