Arizona Desert is Dessert for Some with This Awesome Talent

Mary Deal: Life In The Desert:

Phoenix and surrounding towns and suburbs grew up from desert sands and caliche clay. The gorgeous spring and fall weather makes this a golf haven, though avid golfers also brave the cold winters and the sweltering summers. Many mountains and foothills can be found in and surrounding this expansive valley known as the Phoenix Metropolitan area. Hiking trails abound on those hill. One golf course I know of has five tee areas at different levels up the side of a hill.

It has snowed several times over the years in this Valley. In the higher elevations on the Mogollon Rim, in Flagstaff, Prescott. or Sedona, to name several places, it snows each year. But it’s always amazing to see snow in these lowlands.

A great feature that attracts many sightseers in Scottsdale, where I live, is Old Town Scottsdale. Here you will find art galleries, western motif shops, and eateries. Much of the western art is influence by the Native Americans and the Hispanic traditions. The town’s buildings are made up mostly of old western single or two-story architecture.

Presently, there are twenty-one Native American tribes that inhabit the state. Their influence is all around and is distinguishable by tribe. You can see and purchase beautiful artworks, paintings, pottery, blankets, and turquoise jewelry. You need not go only to Old Town to find the Native American flavor. Every town has shops to investigate.

Another interesting place is Taliesen, which was the architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s estate. The grounds and buildings are open to the public.

Though cities have taken over the desert reaches, we still have cactus. Five common types are found here: Prickly pear, Saguaro, Barrel, Golden Hedgehog, and Jumping Cholla. Yet, so many more thrive here. Most cactus put out gorgeous delicate blooms in stunning colors. The Desert Botanical Garden Arboretum, near our monster Zoo, is where every type of cactus is grown and thrives.

The Arbotetum also maintains a Butterfly room that people can enter and walk with the butterflies and photograph them.

Arizona is filled with incredible interesting cities and towns. All have a distinctive flavor of their own. Tucson to the south is where many western films have been made. Sedona is considered a spiritual center, with its stunning rock formations. The Grand Canyon is in northern Arizona. The huge Hopi Reservation occupies almost the entire northeastern corner of the state including the junction called Four Corners. That is where the Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado borders meet. Other smaller reservations dot the state. They are private lands. We have huge forests too. If you thought the desert was barren, please come visit.

Mary is offering a free eBook of your choice to one person picked at random from her list of books. Check her books on her Amazon Author page.  Leave a comment to win-don’t forget a form of contact or click the contact info tab and send your contact info to Annette. 

Mary Deal is a bestselling, award-winning author of suspense/thrillers, romance, a short story collection, writers’ references, and self-help. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, Artist and Photographer, and former newspaper columnist and magazine editor.

Find her at these locations:

Amazon Author Page - https://www.amazon.com/Mary-Deal/e/B0035B02X6/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

FaceBook - https://www.facebook.com/mdeal

Mary Deal Fine Art – https://pixels.com/profiles/mary-deal

Joyce Ann Brown’s Arizona Saga:

When I was a child, my grandparents wintered in Tucson, Arizona. Grandma had arthritis and had been advised by her doctor to move to a drier climate. My folks drove us out for a visit during our winter break—air travel for five not being in the budget. What a great break! Mountains, desert, cacti…not to mention the Petrified Forest National Park, the Painted Desert, and Sedona and Jerome, artist villages back then, built along narrow roads through the mountains. In Tucson, we played shuffleboard OUTDOORS on Christmas day and later took a trip to Mexico where we bought piñatas, sombreros, and maracas to bring back and bedazzle our snow-besieged friends.

Fast forward a couple of decades—more Arizona vacations as I visited friends who had moved to Scottsdale, marveled at the desert and mountains along I-40 on the way to California to visit extended family, and took my kids to the Grand Canyon.

