As a child, Amanda Bradburn began writing as a hobby with a pair of friends. Their first efforts produced a "humorous, impossible, childish mystery book that made little sense and was full of an eight-year-old's somewhat crazy ideas." Amanda departed from writing mystery at 11, when she became enchanted with the Lord of the Rings -- and, years later, dreamed of writing an original fantasy series. The Keepers of Elenath is the first of seven.