Sand Creek Serenade

Love may conquer all, but it cannot overcome the historical atrocities of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre, which forms the foundation of Uhlarik’s jingoistic first full-length novel. Trained by her physician father, Sadie Hoppner practices medicine at Fort Lyon in Colorado Territory. Sadie is fascinated by the Native tribes gathered around the fort to negotiate a peace with the U.S. government, especially a young French-Cheyenne brave named Five Kills, whom she is called upon to treat. Five Kills and Sadie find enough language in common to begin a relationship that threatens the stability of both their worlds, especially when the soldiers at the fort are ordered to open fire on the camps of sleeping Natives, slaughtering women, children, and the elderly. Uhlarik’s research is sound and her characters are intriguing, but the story exonerates the white characters with worrying ease, consciously downplaying the violence and trauma of the massacre and indirectly conflating 19th-century Native Americans with contemporary militant terrorists by (according to an author’s note) drawing on the experiences of ISIS members to inform Five Kills’s character. This well-constructed story is undone by its imperialistic themes and exploitation of devastating historical events. Agent: Julie Gwinn, Seymour Agency. (Mar.)