Featuring stories by:

Norris Black - Amber Blaeser-Wardzala - Phoenix Boudreau - Cherie Dimaline - Carson Faust - Kelli Jo Ford - Kate Hart - Shane Hawk - Brandon Hobson - Darcie Little Badger - Conley Lyons - Nick Medina - Tiffany Morris - Tommy Orange - Mona Susan Power - Marcie R. Rendon - Waubgeshig Rice - Rebecca Roanhorse - Andrea L. Rogers - Morgan Talty - D.H. Trujillo - Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. - Richard Van Camp - David Heska Wanbli Weiden - Royce K. Young Wolf - Mathilda Zeller

Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai'po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear--and even follow you home.

These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce readers to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples' survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.

A stunning debut about love, race, brutality, and the balm of forgiveness. --People, A Best New Book

July 1962. Following in the tradition of Indigenous workers from Nova Scotia, a Mi'kmaq family arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family's youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister's disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren't telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

An unforgettable exploration of grief, love, and kin, (The Boston Globe), this show stopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.

From bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a masterpiece (Locus Magazine) of a novel about revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition. This is a remarkable horror story that will give you nightmares--the good kind of course (BuzzFeed).

From New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American Indian experience. Fans of Sylvia Moreno Garcia and Tommy Orange will love this story as it follows the lives of four American Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way.

In this thrilling, literate, scary, [and] immersive (Stephen King) tale, Jones blends his signature storytelling style with a haunting narrative that masterfully intertwines revenge, cultural identity, and tradition.

To find a missing young woman, the new tribal marshal must also find herself.

At rock bottom following her daughter's death, ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr has nowhere to go but back to her roots. Starr's father never talked much about the reservation where he was raised, but the tribe needs a new marshal as much as Starr needs a place to call home.

In the past decade, too many young women have disappeared from the rez. Some have ended up dead, others just...gone. Now local college student Chenoa Cloud is missing, and Starr falls into an investigation that leaves her drowning in memories of her daughter--the girl she failed to save.

Starr feels lost in this place she thought would welcome her. And when she catches a glimpse of a figure from her father's stories, with the body of a woman and the antlers of a deer, Starr can't shake the feeling that the fearsome spirit is watching her, following her.

What she doesn't know is whether Deer Woman is here to guide her or to seek vengeance for the lost daughters that Starr can never bring home.

A stunning debut about love, race, brutality, and the balm of forgiveness. --People, A Best New Book

July 1962. A Mi'kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family's youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister's disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren't telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.

A harrowing tale of Indigenous family separation . . . [Peters] excels in writing characters for whom we can't help rooting . . . With The Berry Pickers, Peters takes on the monumental task of giving witness to people who suffered through racist attempts of erasure like her Mi'kmaw ancestors. --The New York Times Book Review

There, There meets The Night Watchman in this gripping literary debut about power and corruption, family, and facing the ghosts of the past.

Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside his childhood friend, Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe's Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack's reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack's estranged sister and Mitch's former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go--and what they will sacrifice--to win it all.

But when an accident claims the life of Mitch's mentor, a power broker in the reservation's political scene, the election slides into chaos and pits Mitch against the only family he has. As relationships strain to their breaking points and a peaceful protest threatens to become an all-consuming riot, Mitch and Layla must work together to stop the reservation's descent into violence.

Thrilling and timely, Big Chief is an unforgettable story about the search for belonging--to an ancestral and spiritual home, to a family, and to a sovereign people at a moment of great historical importance.

A Kirkus Editor's Pick - A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: Cowboys & Indians Brit + Co Debutiful Most Anticipated Book of 2025

With amazing dexterity, Aaron John Curtis's moving debut novel, Old School Indian, combines raucous humor with respect for ancestral traditions. --Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois

A novel of pure heart and mastery. ―Morgan Talty, bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez and Fire Exit

An inspired novel by an author whose voice absolutely sizzles on the page. ―Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of Wellness and The Nix

A coming-of-middle-age novel about an Ahkwesáhsne man's reluctant return home and what it takes to heal.