So…Arizona meant vacationland, beauty and fun, escape from everyday life in Kansas City, where I lived as an adult. It wasn’t until my daughter and her husband moved to Tucson for their careers, had children, and settled down for the long haul, that I thought of Arizona as a place to live. I stayed with them several times to help with the babies. My husband and I visited the kids and grandkids, eventually bought a camper, took our cats with us, and stayed for several weeks at a time. We began extending our trips to visit long-time friends after they moved to Scottsdale. It was still vacation, except we were cooking, changing diapers, sitting at kitchen counters to visit with people, and learning to know the streets and neighborhoods.

Four years ago, our Scottsdale friends told us about a sale home in their complex. We could get it for a good price, and it needed only a “little” renovation. We wrung our hands, ruminated, sold rental property, and took the plunge. After two years leasing the property out and a year living in our camper while we gutted and renovated the new place, we moved here last fall—a fall filled with furnishing and decorating our home, as well as exploring the neighborhood.

Now, I can’t claim to know as much as a native Arizonian would know. And, I won’t say I know as much as the folks who moved here years ago as access to air conditioning helped grow some of the sleepy towns and villages into mega cities. A desire to learn as much as possible, though, has required research and travel—and taught me more than a Wikipedia overview of this beautiful and diverse state.

It was several years ago, when I started writing my Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mystery series, that we first started staying at an RV resort in southwest Tucson while visiting my daughter and her family and helping with the kids. Back in Kansas City, where the series is set, I used my impressions of the resort at the beginning of the second book, Furtive Investigation. In it, our sleuth, and her husband are called back to Kansas City from a winter trip to Arizona after they learn from the pet sitter that Psycho Cat has discovered a skeleton in the attic of one of the landlady’s rental properties.

Since then, I’ve checked out the Tombstone corral, Arizona wine country, cotton fields, olive groves, citrus groves, hiking trails, and the huge Talking Stick casino and resort on the Salt-River Pima Maricopa Indian Reservation bordering Scottsdale. Arizona is home to over twenty-two tribes on reservations covering about twenty-seven percent of the state. Another fifty-nine percent is controlled by the federal government—national parks, forests, and military bases.

Speaking of forests and parks, the great northern Arizona landscape deserves more of my future exploration time. The Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, and Antelope Canyon outside of Page, an awe-inspiring surprise in the desert—those and more make the drive worthwhile. I’ve seen only some of the canyons, craters, preserved pueblos, and ski areas in Arizona. Ski Areas? That’s right—winter sport areas—near Flagstaff and on Mt. Lemmon near Tucson.

There’s much to see and do in Arizona, don’t you think? Comment for a chance to win an e-book copy of one of my books.

See more about the author and her books at: http://joyceannbrown.com  https://www.amazon.com/Joyce-Ann-Brown/e/B00OL6JH08/ or http://www.facebook.com/joyceannbrownauthor

 

Arizona Book Store in Tuscon

Antigone Books: 

https://www.antigonebooks.com/

This is a great looking bookstore that’s owned by 3 generations—and it’s renewable—energy wise—and has some great links to local and renewable sources at the bottom of the homepage.  From the look of the store, its someplace I want to visit when I go to Arizona next time.

One thing—I had to Google the full address. As an out of town person just looking at the website, I had no idea that it was in Tuscon until I investigated.  Note to owners-put the city on the website with the address so my geographically challenged mind knows where to go!

Once in the website, there’s links to all kinds of genres and this one https://www.antigonebooks.com/local-authors goes right to a long list of local Arizona talent.

On February 15, if you click on the events tab, you’ll see they’re having an event that I feel is really current right now in our political climate.  The Author is Leva Jusionyte and if you’re in the area, it might be interesting to attend. Tyler (or whoever else has time to attend)—if you’re reading this and have time, you should go and send me a report. I would definitely attend if I was in the area. 

I know Arizona has lots of writing talent, and great weather and golfing—even though I’m a poor golfer I have done it a couple times. So glad I found this store to highlight out of all the information about Arizona writing.  

This week, click on over to Anigone Books in Tuscon and name drop one author or event from that sight here as a comment to be entered in for the end of the month grand prize.  I’ll need a form of contact in case you win. 

Big thanks to Anigone Books for letting me browse your virtual shelves and write this article.

