Cara J Swanson

When Demons Dance Cara J Swanson

Olivia St. George is a woman with no history. Raised in a Catholic orphanage on the outskirts of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, her first memory is being told at age seven that she was found abandoned in a dumpster. She grew up being called 'redskin' and 'apple' by the white kids at school and spent her childhood clinging to what little she knew of the Lakota heritage that she hoped, but couldn't know for sure, was her own. As a young woman, after fleeing her abusive husband, she changed her name and settled in Grand Forks, North Dakota, eventually becoming a police officer. She spent the next thirteen years trying to forget both her lonely childhood and the tragedy of her marriage, until it is all brought back to her by the discovery of a dead woman in a ditch. Even as Olivia tries to identify the woman and solve her murder, aspects of both the unknown girl's life and death draw Olivia back down into her own sordid past. As Olivia is pulled into the dark world of demonic possession, she comes to realize that the only salvation for both her own soul and sanity, as well as the spirit of the dead woman, is for a murderer to be brought to justice. Along the way she will discover the truth about her missing family and will have to decide how much it's worth to her to fight for her own identity as a red woman in a white man's world.