Dream Helper: A Novel of Early California

Winner of a gold medal from the Independent Publishers Book Awards as the Best Fiction in the Western Pacific Region in 2009, and a finalist in the Eric Hoffer National Book Awards, Dream Helper tells the story of an Indian woman's struggles to preserve her way of life and family at the Franciscan mission of Santa Barbara. California. Set against a background of California in the early years of the 19th Century, A young Chumash Indian woman, Cayatu, flees to the Santa Barbara Mission to escape the threats of the village shaman only to find she is a prisoner, unable to leave the mission after she is baptized a Christian. When she is told by a mission priest she will be locked up each evening in a new women's quarters she tries to flee only to be found by one of the Spanish soldiers at the fort who tries to return her to the mission. What happens after that begins a bittersweet tale of Cayatu's sturggle to preserve her family and way of life. In fictional form, Dream Helper tells the true story of the Franciscan mission system in early California, a system vastly different than the free life the Chumash people had led before the coming of the Spaniards. The two cultures clashed and Cayatu finds herself caught in the middle. The Midwest Book Review called Dream Helper, -A captivating novel from first page to last. ... -Dream Helper: A Novel of Early California- is a captivating novel from first page to last and a must for historical fiction enthusiasts with an interest in the old west.

About the Author :
ABOUT THE AUTHOR WILLARD THOMPSON Dream Helper is the first in Willard Thompson's Chronicles of California series of historical novels. Thompson is an award-winning writer, lecturer and historian living in Montecito, California. Delfina's Gold, the second in the series was published in 2011 and the third novel, Diego's War will be published in 2013 Thompson was awarded The Sara Miller McCune Award by the John E. Profant Foundation for the Arts to write Dream Helper, which also won an award as a work in progress at the Santa Barbara Writers' Conference. In 2008 He won a Santa Barbara Writers Conference Community of Voices Scholarship. His short story, Valentine's Day, was awarded a prize at the East of Eden Writer's Conference. In addition to historical literary fiction, Willard Thompson also writes non-fiction. Recently published articles are: Walter Vail - Empire Builder, Published in Persimmon Hill Magazine; The Last Cattle Drive, published in Range Magazine; Dividing the Waters, a brief history of Western water woes and the role John Wesley Powell played in the development of the West, also in Range Magazine. Running the Big Ditch, an account of a go-fer's life on a commercial raft running the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, published in Westways Magazine and Forbidden Fruit, an account of three days on the El Paso border working with the Border Patrol to intercept smugglers. Thompson's manuscript, Montecito Adobes and the Settlers who built Them was published by the Santa Barbara Historical Museum in 2008. Thompson also lectures, regularly on historic subjects about his adopted state, California. He is vice president and a docent at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, a docent at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum, and Arroyo Hondo Land Preserve in Santa Barbara County. He is a graduate of Colgate University in Hamilton, NY.

Review :
."Dream Helper: A Novel of Early California" tells of a young Native woman who in desperation submits to captivity under Franciscan priests in Santa Barbara California, long before the region was even a state of the Union. Cayatu must overcome it all to reunite herself with her love, and to preserve her old way of life in spite of the Spaniards who care not about her people. "Dream Helper: A Novel of Early California" is a captivating novel from first page to last and a must for historical fiction enthusiasts with an interest in the old west. -- Midwest Book Review "Midwest Book Review" The mixture of historical setting and fictional narative makes Dream Helper the vivid story that it is. Thompson's goal was "never [to let] the history get in the way of a good story," and he has accomplished that with style. -- Elena Gray-Blanc "Santa Barbara Independent" Dream Helper explores the interplay between these three groups (the Spanish Settlers, soldiers and Chumash Indians) as all come to grips with the changing face of coastal Santa Barbara. Each has its own unique vision of what that future should be. The hardships faced by the Chumash take center stage here. Readers familiar with the Scott O'Dell classics, Island of the Blue Dolphins and Zia, will already be aware that legal justice was not on the side of the Chumash. Thompson exposes this truth with more hard-edged details than O'Dell did. This honesty is to be valued highly. -- Carol Chybowski, Noozhawk Contributor "Noozhawk"