Dream Walker – Review by Martha A. Cheves, Author of Stir, Laugh, Repeat and Think With Your Taste Buds – Desserts

“Hear that, Injun,” Doaks snarled. “They don’t want me to kill ye. What do you think?” She wanted to cry out that she was a white as she was red. White like her father. It would mean nothing to these men. To them it only took a drop of her mother’s blood to make her a filthy Injun. Instead she steeled herself to take her punishment from Doaks. This time she had gone too far and he would probably beat her. But not much, she knew, because he enjoyed her waiting on him hand and foot. She would get back at him sooner or later. The chance would come, he would have to sleep. When he did she would cut off his privates and feed them to him for breakfast. Fried.

Rachel ‘Winter Dawn’ Keye was indeed half white and half Cherokee. She had been sold to the lowlife Doaks by her own half brother but the slavery she was sold into was about to come to an end. There was a wagon train leaving for the gold fields of California and she planned to be on it. She thought she had found her escape in Daniel Wolfe who would be traveling with the train partway and then heading north for Oregon. It turns out that Daniel wants no part of her and ends up turning her out.

This might have been a setback for Rachel but it wouldn’t hold her back. She was determined to make it to California, forget her Injun side and become a white woman. She couldn’t wait to enjoy everything that came with being white. The fancy dresses, pretty houses and the handsome men coming to call. She would never return to the part of her that was always looked down upon. The part of her that was Cherokee.

I don’t normally read romance novels. I go in for the actions of who-done-it and leave the loving to other readers. At least that’s what I normally do but this time I agreed to read Trail to Forever and was totally surprised. Most romance novels start with the man and woman hating each other, or at least saying they do, until the end. Then they admit they are truly in love and have always been. So they battle to see who is going to say it first. Trail to Forever was different. It does provide the love story but it doesn’t over power the book. It provides tension and stress as the wagon train traveled across the country. It provides history, which I enjoyed, as both Indian and white man as they traveled across country for the same goal – gold. It also provides the story of a half white, half Cherokee woman that wanted to be all white. She wanted to be accepted by other white women and this just wasn’t to be. Winter Dawn learns to look deep inside herself to find who she really is and then to accept who she is and be proud of her heritage. This is a lesson that a lot of us need to learn. I have to admit that I did enjoy Trail to Forever.


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