Jennifer Kitchell

Girl with Skirt of Stars Jennifer Kitchell

Lilli Chischilly?s world is one in which she is continually seeking the spiritual balance at the heart of her culture; she stands with one foot firmly planted in the world of the Dine?é, her Navajo People, and the other in the white world of the Bilagáana, where her legal skills and deep understanding of both cultures have put her in the political spotlight. But to Lilli everything seems to be about agendas and everyone appears to want something from her. Her boss at the Navajo Nation?s Historic Preservation Department sends her down the river, literally, with the front running candidate for the presidency of the United States, a man with a less than surprising agenda of his own. And what sort of agenda does Jerome Bah have? Lilli?s childhood best friend has recently returned to the reservation and is trying to tell her something through his haunting aerial photographs. Even the most ancient and revered Navajo healer wants something from Lilli, but just what that something might be is not yet clear. Darker forces are at work here as well. A murdered Navajo grandfather, symbolically marked, is found in the strange landscape of the hoodoos, and someone is determined that a Mormon man named Lee will never be the American president. It is up to Lilli to find her way to the center of this labyrinth as the mighty Colorado carries a raft full of people toward the unknown and the unexpected. This stunning debut novel will carry the reader on an intriguing journey through Navajo mysticism, political manipulation and a twisted mind obsessed with an historical event that could reach out from the past to change the future.