Heartbeat, Drumbeat

Morgana Cruz has always felt herself caught between the worlds of her Navajo mother and her Mexican father. But when her Navajo spiritual teacher, Isadora, dies, Morgana is brought closer to her Native American roots and to a mysterious man named Eagle Eyes. The two fight their attraction for each other but are thrown together time and again as Morgana develops Rocky Mountain spotted fever, faces her father's possible death after a bear mauling,stet comma and copes with the sudden death of her mother. Except for the Navajo rituals, which Beltran-Hernandez writes about lovingly and with a fine eye for detail, the novel seems rather contrived and rushed. Character development is sacrificed to some notion of ``magnetic attraction,'' while the story's tragic events swirl around Morgana in the space of a mere month and a half. Ages 12-up. (July)