For years, she’s had dreams of another time, dreams that feel like someone else’s memories, far in the past; a Black woman living among Lakota Sioux. As the dreams come with increasing frequency, they take a toll on her waking life, until eventually they cost her the job she loves, and at which she has excelled for over half a decade.

So, in a “nothing ventured, nothing gained” kind of moment, she decides to visit the Little River Reservation in South Dakota, to find out whether there is any historical record of the person in her dreams.

Before she can even get where she’s going, however, she has a less than felicitous meeting with John Iron Hawk, the captain of the tribal police, who isn’t particularly keen about having a reporter from New York writing gog knows what awful slant about the reservation and his people. It’s bad enough having tourists coming in to gamble at the casino, apparently pouring money in that never makes it to the tribe’s coffers, without a big city woman bringing in bad publicity.

But Zora has little to lose and not much to go back to, and soon a battle of will ensues.

Beware: HFN, magical Native Americans, swearing, racism, equating evil with mental health issues.

Published in 2014, this is the first book on a trilogy of a self-published contemporary romantic suspense trilogy that follows the same two main characters, with a historical prequel about the heroine’s ancestors released between books one and two.

I can find very little about the author; her website exists at the time of writing, but it doesn’t even mention that she was a Golden Heart finalist in 2008 (I got that from her author’s note at the end of the book), and it would seem that she’s no longer writing, or at least not under this name.

There are the bones of a decent story here, even if the premise leans a bit too much on the “mystical Native Americans” trope, with its undertones of racism; an experienced writer could have woven the multitude of plot threads, backstories, conflicts and motivations crammed into just over 300 pages, into something cohesive and internally consistent, or perhaps cut some elements entirely.

The florid writing voice certainly didn’t help. Zora’s legs aren’t weak, they are “overcooked spaguetti”; she doesn’t fall, she “free falls”, and she “grimace(s) at the eau the toilette of her own sweat.” Then there’s this passage:

“A flush the color of an overripe promegranate flooded Emma’s face. She opened and closed her mouth like a hooked salmon.” (Chapter 7)

On top of which, the characterizations of the protagonists are rudimentary, clumsy; I could almost see the checkmarks on the genre romance list: they meet, they rub each other wrong, but they are attracted to each other, check. They are forced to spend some time together, sparks fly, check. There’s a misunderstanding, they pull apart, check. Have to spend time together anyway, time for them to have sex, check. And so on, right down to the last act separation and literal last paragraph reunion.

The secondary characters are basically stereotypes: the troubled teenage daughter, the protective older sister, the mystical grandfather, the bitter shallow other woman, the sleazy womanizer. To top it all off, the author makes sure to tie evil with mental health issues, which further soured the reading experience.

This came close to being another DNF; as it is, I skimmed a lot during the second half. I read through the end hoping for the answer to a specific plothtread which is, alas, left dangling entirely.

Lakota Dreaming gets 5.00 out of 10

Zora Hughes returns to a South Dakota reservation to find out the mystery of her ancestors death. She meets Captain John Iron Hawk who assists in her quest . But someone doesn't want the truth to come out. Page turner that you won't want to put down.

Ebook from netgalley and publisher with thanks. Opinions are entirely my own.

Book 3 in the Lakota series, it is really a must to read Lakota Moon Rising and Lakota Blood Moon first as this is an in depth novel and you will certainly want to know the background of the characters in this book.

If you love historical, native American and slavery novels, then this series will definitely be up your ally. This is a family saga and one you will want to be invested in as it does go back and forth but that in no way takes away from the wonderful story of Zora and her quest to find out the truth of her ancestors. I can honestly say I did not want this book to end.

This was a well written book and if there were any more to come then I would definitely be up for reading them.


Thanks to NetGalley and Constance Gillam for the opportunity to read and review this book.

On boy what a wonderful book, loved the story and loved the characters even more. This book is definite keeper for me!!!

I got a free copy through NetGalley and a feedback is asked for. Unfortunately, I cannot give a good one. The idea is great. Ancestral memory as a theme sounded attractive. The story line is basically ok and well developed but the characters are stereotypical. They remained flat to me. The book is missing a good editor. There are several inconsistencies and little error. With all of it, I would have given 3 stars but I did not like the stupidity of the female main character.
Please give the author a good editor as there is potential. She seems to have good ideas and generally can write.