Honors:
- Finalist in Cross-Genre Fiction in 2012 National Indie Excellence Awards
- Silver Medal Finalist in Novella category in 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Awards
- Finalist in Visionary Fiction in USA Best Books 2011 Awards"I found this 'journey' easy to follow, easy to enter into with Tacu, easy to rejoice, hurt, and cry with him on his path to maturity. The grammar was almost exemplary, the font perfect, the cover luxurious. The illustrations were well-executed and added visual delight to this fine book. This book is nearly flawless and I found few areas, if any, that I could comment on in the area of improvements. It was very inspirational."
- Judge's Commentary, 19th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards, Jan. 2012
"The spiritual tale of a young Native American from the days before the Spanish arrived in California.... There is hardly a word out of place ... what is most commendable is the precision and unpretentiousness of the prose while still managing to invoke the intense quality of Tacu's visionary quest and moving nature of his movement."
-Kirkus Reviews
In this tale set in the world of a nearly extinct Native American tribe which prospered thousands of years before that same locale became the city of Los Angeles, a young Tongva brave, Tacu, struggles to understand and survive the baffling and often dangerous lessons of Takoda, his mysterious mentor from the North.
Until he does so successfully, he won't be allowed to travel to the village at the Place of the Stones to undergo his vision quest and formal initiation into manhood - and only by doing so can he earn back the respect of his peers and court the maiden he loves, for he is now shunned by the village as a despicable coward.
But he is being held to a different and difficult path by Takoda. He must go through harrowing life lessons and experiences to prepare him to face his future courageously and with honor, and bring him to recognize his own spirituality. Tacu never imagines the crucial impact these teachings will have on him, the spiritual gifts with which he will be endowed, or how dramatically his life will change before his journey to manhood is complete. A thoughtful and moving addition to the treasure trove of inspirational stories about America's First People.
About the Author: D.E. Lamont grew up in the burgeoning residential developments of the San Fernando Valley of Southern California in the 1950s and 60s. She and her brothers explored the wild chaparral-covered hills and canyons, where they found signs of former Native American inhabitants. These discoveries excited her interest in earlier times and left her with the haunting impression that many stories about these mysterious, missing people waited to be told. Only many years later did she learn about the original people of Los Angeles, the Tongva, who had been driven to near extinction over the last four and a half centuries by the European and other conquerors. She wished to honor the Tongva and let more people know about them through her story, which is set in the period just before the encroachment of Spain. Today roughly 2,000 descendants of the Tongva live in Southern California. D.E. Lamont has recently published an e-novelette, "LOST WITHOUT LOVE--A Hollywood Tale of the Future," and the short story collection "Two Short Fantasies: One Starry Night's Dream and The Prisoner." She has also co-authored three nonfiction books and is working on the sequel to THE WAY OF THE EAGLE and a full-length novel. She lives with her husband in an apartment overlooking the Hudson River in New York, which at rare, magical times transforms into a mystical rolling river of clouds - for which she named her publishing company, Cloud River Press.
