Jeanean was an avid reader from a young age who dreamed of writing a novel “someday.” However, as a mother of three, a busy homemaker, and an RN with a demanding career, she continually postponed this ambition. As a nurse educator, she contributed to local newspapers and created educational materials. An enthusiastic traveler, she wrote journals detailing her adventures but never found the time to write fiction. Now retired, she remains busy traveling, gardening, quilting, researching her ancestry, and socializing with friends. Jeanean joined writing groups, attended conferences, and entered contests to learn about the craft of writing. She received recognition in every contest she participated in, which bolstered her confidence to keep pushing forward. She intended to write a historical novel about a fascinating ancestor from the 1700s. Yet the story of this ancestor's Cherokee wife consumed her thoughts, compelling her to tell that story first—his could wait. Ultimately, she fulfilled her dream. Her first novel, “Mixed Blood,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

About Mixed Blood:
Mixed Blood narrates the imagined tale of an ordinary woman living in extraordinary times—the pivotal 1700s on the American frontier. Hester, a Cherokee woman married to Richard Pearis, a European man, experienced events that irrevocably changed the Cherokee Nation. To survive, her people had to assimilate, ultimately adapting to the European patriarchal market-based social system rather than the matriarchal subsistence culture of her childhood. Her narrative unfolds across two timelines: as an elderly woman living with her son’s family, who have adapted to thrive in a White man’s world, and through the stories she shares with her grandchildren. Like women everywhere, her focus is on family and community. She is determined that her grandchildren know their rich heritage —that the Cherokee Nation survived against unimaginable odds. Most of the characters in this novel are real individuals who lived and breathed, and the significant events are factual. This is Hester’s story, as she may have lived it.