After the U.S. is ravaged by ecological disasters, Maya Roberts, a young herbalist, must travel in the hazardous high desert to find healing plants for her community, which has been stricken by some new, fatal illness. There, she encounters a remarkably peculiar Navajo named Howling Sky, who is able to trigger rare phenomena-impossible occurrences. But is Howling Sky a man-or a ghost? Can Maya come to terms with the dangers implicit in a despoiled earth, restore her loved ones to health, and acknowledge her destiny as a shaman's apprentice? Can she discover love? Readers are invited to travel to what's left of the West, to the Islands of California, where a cure for the new disease has been reported. Maya, now Question Woman, mentored by Howling Sky, must resolve her past in the house where she once lived and must deal with obstacles that threaten her return to the people who need her, and where her loyalties lie. Hayden's Navajo research provides an authentic cultural background in regard to the shamanistic details; her startling imagination supplies the rest. A Book Club Discussion Guide is included in the book. Miki leaves us ..".immersed in a world that never existed, with people whose vibrant existence on the page is never in doubt." -NYTimes review of Pacific Empire "This is a truly original work, meticulously written, fully imagined." -Laura Lippman, feature writer on fiction for The Baltimore Sun commenting on Pacific Empire One of the things that makes this award-winning author's book utterly fascinating is her impeccable writing style. Every time you think you have it nabbed, a new surprise leading in another direction pops up on the next page. The world Hayden has created seems entirely plausible and its inhabitants only too human.- Rendezvous Review Magazine review of New Pacific