Dream Helper, A Novel of Early California, Winner of the 2008 IBPA Gold Medal for Best Regional Fiction in the West Pacific Region

A Clash of Cultures When Cayatu, a beautiful, young Chumash woman begs protection from the Franciscan priests at Mission Santa Barbara she s forced to live a captive life, with only the love of a Chumash man and the friendship of a Mexican woman to sustain her. While the Spanish priests and soldiers fight among themselves for power, land and the souls of the Chumash, Cayatu fights to preserve her old way of life. Against a backdrop of romance and intrigue in Santa Barbara s early mission days, Dream Helper tells of the clash between the Christianizing zeal of the Spaniards and the idyllic, spirit-driven world of the fiercely proud Chumash Indians.