Moonbaby

Half Irish, half Native American, 18 year old Maren Malone has kept an embarrassing secret--she was born with four breasts. No one knows but her father and mother--and they've been strangely quiet about it all her life. It's not until she visits her grandfather Blackhawk on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota, that she realizes she is far from being deformed. Blackhawk presents her with a wolf pup--Moonbaby, who is not just a regular wolf. She and Moonbaby are the last that carry the "changeling" gene. Her four breasts are actually "markers" for that genetic mutation that is carried in her Ojibwe blood. Is she really the changeling queen her grandfather insists she is? Can she ever go back to pretending she's just a regular girl?

Maren Malone, a half Irish, half Native American 18 year old girl, has kept her ugly secret--her four breasts--under wraps, so to speak. Everything changes when her father dies and her mother convinces her to go up to the White Earth Reservation to learn about her roots. Maren reluctantly goes and gets to know her grandfather, Blackhawk Malone. He presents her with a special wolf pup from the "smart ones" stock whom she names Moonbaby. Maren comes to love the culture that she had always dismissed as weird, and discovers that she is special--not just a freak as she had always believed. Her family and only one other on the rez are the only ones left that carry the "changeling" gene, an ancient mutation of the Ojibwe tribe. Maren learns to make the "hard but right" decisions, discovering her true bloodlines, and all she must sacrifice--or not? Afraid and doubtful of her responsibility, it is her wolf, Moonbaby, that shows her who she really is. When she discovers love, she knows what she must do, no matter what the cost. Will Moonbaby show her what it is like to be real and true to oneself, one's family, one's tribe? Or will she take the easy way of the human--dishonesties, manipulations, . . . self above all?

Kate Mallinger was born in Minneapolis, MN. She is an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and White Earth Reservation, which is also the setting of her book. Kate moved to WI where she raised a wolf pup of her own. She describes it as one of the biggest revelations in her life--the emotional relationship she had with her wolf. Kate had "Starr" for ten years and it was a sad day when she laid him to rest.

Kate has a doctorate in management, was in law enforcement for 26 years, and describes herself as an adrenaline junkie. She taught at several conferences for military personnel and also in Iraq. Today she jumps her horses or works on a crazy, wild idea for a new book. She also paints and the walls of her home are covered with paintings of wolves and horses in different mediums. The cover of Moonbaby is one of her paintings...

Kate currently lives in Roanoke, VA where she writes, paints, and rides her two horses. She is working on the second book of The Legend of the Changeling series: Starr: The Legend of the Changelings.