Alice Cook lives in Alabama with a teenage dog who has mastered the art of manipulation and an introverted cat who enjoys letting loose at night by tearing around the house and zooming out the cat door at all hours. To maintain her sanity, she engages in a daily exercise called “writing.” For ten years, Alice taught the English language to international students at her local university. When she hit the ten-year milestone, her heart pulled her in another direction, and she moved to South Dakota to work on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. Now, she’s back home in the warm, humid south. Her love of travelling and exploring different cultures is reflected in her writing, but so are her southern roots and down-home nature. Her debut novel, The Amber Key, is the first in the Xandi series, an exciting juvenile adventure series full of danger, mysterious powers, and an ancient hidden laboratory that everyone seems to either want to protect or plunder. It, along with the second book in the series, The Forest of Faces, will be available in October 2015.