click on the pearl to see The Pearls video

Here at last is the book cover for my upcoming novel THE PEARLS, due in stores at the end of November 2007.  Continuing with some of the characters in THE RUBY THRONE trilogy recently reissued by Ace Books, THE PEARLS is the first of a two-book story featuring Lea, sister to the new emperor Caelan Light Bringer, and her tribulations when she is abducted by his political enemies.  Her captor is Shadrael, an embittered former legion commander who lost his army commission under the new regime.  Turned vicious mercenary, Shadrael remains sworn to shadow and lives as a bandit entangled by his past.  All he has to do is capture Lea and carry her off to where she’ll be held for ransom.  But nothing is simple.  More than one villain wants possession of Lea and all are competing to pay Shadrael well for her delivery.  Lea herself is no ordinary damsel.  Her sweet nature and beauty enthrall him, even as her magic drawn from light repels his drawn from shadow.  What should be a quick mission stretches into one that’s complex and dangerous, as enemies close in from all sides.  For Shadrael’s tricks to dodge pursuit are thwarted again and again by Lea, and all the while her brother’s soldiers are hot on their trail, intent on rescuing her before she comes to harm.

SCHEDULED APPEARANCES    2008

February 9 -- Oklahoma Speculative Fiction Syndicate, Oklahoma City, OK

June 6-8, SoonerCon, Oklahoma City, OK

July 25-27, Conestoga, Tulsa, OK

THE CROWN, the forthcoming sequel to the recently released THE PEARLS, is tentatively scheduled for publication in November 2008. My apologies for the long wait in how Lea's and Shadrael's story turns out.

Please check back for further updates as they become available, and thanks – as always – for your interest and support!

INDUCTED INTO THE 2004 WRITERS HALL OF FAME OF AMERICA.

Novelist Deborah Chester was inducted into the 2004 Writers Hall of Fame of America, along with John Steinbeck, Constance Levy and Dale Freeman, at a celebration banquet Wednesday, April 21, on the campus of Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri.      Established in 1994, the Writers Hall of Fame of America is a nonprofit organization with a three-fold mission to recognize those who have made major contributions to writing, encourage interest in writing among all people, and inspire lifelong passion for writing.  In the past nine years since its inception, the Writers Hall of Fame of America has selected nearly 40 inductees, including Mark Twain, Robert Frost, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Janet Dailey, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, Ernest Hemingway, Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss), Don Coldsmith and William Least Heat Moon.