Angeline Boulley’s stunning debut novel is one of my favorite books of the year! It’s dripping in authentic Native American tradition, language, medicine, and history. I loved being immersed so deeply into the culture. As a non-Indigenous reader, it truly felt like a gift to learn so much about it. 

Vividly set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Daunis is an eighteen-year-old, unenrolled tribal member of the Native American Ojibwe community. She is incredibly smart, a great hockey player, and dreams of studying medicine, but that doesn’t mean she fits in. Either way, she’s off to college at the University of Michigan soon enough. 

Her plans change after a heartbreaking pair of events—her uncle’s sudden death and her beloved Grandmary’s stroke. When she meets Jamie, the handsome new hockey player on her brother’s team, things start looking up and she hopes that “bad things come in threes” is just a myth. 

Another tragedy does find Daunis, which leads to her going undercover as a confidential informant with the FBI. Her goal? Find out who’s selling a new type of meth in her community. As the meth epidemic spreads, she has to navigate her own personal struggles with family, love, and hardship while pushing forward to solve the case. 

Firekeeper’s Daughter was incredible and I was completely captivated. The audiobook is so well done; I loved hearing the language and voices for each character. By the end of the book, I was sad to be done. This is a must read!

Angeline Boulley’s story is also noteworthy: a storyteller who is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. The idea for this book came to her when she was a senior in high school, but she didn’t start writing it until she was 44, and published it at 54. Boulley explores the realities that Indigenous people face, most of which rarely get any mention in mainstream media. This book is a masterpiece in more ways than one.