Lila and Charlie Horse

Synopsis: Lila Malone, a half-Navajo, half-Irish girl, has just lost both her parents. She is grieving and lonely, but manages to get her teaching degree and takes a job in an elementary school in Wyoming, far from her Navajo family and away from the high country of Arizona that she loves, in an attempt to distance herself from the loss and try to heal. There she meets Charlie Horse, the janitor of the school, who is an old Lakota Sioux man who befriends her and takes her to meet his family at Pine Ridge, South Dakota. She meets his sister and her twin granddaughters and his handsome grandson, Young Charlie. Her adventures in Wyoming and South Dakota with Charlie help her to heal and be happy again. Autobiography: Joyce Keveren is a writer and artist who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. She has written five poetry books and one collection of short stories. This is her ninth novel.