RETURN OF THE BONES, Inspired by a True Story by Belinda Vasquez Garcia @MagicProse

RETURN OF THE BONES has won BEST HISTORICAL FICTION for the 2013 NEW MEXICO / ARIZONA BOOK AWARDS!

A dazzling, family epic of love and forgiveness. Return of the Bones is a very special book inspired by a true story – In 1915, 2,067 skeletons were stolen from the ghost pueblo of Pecos and transported to Harvard University for medical research…In present day and across the miles, the wind carries their cries to Grandfather who hears the bones longing for home.

Hollow-Woman and Grandfather are the last of the Pecos people, but Hollow-Woman is not interested in ancient skeletons. She works at an Indian casino and is of the modern ways, while Grandfather is a shaman and values tradition. She hopes the road trip will heal their broken hearts.

Grandfather fashions a magical dream catcher to help her “see” her ancestors’ lives, and come to love the missing bones, as he does. While driving a ratty old pickup-camper, the cantankerous Grandfather and stubborn Hollow-Woman bicker from New Mexico to the Peabody Museum.

A glowing literary work, with religious undertones of the persecution of Native Americans by the Catholic Church’s Spanish Inquisition. Return of the Bones pulses with emotion. The pages are filled with the comical way Grandfather looks at the world while embracing the heartbreak and spirituality of the Native American peoples.

You may know these famous bones on which landmark studies proved that exercise prevents osteoporosis!

Did you know that President George W. Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, dug up Geronimo’s grave and stole his skull to be used as initiation into the Skull and Bones Society at Yale?