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Prue was born in Australia and studied history and politics at the University of Tasmania. She has worked as a hotel cleaner, a cosmetician in a major department store, and a bookseller. But most properly she has been a journalist/researcher for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation where she met her husband, also a journalist and subsequently a media executive, now a communications consultant and farmer.
She now farms in Tasmania with her husband, in a cropping and grazing operation. She spent almost ten years as a state coordinator for the cancer therapy program Look Good Feel Better and time as walker for Riding for the Disabled and for the local Dogs' Home. She has two adult children, two dogs, and claims she has too much garden and too little time to write.
Prue writes historical fantasy for which A Thousand Glass Flowers (Book Three of the quartet, The Chronicles of Eirie) received a silver medallion in the 2012 Readers' Favorite Book Awards in the USA. She also writes historical fiction, for which Gisborne: Book of Pawns received an Honourable Mention in the 2012 Golden Claddagh Writing Contest (USA), a 2013 Rone Award (USA) and a 2014 Indie Book Readers' Appreciation Group's gold medallion (USA). The Huffington Post has done a story on her work and she has been interviewed a number of times by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
She has concluded The Gisborne Trilogy and has just finished writing Tobias, the first in an historical fiction trilogy called The Triptych Chronicles, due to be published in August of 2015. She has also completed two short story anthologies which are to be published in 2015. Each of her e-novels have ranked unbroken in Amazon.co.uk's Top 100 since publication and continue to rank, for which she thanks all her readers!
Reviewed by Maria Beltran for Readers' Favorite
Hundreds of years ago, a curse was placed on the Han empire by celestial spirits and since then no Han woman has given birth to a female offspring. Fearing that his country will die out, the Han emperor issued a decree ordering that all females who were of childbearing age should be abducted from other places. They had to be of childbearing age, endowed with the physical attributes of the Han, and should be proficient in a skill. When the exuberant Isabella was abducted, she tried to send a message in a cloth woven from paper and silk. The only one who can decipher it is her cousin Nicolas. Can Nicolas find the message and rescue Isabella? He still has to deal with the supernatural beings who were playing with his life.
Prue Batten weaves her story in such a way that I could not stop turning the pages. It is perhaps the way the story slowly unfolds that makes this book very interesting. The development of the plot does not fail to grab hold of the reader's attention. Alternating between Isabella's and Nicolas' story, we get to know the plot in a most exciting way. The pictures that Prue Batten paints are as vivid as the brush stroke in a canvas. With an eye for detail, she gives us a glimpse of the magnificent imperial house of Han as well as of the rest of her world and its colorful characters. The numerous characters come to life and certainly add color to this story of adventure and magic. Above all, this is a tale of enduring love that balances on the fine line that separates reality and fantasy.