(All info found at https://www.antigonebooks.com/)

Krista Lynn, Kenneth Weene and Heidi Thomas: Sharing the State of Arizona

We Begin with Krista Lynn: Mother Earth and Father Sky This is Arizona

What I experienced as a child growing up wild on the desert of Arizona left its brand on my heart for all time. Wide open spaces, dry, dusty dirt roads that dodge hard rock outcrops and skirt around determined Saguaro cacti stubbornly standing their ground—this is the landscape that so often conjures in quiet, still moments of contemplation of my life. This is the terrain that formed my love of nature, my ties to earth and my love of the clear night sky that can only truly be seen far away from the lights of the city. 

And away from the city we lived – about twenty-five miles of dirt road northeast of a tiny roadside town, named New River, Arizona. In the 1960’s, the little settlement was about 50 miles from the outskirts of Phoenix. (If you’ve visited Phoenix in the last few years, you know that the “outskirts” have pushed outward in all directions, a sprawling urban landscape that is incredible. New River is now almost a suburb.

New River consisted of a roadside gas station/café, a dude ranch named Wrangler’s Roost, a one-room school house, several cattle ranches and dirt-poor prospectors like us. Ten miles further north on Black Canyon Highway, now Interstate 17, was Rock Springs. It boasted another café and a dry goods store with a post office. It was a real treat to go there and gawk at the “goods”:  Indian jewelry, moccasins, cowboy boots and hats. 

This environment, imbued with the spirit of Native American culture and history, is the backdrop for several of my speculative fiction stories. One should write what one knows, correct?  Below, I explain further how the real-life mysterious haunting of Superstition Mountains near Phoenix is echoed in my fictional story of Prospector’s Mountain.

I’m biased, obviously, but Arizona is the most beautiful state in the Union.

If you haven’t been to the Grand Canyon, you are missing something extraordinary. It is about a mile deep and several hundred miles long. I can attest to how far down it is, as I’ve climbed up from bottom to top. It is a switch back trail that took me several hours to trek. Switching back and forth – I’m sure it was a hundred miles.

A few years back, I had the good fortune to join a Colorado River rafting trip. After nine days of working the river with two other rafters on our three-man boat, I hiked back up to the top from Phantom Ranch.  Phantom Ranch is a lodge located within Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. It is on the north side of the Colorado River near its confluence with Bright Angel Creek and Phantom Creek – at the bottom of the canyon.

I’ll never forget my sometimes harrowing trip on a wild river at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The pictures above were taken on a smooth stretch of the river during the trip and during one of our hiking jaunts up into the rock cliffs. But when we hit the many rapids along the way – this is what it was like!

Toward the end of the nine days, we arrived at the confluence of the Colorado River and the Little Colorado River. This is one of the most beautiful places on the planet – where the dark green to tan colored Colorado meets the aquamarine Little Colorado. The day we were there, we maneuvered our boats to the shore and took advantage of the opportunity to swim in that incredible blue water. What makes it so blue? The limestone rock into which the river has over millennia cut its course!

Havasupai Falls Arizona is a major destination for hikers who want to visit the blue green waterfalls. Hidden in the Grand Canyon, and difficult to get reservations for, this paradise is for those who can plan ahead and enjoy hikes of 8 miles or more. The Havasupai people live near the Havasupai Falls in the Supai Village. The Havasupai people, or Havasuw `Baaja, the people of the blue green waters, are the traditional guardians of the Grand Canyon. Related to the Yuman, the Havasupai have from the beginning, inhabited the Grand Canyon and its environs.

This picture is by a fabulous photographer, Steve Bruno. His work is simply amazing. http://www.stephenbrunophotography.com/

The best time to be in Arizona is fall through spring.  Though winters can be a bit chilly at night, the average January temperature is between 62 and 74 degrees F. That’s why so many “Snow Birds” from Michigan and Minnesota and other northerners flock to Arizona at that time. For me, even summer is fine – 110-120 degree F and all - as long as I have a bucket of sun screen, a hat, a cool place to sit, and someone to make my margaritas, I’m good to go!

