SOMEWHERE TO DREAM can be graphically violent, and plainly depicts the times as settlers creep across the landscape and original peoples are pushed out of the area they need to survive. Neither group valued the other but the teenaged girls were well treated and a wise woman saw that they might carry 'gifts' of prescient dreams. Adelaide and Maggie support each other through these times. But when a young man called Wahyaw announces that he is to wed Adelaide they are taken by surprise. Next thing Adelaide has a waking dream of a raid going wrong, and death. Life is never going to be simple.

While the story is filled with good details, such as a seven-sided council house in the centre of the Cherokee village, I did find the early violence a little off-putting and thus it was harder to find my way into the story. The elderly chief Standing Tree is a fine character, upright and willing to share land with newcomers provided they can all hunt along the Keowee in peace. At the same time an interpreter, Jesse, is concerned as he does not believe that the smooth words of the whites will be adhered to and he knows more white people will be on their way. This was a time of conflict and distrust as much as of opportunity, and Genevieve Graham brings this home to us. SOMEWHERE TO DREAM does eventually bring Adelaide love, but only after much hardship, so it is not a typical romance.

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