A Princess of the Chameln - Paperback

by Cherry Wilder (Author)

When her royal parents are killed during a coup, Princess Aidris Am Firn of the Chameln flees for her life. Constantly on the run from unseen enemies of the crown, she poses as a commoner and joins a cadre of women warriors so she can fight those who assassinated her parents and continue to hunt her. While cultivating allies, Aidris learns that two pretenders have ascended to the dual thrones of Chameln. Having discovered their true queen is still alive, counselors from Chameln rally to her side and convince the queen that the time has come for her to reclaim her birthright. But before she can do this, she must discover who her enemy really is, lest the unknown assassins strike her down too.

Author Biography

Cherry Wilder was an important writer of science fiction, fantasy novels, and short fiction in the last quarter of the twentieth century. A writer whose work both entertained and also challenged rigid social mores, her best-known works are the Rulers of Hylor trilogy--high fantasy comprised of A Princess of the Chameln, Yorath the Wolf, and The Summer's King--and the science fiction first-contact Torin trilogy: of The Luck of Brin's Five, The Nearest Fire, and The Tapestry Warriors. A native of New Zealand, she used Maori folklore and legends to inform the background of the Torin trilogy.

Wilder's novels and short fiction, ranges well beyond epic fantasy and hard science fiction to include dark fantasy, horror and the Weird, as well as mysteries and thrillers. Cruel Designs, a contemporary dark fantasy novel, evokes horror by its allusion to people and events in a house in Nazi Germany, the consequences of whose actions cast a dark pall over the residents of the house decades later. Her novel The Wanderer, co-written with Katya Reimann, is the first in a projected trilogy entitled Secrets of Hylor.

Cherry Wilder lived for some years in Australia before moving to Germany with her husband, Horst Grimm, and their two daughters. In 1997 she returned to her native New Zealand, where she stayed until her death in 2002.