Soul Searchers (Munn)

Previous title: Daughter of the Mountain In 1846 Jessie Spear joins the ill-fated Donner Party heading toward California. She'd promised her father she'd do everything she could to realize the dream they once shared. What no one in the party foresees is that travel delays and epic snowstorms will trap them high in the rugged Sierra Mountains. One after another of her companions die and she's left to try to save a precious orphaned child. Daniel Bear is a wanted man, an outcast among his own people. He joins a small group of would-be rescuers, and they manage to reach the survivors. Without Daniel's strength and determination, Jessie can't survive the trek down the mountain. As they fight the deep drifts and bone chilling cold, two strangers begin to trust each other, to care, to feel the first touches of love. But making it to Sutter's Fort brings no relief for either of them. Sutter refuses to sell land to an unmarried woman and Daniel's past has caught up to him.

Summer, 1800. There is no rain. Heat bakes the prairie. What little game survives on the trickles of water in the shrinking creeks is fiercely hunted not just by the Cheyenne, but by their enemies, the Pawnee. In the midst of a buffalo hunt that becomes a battle, when Pawnee warriors attack, a young Cheyenne brave, Grey Bear, discovers that his joy in killing outweighs his pride in bringing home meat for his hungry people. But, the meditative Lone Hawk realizes for the first time that the Pawnee must be starving, just like the Cheyenne. In the Cheyenne village, the beautiful Seeks Fire learns that the brave she idolizes isn't the gentle soul she believes him to be. Her close friend, Touches the Wind, discovers her own bravery during an inferno that scorches the plains and destroys half the village. The growing tension between Grey Bear and Lone Hawk threatens to destroy their people, but maybe the love between a brave and a maiden will save them all.

The forests of the Pacific Northwest are lands of mist and rain, of towering trees and salmon-choked rivers. Where forest approaches sea, there live the Tillamook and Nisqually, two tribes tied to each other by hatred. Madsaw, war chief of the Tillamook, kidnaps Twana, step-daughter of the Nisqually shaman. Though their people are enemies and to love a slave violates tribal law, Madsaw finds comfort and desire in his captive's arms. Madsaw hides his grief and anger over the murder of his first wife. Twana's burden is even heavier because her spirit touches all forest creatures including the powerful grizzly, who stalks the Tillamook village. Everyone who knows of her power fears her. United by a love stronger than any fear, Twana and Madsaw are determined to find peace and happiness no matter what perils they must face.