The sequel to Firekeeper’s Daughter, this novel follows Daunis’s younger cousin, Perry, who, at 16, just wants a lazy summer, but ends up in an intern position helping various tribal members to try to recover long-ago stolen artifacts that are now in the possession of the local university. There’s also a murder mystery and a heist – this one has a bit of everything, along with more history of the Ojibwe people and how they’ve been mistreated in so many ways by colonizers. Just like the first book, this one is masterfully written, the story and the histories wonderfully told. Highly recommended. (read less)

The sequel to Firekeeper’s Daughter, this novel follows Daunis’s younger cousin, Perry, who, at 16, just wants a lazy summer, but ends up in an intern position helping various tribal members to try to recover long-ago stolen artifacts that are now in the possession of the local university. There’s also a murder mystery and a heist – this one has a bit of everything, along with more history (read more)

I checked this out from my local library. It is a September book club read for me. As a club, we read Firekeeper's Daughter earlier this year, and we were blown away by the intensity of the narrative and the knowledge it imparted. I was thrilled when a librarian pointed out that there were enough of the sequel in the system for the club to read it when meetings resumed in the fall. I wish I could give this 4 1/2 stars, but Goodreads doesn't allow for halves. I found this to be a slower start than the first book, largely because Perry's impetuous attitude didn't engage me as much as Daunis's did. Once it got going, though, wow. This book picks up about a decade after the first one and follows Perry, who along with her twin Pauline, was just 6 in the previous work. She is now a teenager with a full attitude, ready to spend her summer slacking off by fishing--until has an accident while speeding and dings the Jeep she shares with Pauline. She is forced to pay off the repairs by joining a tribal internship program. Perry soon discovers the full disgrace of the United States government's program to repatriate stolen and looted dead Native Americans and their property, and gets deeper into that dilemma even as other women she knows go missing. The twin plots--the tragedies of the past twined with the present grief--make for a gripping narrative that I wish was just confined to horror fiction. That's why this isn't a book that I can say I enjoyed, because that feels like it trivializes the atrocities that this work addresses with passion and eloquence. Rather, I'm left more educated, and embarrassed for my country, and angry at continued injustices. The end of this book, as with the first in the series, is brilliant and breathless. Boulley is an extraordinary writer. (read less)

I checked this out from my local library. It is a September book club read for me. As a club, we read Firekeeper's Daughter earlier this year, and we were blown away by the intensity of the narrative and the knowledge it imparted. I was thrilled when a librarian pointed out that there were enough of the sequel in the system for the club to read it when meetings resumed in the fall. I wish (read more)