Countdown Time

Bears With Us is scheduled to come out on August 16! Am I excited? Of course. A new book is similar to having a new child--though not as painful, at least not in the same way.

I already know what it looks like--such a great cover. Mundania's cover artist always does exactly what I want--even when I'm not quite sure what that was. I asked for a Indian symbol of a bear and that's what I got.

This particular book was inspired when a grandson who is a cop in Aspen wrote on his Facebook about chasing bears out of people's homes and included some photos. I emailed him and asked for details, knowing I wanted to put Deputy Tempe Crabtree in similar situations. Of course I needed to create a plot that would included these visiting and in one case marauding bears.

We do have bear visits in Springville where I live though not nearly as frequent as what goes on in this story.

A bear wandered way into a neighboring town and ate his way through an orange grove.

People with apple orchards higher in the mountains always have trouble with bears who love apples.

A couple of Thanksgivings ago, a family enjoying their big dinner celebration discovered a bear was resting in a backyard tree.

And several years back, a bear decided that the golf course was a great place to take a stroll and scared the golfers.

The story isn't just about bears though, there's a teen's suicide and strange acting parents, a prominent woman who wants to file charges against Tempe and her husband, Hutch, a long-ago romance that resurfaces, and a woman suffering dementia who disappears.

I hope you'll enjoy Bears With Us as much as I enjoyed writing it.