Tomboy 19-year-old Daneli doesn't get along with her mother. She'd rather be riding her horse or perfecting her archery skills than wearing finery and ordering servants around. But as the eldest daughter of House Trageri, Daneli inherits long-standing tensions and a seemingly impossible mission: to create peace between her cooperative, matriarchal nation and the violent, fiercely hierarchical patriarchy to the north. First, she must undergo an arduous training process, then pass a series of tests in order to become Queen. With the help of ten hand-picked spouses of both genders, along with her secret Gift, she must face her greatest challenge: preventing her country from falling into chaos just as a strange spaceship arrives to her country.

Michelle has been writing science fiction since 2006, and has been an avid reader and fan of science fiction since she started to read. Because she has been both a scientist and a technologist by trade, she went to seminary, and she's a polymath, her interests span a wide range of topics, including science, technology, religion and spirituality, philosophy, history, culture, politics, race, gender, and sexuality. She brings all of these to bear in her science fiction writing. She specializes in stories of culture clash and/or first contact, and her work has numerous strong female protagonists and characters, as well as a lot of diverse characters. She lives in Sonoma County, California with her spouse and 2 cats.