Blue Turquoise, White Shell

by Virginia Nosky

Patrician Boston doctor Cabot W.W. Chase has made a bargain with his granddaughter Lily. He will pay all her expenses through Harvard Medical School if at the end of her studies she will spend a year on the Navajo Reservation Indian Hospital, where he had been a doctor following WWII. She is reluctant, suspecting her grandfather has emotional ties to the Navajo, but agrees. Slowly she acclimates herself, coming to admire the people and her surroundings. Lily, now known as Cabot, meets a young Navajo lawyer,Nicholas Nakai, who is running for the seat in the newly mandated United States Congressional district. She is drawn to him, yet finds it difficult to picture herself with an Indian man. As their relationship deepens, Nicholas tribal elders become alarmed at his liaison with the white doctor; they prefer to have him take a Navajo wife to Washington. They go to Cabot and tell her she must leave the reservation. Broken hearted, she returns to Massachusetts. Woven into the main story is the tale of Daago, a Navajo headman s daughter, and how she is won in a poker game by Captain Nathaniel Cabot, medical officer of the Army of the West in 1862, and how she kills him to escape, only to later bear his child, Kaab t. Unknown to Cabot and Nicholas, they discover Kaab t is their common ancestor.

381 pages, Paperback

First published July 12, 2007

About the author

Virginia Nosky is a prize winning author, screenwriter, and published poet. She has worked in advertising and broadcasting and was a long-time docent at the Phoenix Art Museum. Nosky is involved with community organizations, currently on the Women's Board of the Arizona Kidney Foundation and a member of its Board of Trustees. She and her husband Richard are active with Ballet Arizona. She attended Ohio State University and graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in French.

The author sets her stories for the most part in Arizona and the southwest. She believes its climate and topography are inherently theatrical and add to the drama. She has lived in Paradise Valley for over twenty five years with her husband, two boys and a succession of horses, Siamese cats, Golden retrievers and Springer spaniels. The current housedogs are Golden Retriever Rescue dog, Barkis and Fox Red Labrador Retriever Rescue, Peaches.

Virginia Nosky's first novel, a love story set in Arizona, involves world-wide trafficking of Native American art objects. KACHINA won the Arizona Book Publishers Association's 2005 Glyph Award for Romantic Fiction.

Virginia's second novel, CHANCE ENCOUNTERS, is a love story set against a hotly contested campaign for governor of Arizona. This book won a 2005 Arizona Authors Association Award for Fiction.

Nosky's third novel, PIMA ROAD was published in October, 2006. It is a multicultural love story between a waspy Yale lawyer and a Pima/Navajo sculptor and won a second for the 2006 Glyph Award from the Arizona Book Publishers Association.

BLUE TURQUOISE, WHITE SHELL explores more deeply a multi-cultural, multi-generational story. It is part history, part contemporary. Cabot Chase, to fulfill a promise to her grandfather, goes to the Navajo Indian Hospital in Arizona after her graduation from medical school. She meets Nicholas Nakai, a young Navajo lawyer running for the US House of Representatives in a newly drawn congressional district. As their friendship deepens, they experience the qualms of an inter-racial relationship, as well as the disapproval of his tribal elders. Woven through the main story is the historical background concerning a distant uncle of Cabot's and an Indian woman he became involved with in 1952. Their son Kaab't is the common ancestor of Cabot and Nicholas.

BLUE TURQUOISE, WHITE SHELL won the 2008 Independent Publishers Gold Medal for Multicultural Fiction, at the Los Angeles Book Expo. It has won three 2008 Glyph Awards from the Arizona Book Publishing Association

TO A CERTAIN DEGREE, due out in late 2008 concerns a gorgeous and mega-brainy model and the skeptical, sarcastic professor and renowned television science personality who is the faculty advisor for her PhD dissertation in Theoretical Physics.

Nosky's poem Southwest Summer, published in the International Who's Who in Poetry, won an award from the Arizona authors Association. Other published poems include Heavenly Music, The Colors of Life, Kisses and Love in Bloom.

Memberships include the International Women's Writing Guild, Romance Writers of America, National Association of Women Writers, Scottsdale Writers Group, Arizona Book Publishers and Southwest Writers Association.

TO CONTACT VIRGINIA: www.virginianosky.com
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Reviews

[Deborah Ledford · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an excellent read. Virginia Nosky weaves an intriguing tale featuring Native American elements in past and present prose that are sure to entertain and inform.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

very well done.

[Amber Polo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Arizona fiction.

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning mix of history and contemporary Native American life, plus three enchanting love stories. Hope there is more to come.

[Nmdb22 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting story that weaves modern day Navajo reservation life with early frontier days - not sure why it is so hard to find Virginia Nosky's books, or why they are not in local AZ libraries