First published 2026
When Eliza returns from residential school, her grandmother Swan barely recognizes the silent, thin girl who once sparkled with curiosity. Swan takes her granddaughter on healing walks through prairie grass, sharing medicines and stories of her own battles against settler violence. Through these walks, Eliza learns how to survive while staying true to herself. Years later, Eliza faces her own crossroads when her daughter Ella returns from university wearing braids and beaded headbands, proudly displaying the Cree identity that Eliza spent her life trying to escape. Over tea, Eliza tells Ella about her fight for freedom from the oppression she faced as a Cree woman. But Ella sees freedom differently than her mother did. When tragedy strikes their family, Ella must choose how to rebuild her life and decide which family stories to preserve in a world that wants to bury them alongside the missing and dead.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, adult-fiction, canadian-literature, family-drama
Vibes: healing, intimate, lyrical, poignant, thought-provoking
Tropes: cultural-reclamation, found-family, intergenerational-conflict, mentorship
Setting: Prairie, Canada
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
368 pages · Paperback · Random House Canada
Content warnings: child-abuse, colonialism, death