The winter Bride wears diamonds. To those down below, she appears to be sleeping, locked inside a chastity belt of cold. She naps lightly behind the veil of ice and snow, letting it shield her from the sun and throw it back into the sky.
      But her chill is only skin deep. Inside her hidden folds and caves and recesses, the heartbeat of her lives and breathes and curls around the seeds of what will be. The winter Bride is pregnant, gestating the future, smiling quietly at the snores of the bears and the mountain lions, allowing all of the fertile places to swell and burgeon with the life that is to come.
      The winter Bride is holding a flood in deposit for the sun's withdrawal in spring.

Praise for Winter of Beauty

Amy Hale Auker has found her own voice with which she has created a refreshing style of storytelling. It is obvious she has a broad understanding of the politics and traditions of a ranch. It is also obvious she loves the West. She stays spot on with the cycles, moods and language that have evolved within the ranching community. Her characters have the recognizable traits of folks from the same lifestyle and heritage. I tasted the food and the pain and the cold and the friendships. Winter of Beauty will stand the test of time.
      ~ Waddie Mitchell, co-founder of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering

Amy has a gift for drawing the reader in, for building word pictures that put you right there in the setting. I fell in love with all the characters and wanted to keep reading when the book was done!
      ~ Heidiwriter

We already know Amy Hale Auker can write, based on her award-winning memoir Rightful Place.
      But can she write fiction? Can she create convincing characters out of empty paper and weave invented threads into a convincing story? She answers those questions in the affirmative in Winter of Beauty.