About the book: In 1951, Frankie Chasing Bear is a Lakota
caught between cultures. She wants to raise her son Harold to revere his Lakota
heritage, but she knows he will need to become as a white man to succeed. After
his father's killed in a barroom brawl, Harold and Frankie move to Arizona,
where she begins a Lakota Star pattern quilt for Harold with tribal wisdom sung,
sewn and prayed into it.
She distrusts Christians, as her own parents were forced to convert at an Indian School, until she meets BIA agent Nick Vandergriff, a half-Lakota who's also caught between cultures. Nick must convince Frankie that white men and Christians aren't all bad as he tries to win her heart in order to put the stars back into her sky.
Learn more about this book and the series at the Quilts of Love website.
About the Author: Linda S. Clare is an award-winning coauthor
of three books, including Lost Boys and the Moms Who Love Them (with
Melody Carlson and Heather Kopp), Revealed: Spiritual Reality in a Makeover
World, and Making Peace with a Dangerous God (with Kristen Johnson Ingram).
She is also the author of The Fence My Father Built. She has taught
college-level creative writing classes for seven years, and edits and mentors
writers. She also is a frequent writing conference presenter and church retreat
leader. She and her husband of thirty-one years have four grown children,
including a set of twins. They live in Eugene, Oregon, with their five wayward
cats: Oliver, Xena the Warrior Kitty, Paladine, Melchior, and Mamma
Mia!
She distrusts Christians, as her own parents were forced to convert at an Indian School, until she meets BIA agent Nick Vandergriff, a half-Lakota who's also caught between cultures. Nick must convince Frankie that white men and Christians aren't all bad as he tries to win her heart in order to put the stars back into her sky.
Learn more about this book and the series at the Quilts of Love website.
About the Author: Linda S. Clare is an award-winning coauthor
of three books, including Lost Boys and the Moms Who Love Them (with
Melody Carlson and Heather Kopp), Revealed: Spiritual Reality in a Makeover
World, and Making Peace with a Dangerous God (with Kristen Johnson Ingram).
She is also the author of The Fence My Father Built. She has taught
college-level creative writing classes for seven years, and edits and mentors
writers. She also is a frequent writing conference presenter and church retreat
leader. She and her husband of thirty-one years have four grown children,
including a set of twins. They live in Eugene, Oregon, with their five wayward
cats: Oliver, Xena the Warrior Kitty, Paladine, Melchior, and Mamma
Mia!
Learn more about Linda at: http://www.lindasclare.com
My thoughts: Frankie Chasing Bear just wants to make a better life her son and herself. On her Lakota reservation in North Dakota she got used to having a father who drank too much and a husband who drank too much. She recalls cold winters spent in a trailer with no bed and just one blanket for warmth, she wants and education for herself and for her ten year old son, but she doesn't want to lose the Lakota ways or be forced to convert to the religion of the white man. When her son Harold is accused of stealing at the Indian school they are both attending, she is forced to look at what they need to do to make it in Arizona. With a car on the fritz and the persistent words of her grandmother in her head that she must finish the Lakota Star Quilt for her son, she tries to do her best to make her way.
Frankie can't decide if she should trust Nick or not, he is a BIA agent but also a half-Lakota who believes in God and prays to him. He offers her the chance to make friends and use her skill in quilting for employment. Even when things are going so wrong, she still hears her grandmother guiding her and helping her, even when things look the bleakest.
It is hard to trust that things will work out and that there is a plan. In hard times it is harder to trust and believe and to have faith in oneself and others, but there is always a plan. Frankie has to let go of her fear and believe in herself, in Nick, in Harold and in her new friends from the quilting shop that things will work out. I could not believe how strong she was able to be when things looked bleak for her son, but she held strong and kept believing and praying. What an example to readers that even those who don't seem to have much might very well be rich if they have friends and love and faith.
About Quilts of Love: Quilts tell
stories of love and loss, hope and faith, tradition and new beginnings. The
Quilts of Love series focuses on the women
who quilted all of these things into their family histories. A new book releases
each month and features contemporary and historical romances as well as women's
fiction and the occasional light mystery. You will be drawn into the endearing
characters of this series and be touched by their stories.
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