Another Abandoned Series I Haven't Licked

In Me Trilogy Order

1.  It Sleeps in Me

2.  It Wakes in Me

3.  It Dreams in Me

I’m ashamed I’ve collected, but haven’t completed, the In Me trilogy by Kathleen O’Neal Gear.  If you’re not familiar with Gear, she and her husband, W. Michael Gear, co-authored fiction and non-fiction books surrounding Native American history.  Or, to be specific, the First North Americans.  Which is the title of the couple’s most popular and long-running historical fiction series.  On occasion the two step out and write books alone, and this is where the In Me trilogy came from Kathleen.  It’s a trilogy that has always caught my eye, while shelving them on bookstores.  However, it would be years later when I spent a night fighting a tipsy disposition before I actually finished the first book.  Yet, I'm sad to say, the following two books hibernated on my shelf thereafter.  I simply never made it back.  And I say so despite really enjoying the first book.  I guess it was a situation of never wanting to spoil a debut's magic.

Nevertheless, the series is about a young High Chieftess name Sora.  She’s the head of a Native American tribe called the Black Falcon Nation.  Sora, described as extraordinarily beautiful and desirable, was married to a warrior named Flint.  Flint was a warrior who would kill men with even the slightest glance toward his wife.  So with a possessive and territorial rage uncontrolled, Flint divorces Sora and moves back to his original clan.

Sora, newly married and devoted to leading her clan, learns to put Flint into her past.  Until a nearby nation declares war on her people, and one of Flint’s friends comes to announce Flint's death.  But there’s something interesting about Flint’s friend.  It appears he knows the intimate secrets held by Sora and her ex-husband.  Secrets that re-arouse the sexual passion once shared only between the two.  Yet with the pressures of war upon her clan, Sora has to make sense of this reawaken phenomenon.  Entangled in her sexual appetite, she question does Flint’s soul inhabit his friend.  If so, does Flint's soul seeks to reclaim his wife?  Or is this a saboteur’s attempt to distract and dethrone the Black Falcon Nation’s chieftess?  Which would leave Sora's clan vulnerable to attack.  It's a mystery with increasing momentum as Sora experiences blackouts, before waking near dead warriors.

That’s just the first book in the trilogy.

So many elements went into the book, though.  There was a slice of romance and psychological thriller dressed in a 1400 a.d. Native American setting.  A setting that peels back the inner politics and machinations of its tribesmen.  So the history is definitely presents and pumped into the narrative scope.  However, there’s an extra hook to the series.  And it's a hook that takes readers into the sexual rituals used throughout various Native American traditions.  According to many Native American tribes, our sexual energy has healing powers.  Both for our spiritual and physical bodies.  

Gear's study of these sexual rituals are explored through Sora, and her trilogy.  FYI: all sex scenes are tasteful and mature–as well as hot.  But then again, how often do the subject of Native American sex rituals come up in conversations?  So there's something to learn here.  

Along with its sexual hook, the series is not without suspense, intrigue, and surprises.  All discovered and uncovered along Sora's inner and outer frustrations as a wife, woman, and powerful clan leader.  I only wish I would buckle back down after my 4+ year hiatus and complete Sora’s story with book two and three.

Soon I tell ya.  Real soon.  It'll happen.

Comment if you've read the series are anything by the Gear couple.