One can’t live in The Valley of the Sun - as the general area of Phoenix is called - and not know about Superstition Mountain. Many TV specials have been done about the Lost Dutchmen’s Gold Mine which is thought to be located somewhere in the rugged terrain of this mysterious mountain.  Many prospectors have entered the area and not returned. The stories abound. As a youth and as an adult, I have visited the area. Haven’t done much hiking there – seriously, one can get lost. It’s eerie! Doesn’t it look scary?

What’s behind the disappearances?

Well, some say they’ve solved the mystery of where the mine is, but I have my doubts. And where are those missing people? And who killed those whose bodies have been found?

Great questions and premise for a romantic suspense. Blood Stones: The Haunting of Sunset Canyon, the first book in my Sunset Canyon Series. It is set in a fictional place in central Arizona – a haunted canyon in Prospector’s Mountain.

My fictional location is a reflection of the general area of New River, Arizona with the geology of the higher desert terrain in the north. There is even a gas station/café in the story, borrowed from my recollections of the one that is still there, but renovated and modernized. For the characters in the story? All fictional, of course. As a writer, the best part is creating in your mind the world in which the drama unfolds. The hard part is getting it down on paper.

For my giveaway – I’ll chose randomly from those who comment and send that person a copy of Blood Stones and a turquoise bracelet with feather charms. The bracelet is the perfect talisman to wear when you go into the haunted canyon – you’ll see why when you read the book.  

http://amzn.to/2rdujrW  www.kristallynn.com  www.kristallynndesigns.com

Continuing Arizona: Then Saguaro -Author Kenneth Weene:

“They’re spirits,” my wife said. “Each one has its own story, its own… Like they’re alive and watching… talking to us.”

For all our years of travel, we’d never been to Arizona before, never seen a saguaro, those distinctive armed cacti of the Sonoran dessert. Having arrived late the night before and driven along a busy highway to our hotel, we had no sense of Phoenix other than that for us—having flown from New York the freezing February day before—it was delightfully un-wintery. If pressed, we probably would have said balmy, and yes a dry balm at that.

Now, after a standard motel breakfast bar meal including one too many of those sugar-covered pastries and—okay, I admit it—more bacon than human digestion is designed to process, we’d packed our bags in the trunk of the rental with our heavy jackets stuffed in first. We wouldn’t need those for a week.

The timeshare was, according to our maps, way to the east of our motel. My wife had the map in her lap; another of the entire state was in the pocket of her door just in case I managed to lose my way outside the boundaries of greater Phoenix.

East was easy. The Ford we’d rented came equipped with one of the latest in automobile navigational aids, a compass. Driving was easy, too. After New England with its narrow byways and New York with it floods of humanity, the broad streets of Phoenix seemed like speedways. I probably would have been speeding had I not been squinting against the morning sun. Even with sunglasses, the sun was bright and came almost directly through the windshield.

“Stop!” my wife had yelled.

Terrified that I might have hit some unseen animal or worse, I screeched the brakes. From behind me there was a complaining horn and then the rev of an engine as that person flew past us.

“I love them.” She pointed out her window towards a business complex.

“Very nice,” I replied trying to keep my composure. Meanwhile thinking, “You could have caused an accident because you like some buildings. Give me a break.”

“They’re spirits. Each one has its own story, its own… Like they’re alive and watching… talking to us.”

Only then did I realize she was talking about the six saguaro standing guard in front of that complex.

“Yes,” I agreed. I said no more. There was no need. We were both hooked. We were both ready to find a new home far from our native Northeast roots. Indeed, within the week we had purchased that home.

That evening, finally settled into the timeshare, I wrote an haiku.

six saguaro sisters

stand against the orange drought—

a wren shops for shoes

We’ve lived in Phoenix for sixteen years. Now, using a GPS we’ve driven all over the state and beyond. I’ve tried a few times to find that office complex, to again glimpse those saguaros, perhaps to thank them for their invocation, perhaps to read them their poem. I’ve never found the spot, but I have loved many a cactus since. Not just saguaro, but they remain my—our—favorite. It is my hope that if I am to be reincarnated I will come back as one and after fifty years have the energy to raise my thorny arms in greeting to the dessert sun.

