Updates from the fictitious town of Winter Haven, Colorado
Hi, I’m Charlie Avera, author of Winter Haven: Bobcat in the Trees.
Okay, Winter Haven is not a real ski town in Colorado’s high country. It is a fictitious resort town somewhere high in the Rock Mountains, modeled after a few other ski resorts west of Denver.
I’ve lived just outside of Denver since 1992. I’m an avid skier as well as a new author. I wanted to weave my passion for skiing into my idea for an intriguing murder mystery. And so the small resort town of Winter Haven with its cast of local and transient characters was born.
The state of Colorado west of Denver is all high country, and provides perhaps the most stunning landscapes anywhere in the country.
I captured this stunning high country image while standing at the top of a steep ski run called Cheshire Cat at Winter Park Ski Resort. Winter Park is located near Berthoud Pass along the Continental Divide.
In 2017, late in the ski season, I started down this run when my skis crossed in the soft, mushy late winter snow. I fell and broke my right ankle and leg in four places, ending my season and seriously disrupting my spring and summer as well. But this injury did not deter me from the sport that I had grown to love, and 2018 found me back on the slopes, conquering Cheshire Cat several more times, gathering more inspiration for future books in the Winter Haven Series of Cozy Mysteries.
Although not a fictional book, I have published another book entitled Miles on the Mountain: Skiing at Sixty-Four and Other Adventures in which I chronicle my skiing journey from my first-day skiing at the age of sixty through the next four years.
Miles on the Mountain is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
