Having made her mark in the contemporary romance genre, Dailey (Tangled Vines) returns to historical fiction with a bleak tale of the Cherokee Nation in which the history packs more punch than the narrative. In the early 1830s, the State of Georgia claims Cherokee land and begins to redistribute it to white settlers. The Cherokees gain support in Congress, and the Supreme Court rules in their favor, but President Jackson refuses to enforce the court's decision. Amid this turbulence, two proud lovers find romance: Temple Gordon, an educated Cherokee princess, and her future husband, The Blade Stuart, an iconoclastic Cherokee who owns a plantation. When the atrocities against his people escalate, The Blade moves to save them. Along with a few other chiefs, he signs a treaty that calls for Indian protection-and their removal west. Temple is torn between loyalty to her people and her love for The Blade. She and her family are herded into detention camps before they are forced on the infamous Trail of Tears. While not flinching from the graphic horrors of her topic, Dailey scants her characters; the romance between Temple and The Blade, lukewarm at best, may disappoint the author's huge following. Literary Guild selection. (Sept.)

Temple Gordon and The Blade Stuart are a Cherokee couple at odds over the future of the Cherokee Nation in the early 1830s. In the face of all evidence, Temple persists in believing the Cherokee will not be forced from their land. The Blade can see the writing on the wall, however, and tries to persuade his dim wife and her family to head west voluntarily. Dailey has obviously done some research for this historical tale, and it shows. Minilectures about the Cherokee and the U.S. government's shameful actions are simply inserted at various points in the narrative, doing nothing to add interest to a plot that is completely predictable. Dailey clearly means well, but she fails to create a single character the reader will care about (Temple, in fact, is singularly unappealing). Nonetheless, given Dailey's many readers, this is probably an essential purchase for most popular fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/94.]-Elizabeth Mellett, Brookline P.L., Mass.