Fallon, Jennifer

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FALLON, Jennifer

PERSONAL: Born in Carlton, Victoria, Australia; children: Amanda, Tracy, David.

ADDRESSES: Home—Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia. Agent—c/o Australian Literary Management, 2A Booth St., Balmain, New South Wales 2041, Australia. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Author and trainer. Accredited workplace trainer; former gymnastics coach and judge; founder of Anzac Hill Gymnastics Club. Also worked as a store detective, a shop assistant, a youth worker, an advertising sales representative, car rental manager, and an executive secretary.

WRITINGS:

"HYTHRUN CHRONICLES"

Medalon (book one of "Demon Child" trilogy), Voyager (Pymble, New South Wales, Australia), 2000, Tor Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Treason Keep (book two of "Demon Child" trilogy), Voyager (Pymble, New South Wales, Australia), 2001, Tor Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Harshini (book three of "Demon Child" trilogy), Voyager (Pymble, New South Wales, Australia), 2001.

Wolfblade, Voyager (Pymble, New South Wales, Australia), 2004.

Warrior, Voyager (Pymble, New South Wales, Australia), 2005.

Warlord, Voyager (Pymble, New South Wales, Australia), 2005.

"SECOND SONS" TRILOGY

The Lion of Senet, Voyager (Pymble, New South Wales, Australia), 2002, Bantam Spectra (New York, NY), 2004.

Eye of the Labyrinth, Voyager (Pymble, New South Wales, Australia), 2003, Bantam Spectra (New York, NY), 2004.

Lord of the Shadows, Voyager (Pymble, New South Wales, Australia), 2003, Bantam Spectra (New York, NY), 2004.

WORK IN PROGRESS: "Tide Lords" series.

SIDELIGHTS: Australian Jennifer Fallon is the author of the popular "Hythrun Chonicles" fantasy series. A former store detective, secretary, and youth worker, Fallon vowed to become a published author by the age of forty. Three weeks before her fortieth birthday, she received word that her novel Medalon would be published. Since then, Fallon has completed three more works in the "Hythrun Chonicles," as well as the "Second Sons" trilogy. As she told Dorothy Grimm in the Alice Springs News, "Writing is an obsession, life gets in the way."

The first three works of the "Hythrun Chronicles"—Medalon, Treason Keep, and Harshini—were originally published in Australia as the "Demon Child" trilogy. In Medalon Fallon "conjures a viable, richly detailed world and its disparate societies," wrote Booklist critic Sally Estes. The country of Medalon is ruled by the Sisters of the Blade, a harsh matriarchy that has banned religious worship. The novel's protagonists, eighteen-year-old R'shiel Tenragen and her half-brother Tarja, flee their home after their mother, Joyhina, ascends to power. R'shiel and Tarja join a rebel group fighting against the Sisterhood, and R'shiel is revealed to be the Demon Child, a half-human descended from a magical race who is destined to lead the struggle against an evil god. A critic in Publishers Weekly stated that Medalon is "stocked with well-developed characters with clear motivations that carry them through a series of byzantine plots and counterplots," and Entertainment Weekly contributor Nisha Gopalan called the work "an intriguing soap opera of espionage and family revelations."

Treason Keep, the second volume in Fallon's "Hythrun Chronicles," follows the adventures of R'sheil and Tarja after their successful rebellion against the Sisterhood. A badly wounded R'sheil recovers at Sanctuary, the homeland of the magical Harshini, while Tarja prepares for an attack from the forces of Karien, a neighboring kingdom. According to a critic in Kirkus Reviews, Fallon "builds a fast-moving tale full of Machiavellian schemes, extreme character conflict, sudden reverses of fortune, and capricious interventions of gods whose power waxes and wanes in proportion to the number of their human followers." "Convoluted intrigues, rivalries, and romance provide an entertaining tangle" in Treason Keep, wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor.