Changing Woman’s Hair (Marin Sinclair: Book Two) by Jan D Payne

Changing Woman’s Hair (Marin Sinclair: Book Two) by Jan D Payne

How far would you go to honor the last request of a dying friend?
In the heart of the Navajo Nation, Changing Woman―a central Holy Person in the Dinéh creation story―embodies harmony and balance in the cycle of life. Her enduring spirit sets the stage for ‘Changing Woman’s Hair’, a gripping novel where crime, mythology, and cultural identity collide.
Marin Sinclair is reeling from the death of her beloved friend and mentor, Evangelina Tso, but when Vangie appoints Marin as guardian to her teenage son, Garret, Marin must grapple not only with her own grief but with whether she will accept or refuse the challenge of guardianship. How can she hope to earn the trust of a teen who blames her for both his mother’s death and his father’s desertion?
As Marin struggles with her decision, she is drawn into a murder investigation when Navajo Nation Police Sergeant Justin Blue Eyes responds to a stolen vehicle call and discovers a murdered boy inside, a boy who was a close friend of Garret’s. The growing number of reports of vehicle theft and attacks by fire-wielding skinwalkers―Dinéh wolf-witches―on lonely reservation highways have also drawn the attention of federal agent Cullen MacPherson, currently on liaison assignment to a political entourage in a US Senator’s bid for reelection.
Events converge during a horseback trip amid the towering ruins of Canyon de Chelly, where the canyon walls are streaked with the black varnish called Changing Woman’s hair. Here Marin looks to the ever-mysterious Lewis George for help when their party faces a rising tide of dangers―murder, political violence, and a deadly cascade of bomb attacks.
Marin’s journey tests her courage and her loyalties, navigating not only the external threats but her own ghosts of past regrets, betrayals, lost love, and the on-going question of who and what constitutes family.

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Author Bio:

Drawing from her years in the Southwest and the Navajo Nation, Jan Payne writes on themes of courage, regret, hope, and restoration in a world of created kinships. Through her characters’ lives and shared dangers—Marin Sinclair, end-of-life doula; Sergeant Justin Blue Eyes of the Navajo Nation Police; Cullen MacPherson, agent for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Garret Washburn, teenaged ward of Marin’s, and Lewis George, Raven spirit-guide-cum-trickster—she takes readers on a journey through the complex interactions of cultural backgrounds and personal histories, highlighting the way kinships forged in crisis have the power to reshape our lives.

Jan Payne lived on the Dineh (Navajo) reservation in Sanostee, on the New Mexico side of the Lukachukai mountain range, where she spent summers climbing mesas, taking camping trips on horseback, exploring ghost towns in the mountains of Colorado, or working with her dad breaking and training horses in Sanostee. Her two most memorable summer jobs were at a Durango, Colorado dude ranch working with pack mule trains and a brief stint as a camp cook at a uranium mining site.