If you’d like to know more of me and my writing, visit http://www.kennethweene.com or look for me on Amazon. And, if you want to find a beautiful place to live, I suggest you visit Phoenix and meet the saguaro.

 I’m giving away a copy of one of my books to one lucky winner.  Leave a comment and form of contact to enter.

And Finally, Award Winning Author, Heidi M. Thomas:

Contrary to popular opinion, Arizona is not all sand dunes and saguaro cactus. Drive north from Phoenix about an hour and you will come to the other “Mile-High City” of Prescott. Nestled in the Sierra Prieta and Bradshaw mountains are numerous lakes, the Granite Dells, pine, cedar and juniper forests.

Prescott was the territorial capital from 1864-1867, had a ten-year hiatus, then held the title again in 1877 until 1889, when Phoenix became the capital.

This “high-plains desert” area is known as the “Quad-City” area—Prescott, Chino Valley, Prescott Valley, and Dewey-Humboldt. Ninety miles north of Phoenix, the temperature is typically 15-20 degrees cooler than “the Valley.” Surrounded by mountains, a Ponderosa pine forest, and home of the Granite Dells, the area is a haven for hikers.

I live in the small, rural town of Chino Valley, about 15 miles north of Prescott, where we often see Pronghorn antelope grazing on the prairie-like fields nearby. This area reminds me a lot of eastern Montana, where I grew up on a ranch.

The Sharlot Hall Museum, the Smoki and Phippen museums are home to much of Prescott's territorial history. Whiskey Row in downtown Prescott (known until 1956 as a notorious red-light district) boasts many historic buildings, including The Palace, Arizona's oldest restaurant and bar. The city was named after author William H. Prescott, whose writings were popular during the Civil War.

Prescott also has a place in western folklore with the fact that Virgil Earp, Wyatt Earp's older brother, lived in Prescott in 1879 and told him of the boom town in Tombstone, Arizona. It is also rumored that Doc Holliday spent some time in Prescott just before heading to Tombstone, as well as his common-law wife, “Big Nose Kate.”

This area boasts the “World’s Oldest Rodeo” and Prescott is also known as “the Christmas City,” as well as “Everybody’s Home Town.” Hundreds of movies have been filmed here, including "Billy Jack," "Junior Bonner," and "Transamerica."

My book Cowgirl Up! A History of Rodeo Women fits right in to this “cowboy” area. Other novels based on my grandmother who rode roughstock in Montana rodeos during the 1920s are Cowgirl Dreams (EPIC Award winner), Follow the Dream (WILLA Award), and Dare to Dream (Finalist International Book Awards). My newest novel, Seeking the American Dream, is based on my mother, who emigrated from Germany after WWII.

Giveaway: If you leave a comment related to cowgirls or following a dream, you’ll be entered into a drawing for a copy of your choice of one of my books.

Learn more about this award winning author at her website http://www.heidimthomas.com

(All Info listed author provided. Also http://www.stephenbrunophotography.com/)

Renee Rose and Alexis Alvarez of Arizona—Something Warm During for Those Who Live in the Cold

Hi! I’m Renee Rose (Tucson, AZ) and I paired up with fellow Arizona author Alexis Alvarez (Phoenix, AZ) to bring you the flavor of our state. We both write steamy romance with hot alpha heroes and the strong women who win their hearts and Alexis is also a professional photographer responsible for these incredible photos!

 

Hot and Cold.

Most people think of extreme heat when they think of Arizona, and that’s true.  Between May and September, for most of Arizona, the weather becomes uncomfortably hot.

 I’ve lived in cold climates, and I remember once you’re freezing, you don’t notice the difference between one degree below zero or three.  Here in AZ, we notice every degree over 100. When you step outside in the summer, it literally feels like you’re in an oven. So we behave much like the rest of the world behaves in the winter--we stay indoors and, like vampires, we don’t come out until nightfall.

 

My husband and I used to own a nightclub in downtown Tucson. Summer nights were always pumping. For that reason, I set two of my paranormal romances in downtown Tucson--Deathless Love and His Captive Mortal.  While it may seem strange to have vampires live in a place so sunny--it was the nightlife I was going for.  

