Comes the Rain

Contemporary romance writer Bird ( To Love a Stranger ) moves into historicals with her engaging tale of Gray Eyes, a young Navaho medicine woman living in the New Mexico territory during the mid-1800s. Despite her healing skills and knowledge, Gray Eyes is only in her early teens and confused by the teasing attentions of the warrior Hawk. Their courtship and struggle for personal happiness are effectively juxtaposed with the Navaho's fight for survival as a people, as they clash with white settlers and the U.S. Army who are claiming exclusive rights to traditional Navaho land. Gray Eyes's sixth sense leads her through a shower of enemy fireballs to a severely wounded Hawk. As she nurses him through his lengthy convalescence, they acknowledge the strength of their affection. Once he has recovered, Hawk must again enter battle, although Gray Eyes's special sight tells her that this war cannot be won. Bird's tale is enriched by an awareness of the personal tragedies inherent in conflicts between two societies that share little but a profound ignorance of each other's ways. (Oct.)