Coelestis
Nebula Award: Best Novel nominee (1996).
Coelestis is also known as Celestis (US edition, 1995).
Celestis, inhabited by conservative human settlers fleeing from a socially decayed Earth, is riven by racial strife. Those conquered alien inhabitants who can afford it are surgically and pharmacologically altered to appear more human. Simon, a human diplomat, is taken hostage by alien rebels and thrown into contact with Katharine, an altered alien, with whom he falls in love. But Katharine, also a hostage, is cut off from her medications and rapidly begins the transformation back into a creature of alien needs and desires.
Paul Park
Paul Park (born 1954) is an American science fiction and fantasy author.
Paul Park also writes under the pseudonym of Paulina Claiborne.