What most people not from Arizona don’t realize, is that it gets quite cold here, as well.  Great extremes occur between night and day temperatures throughout Arizona, sometimes ranging as much as 50 or 60 degrees.

In my latest bad boy shifter romance, The Alpha’s Promise, the climate between the hero and heroine fluctuates about that much, too. :)  Cody, an alpha shifter, has been thrown together with Melissa, an uppity human, who he must protect. While their physical attraction for each other is off the charts hot, they each have prejudice about the other, which brings on the ice.

 

Hi! I’m Alexis Alvarez. Like Renee, I love living in the beautiful state of Arizona.

With thirteen different species of rattlesnake, Arizona has more than any other state. Of our fifty-five species of scorpions, the smallest and most deadly (and also an accomplished climber) -- the bark scorpion -- is frequently found in  homes.  The rare and shy Gila Monster can deliver a painful and severe bite if provoked, and while tarantulas prefer to hide from humans, the black widow and brown recluse are responsible for many hospital trips each year. To top it off, the desert centipede, which can grow to over six inches in length, can provide a nasty welt from its venom.

Despite these dangers, people flock to Arizona for the natural beauty of the place, for the amazing climate, and for the vistas -- large and small -- that come from our dry, severe deserts and the unexpected pockets of verdant beauty within them.

Perhaps the knowledge of the danger that lurks makes the beauty more powerful. The pride that comes with avoiding nature’s harsh bite allows us to better savor her sweetness.

 I still feel the excitement from my first Gila Monster sighting -- we were on a hike, and there it was! Sunning itself on a rock just a few feet away! The sick fear that comes rushing in with the rattle of a snake tail gives way to the pride of knowing how to safely avoid them while hiking.  The anxiety of finding black widows in your backyard gives way to the knowledge that you know how to deal with them to keep your kids safe. We learn to co-exist with nature.

In my book Casey’s Choice, a sexy BDSM novel about a woman who has to choose between two men, the juxtaposition of pain with pleasure heightens the enjoyment.  I use themes of art to showcase Casey’s journey to self-awareness and confidence, as she develops the strength to do what’s right for her heart and her soul.  The difficulty she experiences on her journey makes her final happiness that much stronger.

A desert Saguaro, the universal symbol of the Southwest, grows in just a small area of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and Mexico.  These cacti, the tallest in the United States, can grow to be over sixty feet tall and can weigh up to 4,800 lbs.  Native American have historically used the Saguaro for food and building materials, and the cacti provide homes to many desert animals.  Yet these life-giving plants are covered with prickly spikes to protect themselves, a veritable armor, as are most cacti in the desert Southwest.

In my book Boston, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01JNXTQSG

/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_dp_aGeuyb7P355E2  a contemporary romance about opposites attracting, both the hero and heroine have their own defenses built up to prevent heartbreak and pain, walls that look like disinterest, dislike, and sarcasm.  They have to learn to open up and trust each other, to get past the thorny exterior to see the true beauty below.

Thanks for reading about our gorgeous state and our books! We hope you give us a chance and try our novels. We think you’ll love them as much as we enjoyed writing them.

Thank you for stopping by! Please enter for a chance to win a gift basket of Arizona goodies!

About the Authors

USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR RENEE ROSE is a naughty wordsmith who writes kinky romance novels. Named Eroticon USA's Next Top Erotic Author in 2013, she has also won The Romance Reviews Best Historical Romance, and Spanking Romance Reviews' Best Historical, Best Erotic, Best Ageplay and favorite author. She's hit #1 on Amazon in the Erotic Paranormal, Western and Sci-fi categories. She also pens BDSM stories under the name Darling Adams. To receive FREE Renee Rose books, click here. http://owned.gr8.com/

Renee loves to connect with readers! Please visit her on:

Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Pinterest | Instagram

Alexis Alvarez writes romance that’s smart, bright and sexy. Her contemporary romances have humor and sizzle, and her BDSM novels are dark and delicious. She loves creating books that are poetic, with words flung like diamonds at the night. You can find her here:

Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Secret Facebook Group | Goodreads | Instagram

(All info provided by Authors)