Author, Candace E. Salima, was born into a military family stationed on Coronado Island off the coast of San Diego, California; a family of 4th and 5th generation Coloradans rich with educators, artists, and musicians, most of whom made their living as farmers and ranchers. The author of five books, Candace was born right smack dab in the middle of twelve children. In a family comprised of his, mine and ours, she can barely remember a time when reading wasn't an integral part of her life. Her love of books, reading and writing, was born of hearing her mother read nightly from the James Herriot series about a veterinarian's mishaps in the British countryside. She thrived in a family of readers, began writing original stories at the age of eleven and has never looked back.

The daughter of a father who survived the invasion of Hitler's war machine in his homeland and a mother who is an often controversial conservative columnist, Candace spent her childhood on the back of a horse or trudging through the mountains and valleys of the American west. Born in California, she lived in Nebraska, Montana, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico . . . all before she was twelve-years-old. As an adult she lived in Idaho, Wyoming, Arizona, and another short stint in California before making her home in Utah.

She met her sweetheart at Brigham Young University in 1983. Ten years later she appeared on the Phil Donahue Show in defense of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which precipitated a reunion with him. In 1995, Alvin and Candace were married in the Bountiful Temple and settled in Utah Valley. Unable to have children, Alvin and Candace shower their love and attention on their nieces and nephews.

In the course of her life, Candace has been a reporter, a writer of health booklets, a screenwriter, and a teacher. Her philosophy in life is simple . . . everything can be turned into a good story. Hence her nine day rafting trip down the Colorado River, hiking the Colorado Rockies, or horseback riding in the northern Wyoming Grand Teton mountains. A love of BYU football, basketball, swimming, movies, plays, concerts and socializing with family and friends round out her life. All this, and she still prefers to be curled up on her couch with a good book, a cup of hot chocolate and a blustery Winnie-the-Pooh day brewing outside.

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