A reader asked about my research for WHISPERS THROUGH TIME, the first novel in my series by the same name released in 2021. I had to think about that because, in my memory, the research was all accidental.

It all began when we saw DANCES WITH WOLVES, Kevin Costner's amazing movie about the Lakota Sioux Indians - but it wasn't the Indians' story that tugged at my heartstrings. And even though we owned a wolfdog, it wasn't Two Socks that pulled me in. It was the buffalo thundering across the plains in South Dakota. 

I had to see that magnificent landscape for myself.

A year later, we went to South Dakota and my research for a book I hadn't even thought about began. We rode horses in the Badlands, watched buffalo up close and personal in Custer State Park, and toured the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. We met aging American Indian Movement (AIM) members, spiritual leaders, dedicated elders, and amazing artists. Finally, we spent a full day at the Wounded Knee massacre location.

That's where WHISPERS THROUGH TIME came together for me. I'm no visionary like my main character, Sierra Masters, is, but as I stood beside the Wounded Knee Creek, the air was suddenly so filled with the acrid smell of smoke and gunpowder that I couldn't breathe. I couldn't even hear myself think over the shrieks of pain and terror that crashed through my head.

I knew this was the location - called a thin place by mystics - in which I had to set WHISPERS THROUGH TIME.

It took me several more years to make sense out of all I had learned, much less create the characters who move through the story, but it was the most gratifying research I've ever done.

I can't wait to do it again!