Ciara Darren was born under the shadow of the savage grandeur of the Cuyamaca Mountains where she trod on rattlesnakes and heard a tarantula cry. Seeking a better life, her parents moved her family into the mountains where they lived in a house of stone, with a giant fireplace, frigid winters, boiling summers, floods, fires, mountain lions, bobcats, and centipedes. Her protector was a lion named Aslan who shapeshifted as a massive chow mutt and frightened reprobate strangers with his fangs. She grew up on tales of angels and demons. Now she tells stories painted with those colors and tempered in the kiln of her years and travel since.