Born in Salisbury, North Carolina, on July 5, 1846, Frances Fisher was the daughter of a wealthy landowner for whom Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, was named after his death in the first battle of Bull Run. She was reared from 1861 by a maiden aunt and was educated largely at home. After the Civil War she turned to writing for support and in 1870 published her first novel, Valerie Aylmer, under the pseudonym ╥Christian Reid,╙ which she employed thereafter.
Encouraged by the modest success of her first effort, she produced Morton House, 1871, A Daughter of Bohemia, 1874, A Question of Honor, 1875, ╥The Land of the Sky╙; or, Adventures in Mountain By-Ways, 1876, and Bonny Kate, 1878. A European trip in 1879╨1880 provided material and back-ground for Hearts of Steel, 1883, and Armine, 1884. In December 1887 she married James M. Tiernan, with whom she lived in Mexico most of the time until his death in 1898, after which she lived again in Salisbury. Novels based on her Mexican experiences included A Cast for Fortune, 1890, Carmela, 1891, A Comedy of Elopement, 1893, The Land of the Sun, 1894, The Picture of Las Cruces, 1896, Weighed in the Balance, 1896, and Fairy Gold, 1897.
Nearly all of Tiernan╒s novels were conventional romances with mild domestic plots and much moralizing. There was little of real life in them, but they were nonetheless consistently popular. Later books included The Man of the Family, 1897, The Chase of an Heiress, 1898, Under the Southern Cross, 1900, A Daughter of the Sierra, 1903, Vera╒s Charge, 1907, Princess Nadine, 1908, The Light of the Vision, 1911, The Wargrave Trust, 1912, Daughter of a Star, 1913, A Far-Away Princess, 1914, and The Secret Bequest, 1915. In 1909 she was awarded the Laetare Medal by the University of Notre Dame. She died in Salisbury, North Carolina, on March 24, 1920.
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