Abe Jacobs is Kanien'kehá ka from Ahkwesáhsne--or, as white people say, a Mohawk Indian from the Saint Regis Tribe. At eighteen, Abe left the reservation where he was raised and never looked back.

Now forty-three, Abe is suffering from a rare disease--one his doctors in Miami believe will kill him. Running from his diagnosis and a failing marriage, Abe returns to the Rez, where he's persuaded to undergo a healing at the hands of his Great Uncle Budge. But Budge--a wry, recovered alcoholic prone to wearing punk T-shirts--isn't all that convincing. And Abe's time off the Rez has made him a thorough skeptic.

To heal, Abe will undertake a revelatory journey, confronting the parts of himself he's hidden ever since he left home and learning to cultivate hope, even at his darkest hour.

Delivered with crackling wit, Old School Indian is a striking exploration of the power and secrets of family, the capacity for healing and catharsis, and the ripple effects of history and culture.

One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels

Winner of the National Book Award - Washington Post Best Book of the Year - A New York Times Notable Book

From one of the most revered novelists of our time, an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family.

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface because Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old son, Joe. In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared.

While his father, a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own. Their quest takes them first to the Round House, a sacred space and place of worship for the Ojibwe. And this is only the beginning.

The Round House is a page-turning masterpiece--at once a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a tender, moving novel of family, history, and culture.

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

The long-awaited, profoundly moving, and unforgettable new novel from PEN Award-winning Native American author Mona Susan Power, spanning three generations of Yanktonai Dakota women from the 19^th century to the present day.

From the mid-century metropolis of Chicago to the windswept ancestral lands of the Dakota people, to the bleak and brutal Indian boarding schools, A Council of Dolls is the story of three women, told in part through the stories of the dolls they carried....

Sissy, born 1961: Sissy's relationship with her beautiful and volatile mother is difficult, even dangerous, but her life is also filled with beautiful things, including a new Christmas present, a doll called Ethel. Ethel whispers advice and kindness in Sissy's ear, and in one especially terrifying moment, maybe even saves Sissy's life.

Lillian, born 1925: Born in her ancestral lands in a time of terrible change, Lillian clings to her sister, Blanche, and her doll, Mae. When the sisters are forced to attend an Indian school far from their home, Blanche refuses to be cowed by the school's abusive nuns. But when tragedy strikes the sisters, the doll Mae finds her way to defend the girls.

Cora, born 1888: Though she was born into the brutal legacy of the Indian Wars, Cora isn't afraid of the white men who remove her to a school across the country to be civilized. When teachers burn her beloved buckskin and beaded doll Winona, Cora discovers that the spirit of Winona may not be entirely lost...

A modern masterpiece, A Council of Dolls is gorgeous, quietly devastating, and ultimately hopeful, shining a light on the echoing damage wrought by Indian boarding schools, and the historical massacres of Indigenous people. With stunning prose, Mona Susan Power weaves a spell of love and healing that comes alive on the page.

The frightening bone picker is just one of many entities, scary and mysterious, who lurk behind every page of this spine-tingling collection of Native fiction, written by award-winning Choctaw author Devon A. Mihesuah. Choctaw lore features a large pantheon of deities. These beings created the first people, taught them how to hunt, and warned them of impending danger. Their stories are not meant simply to entertain: each entity has a purpose in its behavior and a lesson to share--to those who take heed.

As a Choctaw citizen, with deep ties to Indian Territory and Oklahoma, Mihesuah grew up hearing the stories of her ancestors. In the tradition of Native storytelling, she spins tales that move back and forth fluidly across time. The ancient beings, we discover, followed the tribe from their original homelands in Mississippi and are now ever-present influences on tribal consciousness.

While some of the horrors told here are real life in nature, the art of fiction that Mihesuah employs reveals surprising outcomes or alternative histories. It turns out the things that scare us the most can lead to the answers we are seeking and even ensure our very survival.

In Northern Sámi, the word dnan means the land, the earth, and my mother. These are all crucial forces within the lives of the Indigenous families that animate this groundbreaking book: an astonishing verse novel that chronicles a hundred years of change: a book that will one day stand alongside Halldór Laxness's Independent People and Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter as an essential Scandinavian epic.

