Seoul_Rose
There are two Americas.
One is ruled by the Colonial Territories, where wealth commands power, prejudice shapes every law, and freedom depends upon the color of one's skin.
The other belongs to the Sovereign Nations-independent Native nations that have defended their lands, languages, and cultures for generations. Beyond their borders lies a promise whispered among Black communities for decades: cross into the Sovereign Nations, and no one can ever own you again.
Rosalie Turner has spent her life surviving.
A free Black woman employed by one of the Colonial Territories' most influential families, she has learned that freedom on paper means very little when a powerful man believes you belong to him.
When Rosalie collapses within the forests of the Powhatan Nation, she expects to find strangers.
Instead, she finds sanctuary.
She is rescued by Kokoum, the Tsaw KifkeyΓ€ 'Itan-the Guardian of the Nations and the highest military and diplomatic protector of the Sovereign Nations. Kokoum bears the immense responsibility of defending the alliance, upholding the Sanctuary Accord, safeguarding ambassadors, guiding alliances, and preserving the fragile peace between dozens of independent Native nations.
As political tensions rise between the Colonial Territories and the Sovereign Nations, Rosalie's escape becomes far more than a single woman's fight for freedom. Her presence threatens to ignite a diplomatic crisis between two civilizations whose uneasy peace has endured for generations.
Caught between duty and an unexpected love, Kokoum must protect not only the woman who has captured his heart, but the ideals upon which the Sovereign Nations were built.
Set in a richly imagined alternate nineteenth-century America where Indigenous nations remained unconquered and continue to flourish as powerful sovereign civilizations, The Land That Kept Her is a sweeping historical romance about freedom, resilience, identity, and finding home in the most unexpected place.