She has published romance novels under the pseudonyms Jeanne Stephens, Leah Crane, Marlaine Kyle, Amanda McAllister, and Sara North, as well as in her own name.
[2] Two of her three mystery series involve modern Cherokee life in Oklahoma and feature either police chief Mitch Bushyhead or civil rights investigator Molly Bearpaw.
The third series is set in Iris House, a bed and breakfast establishment in Missouri[1] that features amateur sleuth Tess Darcy.
"[4] The Publishers Weekly review for The Redbird's Cry, a Molly Bearpaw mystery, said, "Although the politics are sometimes cursorily handled, Hager explores the Cherokee culture with trenchant compassion rather than overcareful reverence and deftly inserts hairpin turns into the narrative.
[7] Kirkus wrote for the 1995 book Seven Black Stones that "While the chilly disharmonies of failing marriages get sensitive treatment here," the murder plot seems "undermotivated.