From the About the Author in the mass market paperback Six of Swords:

Born the daughter of a Pacific Northwest salmon fisherman, Carole Nelson Douglas grew up in landlocked Minnesota with an affinity for water, cats, and writing, not necessarily in that order.  Her majors at The College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, were theater and English.  A finalist in the Vogue magazine Prix de Paris writing competition, she gravitated to journalism upon graduation in 1966 and is an award-winning feature writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press.  As an ex-actress, she treasures an extensive collection of vintage clothing almost as much as her Arkham House editions and hardcover Lord Peter Wimsey set.  She and her husband, an artist and furniture designer, make their home on sufferance with a trio of white cats, a lone - and somewhat confused - Lhasa Apso, and too many books.  Douglas has written all of her remembered life, but be-gan writing novels in 1976.  Garson Kanin, a newspaper interview subject, took the manuscript of her first novel to a New York publisher; it debuted in 1980, followed by her second.  This is her third novel and first fantasy.