The tale begins in the 1910s, as Ristin and her family migrate their herd of reindeer to summer grounds. Along the way, forced to separate due to the newly formed border between Sweden and Norway, Ristin loses one of her sons in the aftermath of an accident, a grief that will ripple across the rest of the book. In the wake of this tragedy, Ristin struggles to manage what's left of her family and her community.

In the 1970s, Lise, as part of a new generation of Sámi grappling with questions of identity and inheritance, reflects on her traumatic childhood, when she was forced to leave her parents and was placed in a Nomad School to be stripped of the language of her ancestors. Finally, in the 2010s we meet Lise's daughter, Sandra, an embodiment of Indigenous resilience, an activist fighting for reparations in a highly publicized land rights trial, in a time when the Sámi language is all but lost.

Weaving together the voices of half a dozen characters, from elders to young people unsure of their heritage, Axelsson has created a moving family saga around the consequences of colonial settlement. dnan is a powerful reminder of how durable language can be, even when it is borrowed, especially when it has to hold what no longer remains. I was the weight / in the stone you brought / back from the coast // to place on / my grave, one character says to another from beyond the grave. And I flew above / the boat calling / to you all: // There will be rain / there will be rain.

Carter is a young mother on a quest to find the true meaning of her heritage, which she only learned of in her teens. Allie is trying to make up for the lost years with her first born and to protect Carter from the hurt she herself suffered from her own mother. Lucie wants the granddaughter she's never met to help her get to her ancestors in the afterlife. And Geneviève is determined to conquer her demons--before the fire inside burns her up--with the help of the sister she lost but has never been without. Meanwhile, Mamé, in the afterlife, knows that all their stories began with her; she must find a way to cut herself from the last threads that keep her tethered to the living, just as they must find their own paths forward. And a young bison wants to understand why he keeps being moved and whether he should make a break for it and run for his life.

This extraordinary novel, told by a chorus of vividly realized, wise, confused, struggling characters attempting to make sense of this life and the next, heralds the arrival of a stunning new voice in literary fiction.

Waubgeshig Rice's stories are good medicine. Moon of the Turning Leaves is a restorative balm for my spirit. -- Angeline Boulley, New York Times bestselling author of Firekeeper's Daughter

In this gripping stand-alone literary thriller set in the world of the award-winning post-apocalyptic novel Moon of the Crusted Snow, a scouting party led by Evan Whitesky ventures into unknown and dangerous territory to find a new home for their close-knit Northern Ontario Indigenous community more than a decade after a world-ending blackout.

For the past twelve years, a community of Anishinaabe people have made the Northern Ontario bush their home in the wake of the power failure that brought about societal collapse. Since then they have survived and thrived the way their ancestors once did, but their natural food resources are dwindling, and the time has come to find a new home.

Evan Whitesky volunteers to lead a mission south to explore the possibility of moving back to their original homeland, the land where the birch trees grow by the big water in the Great Lakes region. Accompanied by five others, including his daughter Nangohns, an expert archer, Evan begins a journey that will take him to where the Anishinaabe were once settled, near the devastated city of Gibson, a land now being reclaimed by nature.

But it isn't just the wilderness that poses a threat: they encounter other survivors. Those who, like the Anishinaabe, live in harmony with the land, and those who use violence.

Told in a series of voices, Calling for a Blanket Dance takes us into the life of Ever Geimausaddle through the multigenerational perspectives of his family as they face myriad obstacles. His father's injury at the hands of corrupt police, his mother's struggle to hold on to her job and care for her husband, the constant resettlement of the family, and the legacy of centuries of injustice all intensify Ever's bottled-up rage. Meanwhile, all of Ever's relatives have ideas about who he is and who he should be. His Cherokee grandmother urges the family to move across Oklahoma to find security; his grandfather hopes to reunite him with his heritage through traditional gourd dances; his Kiowa cousin reminds him that he's connected to an ancestral past. And once an adult, Ever must take the strength given to him by his relatives to save not only himself but also the next generation of family.

