Ilona Bray and Stephen Soong

Ilona Bray and Stephen Soong are a husband-and-wife team who live in New York’s Finger Lakes region. Ilona Bray is a former lawyer who continues to write about immigration and other legal matters. She would rather play Scrabble than any other game—though she finds chess fascinating in its elusive brain-teasing. Stephen Soong has been a serious chess geek since middle school. He beat a grandmaster—the then US chess champion—at a simultaneous exhibition, he defeated a computer at a national tourney, and he has taught students of all ages. His US Chess Federation rating once placed him in the top 5 percent of all rated players nationwide. Cat Takes Queen is their middle grade debut.