Claiming The White Bear

A Romeo-Juliet type family feud, polar bear style, tore them apart; can they find true love again? It’s nearly Christmas, no tours on the schedule for Edward MacMathan and his brother and so they’re working in their uncle and aunt’s tavern when the love of Edward's life returns with two young boys in tow, and they look a lot like him when he and Rob were that age. Robyn Conibear is in trouble and she's fled her deceased mate's sleuth to keep his parents from taking custody of her and Edward's sons. Can she and Edward renew the love they had for each other despite the six years that have passed? Or will her return only cause more grief between her family and his as the hostilities renew? But Edward is the boys' true father and she wants to be with him no matter what. Likewise, Edward is determined to protect her and the boys, both from her former mate's sleuth and her own, and take up where the two of them had left off.

I made a massive mistake in the heat of the moment with bear shifter Bjorn. Not only is he my coworker, but I can’t stand the big, gorgeous beast. I haven’t been able to stop thinking of him since that night—okay, since we discovered an ancient mating relic on the last episode of The Mating Game. After confiding my predicament to host and fairy dragmother Bibi le Bonnet, she convinces me to become a contestant on the show. Problem is, my last job in the public eye crashed and burned—thanks to Bjorn. I expect the paparazzi to have a field day, but they’re not the ones I need to worry about. My mother sees my latest shot at fame as the perfect vehicle to revive the reality show that canceled us both. I’ll get three questions. Can I play by the rules this time? Will I ever be able to look at Bjorn with experiencing white-hot rage? Or thinking about what his gorgeous body looks like naked? Three potential suitors. When Bibi puts Bjorn on stage with me, I swear I won’t pick him. But I think the bear might actually want me. And worse, I might want him just as much. And three dates to find my forever. Bjorn’s a completely different bear when he’s not behind the camera. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure these feelings are for real, even if it puts me at odds with every shifter in Sunset Springs. And Mom will use every cheap reality show trick in the book to keep me away from him. But when the bear delivers a plot twist that none of us saw coming, our lives will never be the same.

Warrior culture has long been an important facet of Plains Indian life. For Kiowa Indians, military societies have special significance. They serve not only to honor veterans and celebrate and publicize martial achievements but also to foster strong role models for younger tribal members. To this day, these societies serve to maintain traditional Kiowa values, culture, and ethnic identity. Previous scholarship has offered only glimpses of Kiowa military societies. William C. Meadows now provides a detailed account of the ritual structures, ceremonial composition, and historical development of each society: Rabbits, Mountain Sheep, Horses Headdresses, Black Legs, Skunkberry /Unafraid of Death, Scout Dogs, Kiowa Bone Strikers, and Omaha, as well as past and present women’s groups. Two dozen illustrations depict personages and ceremonies, and an appendix provides membership rosters from the late 1800s. The most comprehensive description ever published on Kiowa military societies, this work is unmatched by previous studies in its level of detail and depth of scholarship. It demonstrates the evolution of these groups within the larger context of American Indian history and anthropology, while documenting and preserving tribal traditions.

Literature not only represents Canada as “our home and native land” but has been used as evidence of the civilization needed to claim and rule that land. Indigenous people have long been represented as roaming “savages” without land title and without literature. Literary Land Claims: From Pontiac’s War to Attawapiskat analyzes works produced between 1832 and the late 1970s by writers who resisted these dominant notions. Margery Fee examines John Richardson’s novels about Pontiac’s War and the War of 1812 that document the breaking of British promises to Indigenous nations. She provides a close reading of Louis Riel’s addresses to the court at the end of his trial in 1885, showing that his vision for sharing the land derives from the Indigenous value of respect. Fee argues that both Grey Owl and E. Pauline Johnson’s visions are obscured by challenges to their authenticity. Finally, she shows how storyteller Harry Robinson uses a contemporary Okanagan framework to explain how white refusal to share the land meant that Coyote himself had to make a deal with the King of England. Fee concludes that despite support in social media for Theresa Spence’s hunger strike, Idle No More, and the Indian Residential School Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the story about “savage Indians” and “civilized Canadians” and the latter group’s superior claim to “develop” the lands and resources of Canada still circulates widely. If the land is to be respected and shared as it should be, literary studies needs a new critical narrative, one that engages with the ideas of Indigenous writers and intellectuals.