""A dangerous enemy has arrived on our shores with weapons of fire . . . He's a very different kind of "Wasano," bloodsucker, he always hungers for more."-from "Shell ShakerThe action in this debut novel alternates between 1738, as a Choctaw family prepares for war against the English, and the 1990s, as their Oklahoma descendants, the Billys, fight a Mafia takeover of the tribe's casino. In trouble with the law and in the fight of their lives, the Billy women must find a way, as their ancestors did, to join forces against a devious foe. Humor, toughness, and resourcefulness are the Billys' only weapons.Until the Shell Shaker shows up.LeAnne Howe, an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, is a fiction writer, playwright, scholar and poet whose writings on Choctaw women are drawn from both personal experience and scholarly research. Her short fiction has appeared in several anthologies, including "Through the Eye of the Deer," "Returning the Gift," "Spider Woman's Granddaughters," and "Earth Song, Sky Spirit, " as well as in journals such as "Callaloo" and "Fiction International."Howe has read her fiction and lectured throughout the United States, Japan and the Middle East, and her plays have been produced in Los Angeles and New York City. She has also presented programs on recruitment and retention of American Indians at universities and colleges. Currently, she teaches in the English Department at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 1991, Howe received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to conduct research for "Shell Shaker."