And the Raven Smiled is many stories in one. In a World War II setting, it is a page-turning adventure. Like on stormy seas, the tale rolls nonstop from one crisis to another. It is also a study in the clash of cultures, white and Tlingit Indian. But it is yet more: The characters are all very real and Alaskan unique. You will grow to love them and not want to quit reading and leave them. Jim McGraham, as Natalya describes him: "You are like a kid on a rocky shore, jumping from boulder to boulder, and then you miss, fall into the surf, and discover you can't swim. You have no back-up defenses." Jim knows that Natalya Solomon has some terrible secret in her past. Did she murder someone? "The only person I was trying to kill was me," she tells Jim. We finally share in her shame, and love her even more. The Raven, as she grows from beached derelict into a working boat, reveals her own identity and quirks. The year is nineteen-forty. Alaska is poised at the edge of World War II. After many sleepy years of America's benevolent neglect, the "Great Land" has been discovered and is awakening. Naval Air base construction at Sitka floods the little town with strangers. Construction workers and sailors fill the local bars with drunken chaos. Familiar old traditions of prejudice toward the Tlingit Natives are being questioned and falling to new friendships. In rebuilding the Raven, Natalya and James are under the spell of its healing power.They are thrown together by fate--or is Raven, the tricky God of Tlingit legend, responsible? Their struggle is set against a backdrop of the unforgiving sea. Its power pulses the story with a constant beat."