"A Home for Easter"

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Easter, whose Cherokee mother gave her the religious name to honor the faith, did not feel cut out for a traditional marriage. She put her husband’s things outside their cabin when they were done. But her heart wasn’t done. All of this happens just as the U.S. government forced Cherokee to move from their ancestral lands to a reservation in present day Oklahoma. But some unhinged man wants to marry her, and her steadfast companion, Arter, hopes she’ll commit to him. To complicate matters, her eight-year-old half-sister, Awinta, who is her father’s daughter by a black woman, needs someone to look after her. Now, Easter must escape plans for relocation while managing her sister and begrudgingly accepting help from Arter. A Home for Easter is the story of a Cherokee family that is torn and forced into different directions to survive the 1830s removal period for First Nations people. The major character, Easter, journeys to middle Tennessee to find a new home for herself and her unborn child. However, along the way, she is hunted by a criminal who wants her ancestral lands. She and her companions, Awinta and Arter, brave a snowstorm and the criminal who kidnaps her. Easter's brother, Degataga, remains on the family lands but must sacrifice to do so. Her sister, Lucinda, settles with Walking Bird in the Qualla territory of North Carolina. Awinta represents many First Nations African Americans who were either enslaved by the Cherokee or lived with them and other clans. The story offers an explanation for how groups of people, such as African Americans and the Indigenous, survived and merged during stressful, genocide-like political, social and economic events.