Beneath the Aspens is now ready!

I am so excited to say that Beneath the Aspens is now ready!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008M27GEQ#_

Sunday night my little family and some good friends of ours packed up a picnic dinner and headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon here on the Wasatch front.  Although the outing was so much fun, I did, however, have an ulterior motive.  We went with some of our really good friends for the purpose of taking some pictures for the cover of Beneath the Aspens.  Though, I think my kids will say that hanging out in the mountains and roasting marshmallows was so worth waiting for about twenty minutes to dress up and take photos.   And to top it off there were so many beautiful pictures to chose from, seriously any one of them could have deemed the cover.  I really had this certain way that I wanted the cover.  I wanted the sun shining through the Aspens with a couple silhouetted.  But just like many things in my life, I had to change that idea   because we were up in the mountains and the sun was not actually available.  It was settling in the west, over several mountain peaks. I was so glad that it was because I am very pleased with how everything turned out.  I was so happy to get such lush pictures of the greenery and crisp, white aspen trunks, along with great photos of my good friend Hailey.  Here is the final result of the cover. 

Just so you know, Hailey doesn't really have red curly hair. She has dark, brunette, hair, but my character in the book does have red curly hair. Thank heavens for photo shop and my great friend Elizabeth for designing the cover! The minute we put red hair on Hailey she was no longer Hailey but Kay, the girl from my book! It is so crazy to look at this girl because she looks nothing like Hailey now. Oh, and thank you to my other very good friend Rachel for letting us take pictures of your beautiful red hair and cropping it onto Hailey.  I really do have some very good friends in my life.  Without them I wouldn't have such a wonderful book cover.   

Inspiring Places

  One of the many things that inspire me is nature.  I am inspired to paint, inspired to write, inspired to create jewelry when I observe all the beautiful, mysterious, strange and amazing places on this earth.  This past week our family packed up our trusty, little, mini-van and headed south.  We overloaded with water, goodies, first-rate books, and, of course, our cameras.  First stop for the Anthony brood; Arches National Park--the first thing I wonder when I see these beautiful and stunning arches are…what in the world did the pioneers think when they stumbled upon these crazy wind eroded formations?  And second, I want to write a story about it.  A story about an ambitious young woman in the early 1800’s who somehow gets caught up in something out of her control.   Somehow she has to head to the open territory of Mexico to find her pa (or something like that) and she stumbles upon this ethereal place.  Would she think she ended up in another world all together?  There are so many places to hide, so many cracks and crevasses, so many bizarre formations--Hidden pools, caverns, and red rock mesa’s, it is so mysterious and so beautiful, and so many things could happen there.  Yes, I think I would like to write about it.

Next stop for the Anthony clan; New Mexico, after you drive through no man’s land of course, and get to the high desert mountain range of southern New Mexico, close to Albuquerque…it is all together stunning! This is where my mother and father-in-law live—out in the middle of nowhere, on a 120 acre ranch up in the mountains. We had so much fun riding ATV’s and beefy golf carts all over their gorgeous land, over mesas, up sandy trails, through craggy pinion treed woods. Last year when we first visited their property I was inspired by the red and yellow rock mesas, soft red sand, Anasazi ruins, colorful flowering cacti, papery juniper trees, and awe inspiring sunsets. So much so that I began to write a story about a girl who ends up living with her Navajo grandparent’s on a reservation.  She quickly learns why she never felt like she fit in with the human race...because she is not human.  It is my first paranormal Y.A. Romance and I am almost finished with the first book. Going back there really helped me kick it into gear, really inspired me, and really made me love my book even more.

 

Ancient Anasazi ruins with a juniper growing out of it.

Flowering Cacti

Yucca Cacti

Red Mesa

  This time we went to El Morrow National Monument.  THIS PLACE WAS AMAZING!  I think I will have to include this amazing site in my story somewhere, maybe in the second book.  It is this huge jutting rock formation that had the only source of water for over 35 miles around.  At the top are ancient ruins but at the bottom there are hieroglyphics all over this sucker some from the ancient Anasazi that is thousands of years old.  They had no written language and used only pictures to mark the stone.  Then the Spanish EL Conquistadors marked this sucker with their very beautiful hand writing claiming they had been there.  But what is the most amazing to me is the pioneers who marked this puppy.  They must have spent hours willing their craft for their signatures are stunning, perfectly carved, almost like the beautiful wax seals of their family.  What an interesting and very historical place.  I was very much inspired by those who had found this rock and made their mark on it hundreds of years ago.  There is most certainly a story there.

This is from the Spanish Conquistadors over 500 years old. 

These are some ancient hieroglyphics mixed with the square markings from Pioneers.

These photo's do not do them justice.