This is a heartfelt, humorous, and sometimes eerie debut set in a unique world where characters travel through fairy circles, drive through corn fields inhabited by animated scarecrows, and raise ghost dogs and woolly mammoths from the dead. I've never read a book quite like this. It happily blends the genres of speculative fiction, creatures traditionally drawn from horror such as vampires and animated scarecrows coexist with characters descended from Oberon the fairy king, and the coyote people of indigenous folklore.

Elatsoe, the title character, is Lipan Apache, and her culture is richly interwoven into the fabric of the story. She inherited the secret of raising the dead from her mother, just as it has been passed along the women of her family for generations stretching back to her Six Great Grandmother and beyond. This book is a celebration of family and community. It refreshingly depicts a family united in trust and purpose - when Elatsoe tells her parents about her vision regarding her cousin's death, they immediately believe her, and they tackle the mystery together.

 This book is raw. It is honest. It grapples with the realities of oppression, microaggression, privilege, and grief. I can't wait to read the next novel Darcie Little Badger writes.