First published 2019
Turtle Alveston can handle any weapon hanging on her wall. At fourteen, she traps rabbits, hones knives, and sets broken bones. Her father tells her he loves her above all else and will never let her go. Their isolated life in the woods feels normal to Turtle until she starts attending school. She struggles to understand why she feels so different from her classmates. The boundary between her father's love and the pain it brings grows harder to distinguish. When Turtle considers making her first real friend, the simple act terrifies her more than any survival skill she has mastered. She begins to question everything her father taught her about trust and danger. The people who should protect you can inflict the deepest wounds. What you have been trained to fear might be your only path to freedom.
Genres: fiction, abuse, coming-of-age, contemporary, adolescence, family-drama
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Woods
448 pages · Paperback · Planeta Publishing
Content warnings: abuse, child-abuse, emotional-abuse, physical-abuse