How will this young man visualize a place for himself when the world hasn't given him a place to start with? Honest, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting, Calling for a Blanket Dance is the story of how Ever Geimausaddle found his way to home.

Blood to Rubies has already garnered early praise from New York Times bestselling authors, calling the book brilliant, heartbreakingly beautiful, unforgettable, and a riveting debut.

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

The long-awaited, profoundly moving, and unforgettable new novel from PEN Award-winning Native American author Mona Susan Power, spanning three generations of Yanktonai Dakota women from the 19^th century to the present day.

From the mid-century metropolis of Chicago to the windswept ancestral lands of the Dakota people, to the bleak and brutal Indian boarding schools, A Council of Dolls is the story of three women, told in part through the stories of the dolls they carried....

Sissy, born 1961: Sissy's relationship with her beautiful and volatile mother is difficult, even dangerous, but her life is also filled with beautiful things, including a new Christmas present, a doll called Ethel. Ethel whispers advice and kindness in Sissy's ear, and in one especially terrifying moment, maybe even saves Sissy's life.

Lillian, born 1925: Born in her ancestral lands in a time of terrible change, Lillian clings to her sister, Blanche, and her doll, Mae. When the sisters are forced to attend an Indian school far from their home, Blanche refuses to be cowed by the school's abusive nuns. But when tragedy strikes the sisters, the doll Mae finds her way to defend the girls.

Cora, born 1888: Though she was born into the brutal legacy of the Indian Wars, Cora isn't afraid of the white men who remove her to a school across the country to be civilized. When teachers burn her beloved buckskin and beaded doll Winona, Cora discovers that the spirit of Winona may not be entirely lost...

A modern masterpiece, A Council of Dolls is gorgeous, quietly devastating, and ultimately hopeful, shining a light on the echoing damage wrought by Indian boarding schools, and the historical massacres of Indigenous people. With stunning prose, Mona Susan Power weaves a spell of love and healing that comes alive on the page.

WINNER: Canada Reads 2022

WINNER: Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction

WINNER: Amazon First Novel Award

WINNER: Kobo Emerging Author Prize

Finalist: Scotiabank Giller Prize

Finalist: Atwood Gibson Writers Trust Prize

Finalist: BC & Yukon Book Prize

Shortlist: Indigenous Voices Awards

National Bestseller; A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of the Year; A CBC Best Book of the Year; An Apple Best Book of the Year; A Kobo Best Book of the Year; An Indigo Best Book of the Year

Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention.

Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn't want them. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission.

Fuelled by rage and furious with God, Clara finds her way into the dangerous, highly charged world of the American Indian Movement. Maisie internalizes her pain and continually places herself in dangerous situations. Famous for his daring escapes from the school, Kenny can't stop running and moves restlessly from job to job--through fishing grounds, orchards and logging camps--trying to outrun his memories and his addiction. Lucy finds peace in motherhood and nurtures a secret compulsive disorder as she waits for Kenny to return to the life they once hoped to share together. After almost beating one of his tormentors to death, Howie serves time in prison, then tries once again to re-enter society and begin life anew.

With compassion and insight, Five Little Indians chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward.

The Survival Story of the Patawomeck Tribe of Virginia told through the lives of two women

The survival story of the Patawomeck Tribe of Virginia has been remembered within the tribe for generations, but the massacre of Patawomeck men and the enslavement of women and children by land hungry colonists in 1666 has been mostly unknown outside of the tribe until now. Author Lora Chilton, a member of the tribe through the lineage of her father, has created this powerful fictional retelling.

Told in first person point of view through the imagined lives of two women, Chilton tells the harrowing stories of Ah'SaWei WaTaPaAnTam (Golden Fawn) and NePa'WeXo (Shining Moon), members of the surviving Patawomeck tribe, who after the slaughter of their men were sold and transported to Barbados via slave ship. Separated and bought by different sugar plantations, they endured, each plotting their escapes before finally making their way back to Virginia to be reunited with the few members of the tribe that remained.

Blood to Rubies has already garnered early praise from New York Times bestselling authors, calling the book brilliant, heartbreakingly beautiful, unforgettable, and a riveting debut.