Once again I’m appealing for help in tracking down a story that I’ve lost in the maze of my hard drive archives. I think I last read the story within the last two years but I also think it had been hanging around on my hard drive for quite a while before I did read it so it could be as much as five years since it was posted... Somewhere! I believe that the story was quite long, maybe in the mid-twenties of chapters, though I can’t be sure if it was posted as individual chapters or as a single post. I can recall a little of the start and a little of the end... but I’m not even sure that these are from the same story so I really need the help in finding it again.

What I can recall is this:-

The story begins with a M to F transgendered young woman, a fashion reporter, returning to her magazine’s offices from a trip abroad, possibly covering the Milan Fashion Shows. She is given an assignment to do an undercover expose of a suspected fraudster, a Top Fashion Designer, who is believed to be ripping off designs by failed Fashion Students worldwide, who do not complete their final year of the Fashion Training, and then presents them as his own. She is teamed up with a young financial wizz-kid from the magazine and, because of the undercover aspect of the investigation, they work together away from the office. Love blossoms.

The woman, I think she may be called Elizabeth, took a fashion course at a London University before switching to being a fashion reporter. Importantly, she dropped out of her training during her last year and still has the designs and samples that she created during her final year. To further their investigations into the story they decide to set up a ‘Sting’ operation, using Elizabeth’s designs, to document and prove that the Fashion Designer is stealing his designs from other people. Due to Elizabeth’s connections with a British Lord and his Lady, Lord Hardcastle, I think, she is able to get her design work authenticated by a very high level British legal personage before going ahead with the sting, a point that will be very important later.

My recollection of the middle of the story is very vague but I think it involves a lot of travel around the USA in a large RV/Winnebago/Camper Van, possibly including a visit to Las Vegas with Elizabeth winning a substantial amount at the gaming tables.

Eventually they reach a place where one or other of them believes they own some land. They hope to build their own house, of an unusual design, into a hillside on the site. Due to some lost information coming to light it looks as though the land may not belong to them as they first thought but, instead, it may belong to the local Native American Tribe.

The tribe recognises Elizabeth not only as a ‘Blessed Spirit’, due to her TG nature, but also as having the gift of Animal Healing. She is adopted by the tribe and given the name ‘She-no-She’ (or something similar). Elizabeth arranges to change her legal name to ‘She-no-She Elizabeth Hardcastle’ which causes some uproar later when she has to appear in a high American law court to answer the allegations sparked by her magazine article.

Needless to say Elizabeth is able to prove, conclusively, that the Fashion Designer has been ripping off other people’s designs and passing them off as his own. There is a certain amount of consternation in the court caused by the very high powered British legal representative who authenticates her design materials when they are presented as evidence. The story ends with Elizabeth and her husband setting up home on the land deeded to them by the Native American Tribe.

Incidentally I believe that the British Lady has an artificial leg and that at least one of the Tribe members is an Ex-Serviceman who has also lost a leg. Also Elizabeth goes on to become a respected artist of watercolour paintings, I think, which she signs 'She-no-She'.

In writing this I seem to have remembered far more than I thought I could but that still hasn’t brought either the Title or the Author to mind nor can I recall on which website I found the story. I hope there is enough information here to let someone recognise the story as I really want to read this again. Can anyone help, please?

John.