First published 2011
Margo Crane clutches her rifle as she pushes her boat into the Stark River. At sixteen, she knows how to shoot and how to read the water, but she has never traveled alone like this. Her father is dead, and she played a part in his violent end. Now she carries only basic supplies and a book about Annie Oakley as she searches the Michigan waterways for her missing mother. The river that once felt like home now threatens her at every bend. Strange men watch from the banks. The current pulls stronger than she remembers. Margo must use everything she learned about survival and about seeing through people's lies. Her journey downstream becomes more than escape. She faces choices that will determine not just whether she lives, but who she becomes. The price of those decisions weighs heavier than anything in her boat.
Genres: fiction, adventure, coming-of-age, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Michigan, Stark River
Period: 20th-century
348 pages · Hardcover · W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Content warnings: violence