Spirits Do Not Rest

By Margaret Lukas

Spirits Do Not Rest: Heartbreak at Wounded Knee. When twenty-two-year-old Lauder Ellison finds herself about to be exposed for plagiarism in a national magazine, she flees her teaching position in Omaha for a small Lakota day school on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The year is 1890, and people are fleeing the area due to rumors of Sioux uprisings and Ghost Dancing, both of which have resulted in a massive buildup of army troops. Newspapers across the country are fomenting prejudice and fear. The country waits for war.

Lauder finds sanctuary and love amongst the Lakota, especially the starving children in her classroom and a man trying desperately to save the children from being torn from their families and shipped across the U.S. to Indian boarding schools. No one imagines the horror rising on the cusp.

Spirits Do Not Rest explores greed, death, and the power of love and forgiveness during one of our nation's darkest chapters. The novel also examines the far-reaching roots of injustice and pays tribute to people, who, having lived through unspeakable grief, gather the courage to rise from the ashes and forge a future for their children and grandchildren.

Margaret Lukas' Spirits Do Not Rest is a re-telling of the Wounded Knee massacre in which over 350 Miniconjou and Hunkpapa were brutally murdered. The novel pays tribute to endurance, self-compassion, and the heart's search for home.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1950251225
• ISBN13: 9781950251223
• Release Date: December 2025
• Publisher: National League of American Pen Women
• Length: 310 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"