June in Paradise

I know you all get sick of me telling you about how lovely living in Paradise/Avon is, but with all the rain this year we had an especially beautiful batch of flowers growing behind our house. I thought I'd share a few shots.

Learning New Things

This is the summer of new things. Most summers are pretty blissful. My husband and I often get up in the mornings, share a nice breakfast, go on a hike or a bike ride, then come home have lunch, do some jobs, attend some activities, go to art festivals--you get the idea. This summer is being dominated by my husband's knee surgery. He's out of commission for the rest of the summer. This means I'm the one getting the newspaper in the morning, checking the chickens eggs, feeding the cats and chickens, watering, mowing, weeding, weed eating, carrying garbage to the bottom of the hill, doing the laundry, icing my husband's leg, keeping him fed and comfortable. I know lots of you probably do all these things--but he's always shared in the work.

Lots of farm kids learn to move sprinkler pipes when they are twelve years old. It's a great skill, builds muscles and teaches responsibility. But I didn't grow up on a farm or even remotely close. I grew up in the middle of Orem, Utah. I played in irrigation ditches and turned on the sprinklers on our lawn and ran through the rainbirds in the park across the street and got in trouble when we dammed the ditches and made our field into a lake large enough to canoe in. So moving pipe is something I didn't do. So at age 53 it's a new experience.  I have a good friend and neighbor who has come to the rescue, and another woman saw us working and helped, so I've learned a new skill. Tonight though my friends couldn't help so my husband helped on crutches. We've been spoiled. Now back to work.

Contest Winners!

This took me a while to post. I've been busy with Summerfest--a really fun art festival in Logan. Now that it's over I decided to finish this. The winner of Sun Tunnels and Secrets is Christopher who read and signed a review on Janet Jensen's blog. The winner of either False Pretenses or A Question of Trust is Delma Smith of Ogden. The winner of the Frog is Heather Moore.  I used the website Random.org to choose the winners fairly. I hope some of you will pick up Just Shy of Paradise or one of my other books. I've had a surprising number of people tell me Just Shy is their favorite. I'm surprised because it's quite different than the other. Thanks everyone who entered and I hope you'll check back now and again.

Contest to win Novels!!

 As the reviews are coming in for "Just Shy of Paradise" I'd like to reward my readers by giving away two of my novels and one of my frogs. Look at the photo above to see what they look like. I'll be giving away a copy of 2010's Sun Tunnels and Secrets, and a copy of either False Pretenses or A Question of Trust--winners choice. Here's the rules. I'll post links to the reviews here. After reading a review post a comment on their review for one entry, Either Facebook or Twitter about it for another, and Follow my blog for a third. Make sure you let me know what you are doing so that you can have a good chance at winning. The link to my blog is www.carolethayne.blogspot.com

Julie Coulter Bellon's review


Janet Jensen's review 

Jolynne Lyon's review 
Susan Dayley's review

Ldstorymaker conference and other cool stuff.

Last week I attended one day of the Storymaker conference that was held in SLC. It's always good. I always tell people that it's for anyone who wants to improve their writing, not just LDS--though it's mostly geared to fiction. Ever since I joined the storymakers about 8 years ago, I've helped in some capacity with the conference. This year I got to help authors or potential authors pitch to a publisher. I knocked on the door and kept things moving for an hour with the fabulous Lisa Mangum of Desert Book. Lisa is one of those people that puts people at ease and believe me it can be scary to pitch your idea in less than ten minutes--I've done it and know the heart-pounding anxiety it produces, but Lisa couldn't be more genuine. So I'd stand out the door and try to get the potentials ready by pitching to me first and giving encouragement. I got to meet some awesome people. It was fun and who knows maybe next year I'll dare do it myself. Here's some pics from the conference.

This is me with some other authors Ronda Gibbs Hinrichsen and Joan Soward.

This is me next to my editor Linda Mullineaux. She's as nice as she is lovely. And another author who I just met in person but knew online for a while Joyce Dipastina.

These last four pictures are of the winners of my novels at the conference. I like that three of the four winners are men and that at least one is another published author. I like it because some mistakenly believe writing and reading are a feminine activity.

