by Rilla Askew
First published 1998
Ten-year-old Mattie watches her family fracture as they travel west across the Oklahoma territory. Her father John wants to escape the violent past that drove both families from Kentucky. His brother Fayette has different plans. The scheming entrepreneur sees profit in John's gunsmithing skills and pushes the family deeper into the harsh frontier landscape. Mattie possesses an unsettling gift of foresight that reveals glimpses of what lies ahead, but her visions bring as much torment as guidance. The brothers' bitter rivalry intensifies as they move through dusty settlements and unforgiving wilderness. John struggles to protect his disintegrating family while Fayette pursues his ambitious schemes. The girl's supernatural awareness connects her to both the biblical stories she knows and the Native American spirits that haunt this contested land. Through Mattie's wary perspective, the family's journey becomes a reckoning with violence, ambition, and the weight of history that follows them west.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, supernatural, 19th-century, native-american
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-rivalry, supernatural-abilities
Setting: Kentucky, Oklahoma
Period: 19th-Century
448 pages · Paperback · Penguin Books
Content warnings: violence