Changing Woman: A Novel of the Camp Grant Massacre

2023 Laramie Book Award Finalist for Americana Fiction
2023 Goethe Book Award Longlist for Late Historical Fiction
2023 Best Book Awards Finalist in Western Fiction sponsored by American Book Fest
National Indie Excellence Award Finalist in Western Fiction
Western Fictioneers Peacemaker Award Finalist for Best First Western Novel of 2023
Western Fictioneers Peacemaker Award Finalist for Best Western Novel of 2023

Arizona Territory, 1871. Valeria Obreg?n and her ambitious husband, Ra?l, arrive in the raw frontier town of Tucson hoping to find prosperity. Changing Woman, an Apache spirit who represents the natural order of the world and its cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, welcomes Nest Feather, a twelve-year-old Apache girl, into womanhood in Aravaipa Canyon.

Mexican and Anglo settlers have pushed the Apaches from their lands, and the Apaches carry out raids against them. In turn, the settlers, angered by the failure of the U.S. government and the military to protect them, respond with a murderous raid on an Apache encampment under the protection of the U.S. military at Camp Grant, kidnapping Nest Feather and other Apache children.

In Tucson, while Valeria finds fulfillment in her work as a seamstress, Ra?l struggles to hide from her his role in the bloody attack, and Nest Feather, adopted by a Mexican couple there, tries to hold on to her Apache heritage in a culture that rejects her very being. Against the backdrop of the massacre trial, Valeria and Nest Feather's lives intersect in the church, as Valeria seeks spiritual guidance for the decision she must make and Nest Feather prepares for a Christian baptism.


About the Author
Venetia Hobson Lewis worked at several stock brokerages and for almost eighteen years as a corporate paralegal for a motion picture studio. She is the author of several award-winning Western short stories.