Lora Hates Spam

by Charlotte Banchi

I'm a big fan of time travel and picked this one up on free promotion, then wondered for the first third of the book where the time travel would come in. It does happen eventually, and in a very interesting way.

The story is set in New Mexico. Jeremiah Dakota has a Native American heritage and family who still live on the reservation, but he has gone out into the world and obtained a medical degree. Having become too well educated to believe in magic and the superstitions of his people, he is surprised when an owl spirit chooses him for a purpose that will take Jeremiah well into the world of magic and spirituality that he thought he had left behind.

The writing in this is very good and the characters well defined. I found myself interested in the story for despite the lack of time travel, then pleasantly surprised when that aspect finally came into it. There were times when the Hopi spirituality sounded too Wiccan to be entirely believable, but it made for a good Fantasy and I did get some sense of what it is like to live within a community that maintains its cultural identity apart from the outside world.