Last but not least. I recently became aware of an author who has some exciting things going on. Check out this article in the Deseret News.http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705370789/Local-author-debuts-new-interactive-kids-books.html 
Karl Beckstrand served an LDS mission to Chile and that's where my son served too. Like Karl, my son has continued to use his language. My son is teaching his own children Spanish. They are being raised bi-lingual. Beckstrand's books sound really fun to me. Here's his site if you want to know more about his fun interactive books. http://gozobooks.com/  He's also got a booksigning coming up. It's Wed. June 15, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Sunflower Market: 656 E. 200 South, SLC, UT, USA. Good luck Karl. 

"The Crazy daze of Motherhood" by Jane Still

A couple of years ago when Jane Still joined our LDStorymaker group I was intrigued by her name. I mean Jane is so refreshingly unpretentious. Even after all these years it's STILL a good solid name. I mean I imagine sometimes Jane Still has conversations with people like this. "What is your name?" "Jane . . . Still." "Jane what?" "Jane Still." "I know it's still Jane, I didn't expect it to change, but what's your last name Jane?" "No, it's Jane Still." "I get that your name is still Jane, but...what is your last name." "Still what?" ...

See what I mean? I value humor higher than I value any other trait, higher than honesty, loyalty, thoughtfulness...just about anything. If you can make me laugh, I can forgive you of almost anything. If Charlie Sheen was just the least bit funny, I could forgive him for being completely narcissistic, but he's not. Nothing funny about a completely self-absorbed middle-aged star flushing his life down the tubes. But I digress, back to Jane. Not only was she funny, she is STILL funny. I don't know her personally, but I'm pretty sure I'd like her...still. She looks at the funny side of life and mothering. My favorite part in this little gem is all about going to the doctor and dressing and undressing. If you've ever been the doctors you'll relate to this dilemma. One thing about Jane is that she is still obviously not afraid of laughing at herself or her kids, or her husband. Another part I love is that her husband's answer to all problems is to drink more water. Don't we all know someone like that? No matter what you tell them, they tell you advice that sounds the same. A one size fits all approach. No matter what problem you have, they might say, "Well the thing you need to do is eat more spinach." You could say, our plumbing is acting up again, and they would still tell you to eat more spinach. This is how Jane's husband is described in one of the anecdotes in the book. The book is a short 88 page delight complete with drawings to help you get the picture. I smiled and laughed all the way through it. You can read more about Jane Isfeld Still. Or visit her blogspot.

Just Shy of Paradise--NEW BOOK!!!

Announcing my new arrival. Just Shy of Paradise is different from my other more action packed suspense books. It's set in a different town. I've moved away from Grouse Creek for this novel and set it in my current town of Paradise. It's tricky when you decide to set a novel in your place of residence. You can't make the bad guy stand out as the true local bad guy. And yes there is a bad guy in this story, though not necessarily a rue bad guy in Paradise. We'll let you guess about that. tThere is action. There is romance. There is suspense, and even some mystery, but no one actually get's murdered in this book. And no one get's abducted. Some people almost get killed though. Hmmm. I do have a hard time telling people what this one is about without giving too much away. But here's a little. It's about Lily. When Lily was four years old, she was celebrating her birthday with her family on their family property on the Little Bear River. She waded out into the stream and was swept away--no one in the family noticed. But she was pulled out of the river by a "little angel" and set on the banks safely for her family to find. Most of Lily's life, she feels inadequate. She feels as if she doesn't live up to the miracle that saved her. People always tell Lily that God must certainly have something special in mind for her to have created such a miracle to save her. But she doesn't feel special. She has a hard time in social situations and is in therapy for anxiety.
This book is also the story about Sky. Sky is half Shoshone and half Swedish, though looks more Native American. He has just been served with divorce papers and his ex has taken their young son to live far away. He finds solace in fishing and especially likes a certain piece of property where he used to fish with his father who died when he was young. The property is owned by Lily's family. This book explores some Cache Valley history, culture clash, and prejudice. There is romance too. It's a tender story and one that is dear to my heart. I became aware of the Bear River Massacre when we moved here years ago and then read a wonderful book about Chief Sagwitch by Scott Christensen (USU Press). Sagwtich probably walked regularly right across the property we now own. He stood out to me as a man of great honor and I wanted to pay tribute to him in some small way.  I don't write historical fiction (yet) so needed to find a way to write his story in a modern way. So Sky is Chief Sagwitch's great, great, grandson. He's heard the stories and dreams dreams. He and Lily keep getting thrown together in serindipitous ways and Sky wonders if his ancestors are orchestrating the events.
I hope this book finds new readers in Cache Valley and that my devoted readers will give it a chance. There's a contest to win a free book on Goodreads and it's available on Amazon