I was a little worried going into this one because of all the early hype that surrounded it. The story was a definite slow build, but once it hit about 75% I couldn't put it down. I read long into the night to finish the last bit of the book. The storytelling was amazing. I was worried about the Native American dialect that was peppered throughout the novel, but the author was very good at letting you know what was actually said. Daunis grew on me and the love story between her and Jamie had its ups and downs but it was amazing. The twists and turns that led to the climax of the story were AMAZING. At one point I actually screamed out loud "NOOOOO". Thank you, NetGalley and Macmillian for the eARC. It was incredible, 5 stars.

Warning: The main character gets sexually assaulted in the third act. It's not described in graphic detail, but it does happen.

This book hurt in a way that the truth does.

Daunis, half white, half-Native, lives in between two worlds where she feels like an outsider by both people. A new strand of meth is going around her community. One night her life changes when her best friend's ex-boyfriend kills her best friend. This leads Daunis to discover that the new hockey player at school is an undercover agent and wants her help finding the drug creators.

This book is part mystery, part information on the life and beliefs of Ojibwe. Daunis follows their beliefs and is respectful of their traditions. Even though she doesn't feel fully accepted by the tribe, she loves them. There is a sense of community throughout the book. I was worried that because this is a YA, she would go light on the issues, but Angeline Boulley digs into the unfairness of life on a reservation.

This review is based on an advanced reader copy provided through Netgalley for an honest review.

Daunis Fontaine is a young woman pulled between cultures. She is the illegitimate daughter of a White mother and Ojibwe father. Her mother was sixteen when she was born and her White grandparents didn't want her to have anything to do with her father's people. Her mother rebelled and made sure that Daunis knew her father's family. While Daunis loves her grandparents, she also loves and honors her Native family and its traditions.

Daunis has just graduated from high school and had intended to leave home for the University of Michigan to begin her studies to be a doctor. But her Uncle David has recently died and her GrandMary has suffered a stroke which has left her mother in a very fragile state of mind. Daunis has changed her plans and is now going to attend the nearby community college with her best friend Lily in order to stay at home and take care of her mother.

Only plans change again when her friend Lily is killed by Lily's ex Travis who has become a meth head and who then kills himself. Daunis and her new friend Jamie are quick to come upon the scene. There she learns that her new fried is an undercover cop sent to investigate the growing meth problem on the reservation. Lily agrees to become a confidential informant to try to get to the bottom of the drug problem on the Rez. Her knowledge of chemistry and her in with both the Whites and the Natives puts her in a powerful position to be of help. But it also puts her in a position to learn a number of secrets that she would prefer not to know.

This excellent story is filled with information about Ojibwe beliefs and rituals and culture. It is also a great depiction of the hockey culture of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. An it is an excellent mystery/thriller that kept me guessing about the whole situation. Along the way there is a growing love story between Daunis and Jamie that was filled with much more than the usual "getting to know you" of a normal relationship.

It was wonderful watching Daunis grow into her own power as a strong Native woman and decide what she wants to do with the rest of her life.

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley is an #OwnVoices, new adult / young adult novel about the devastation of addiction and the resiliency of women. When many members of an Ojibwe tribe die due to meth addiction, Daunis Fontaine accepts the responsibility to work as a confidential informant for a federal investigation that puts herself in danger and her tribal allegiance in jeopardy. Using traditional storytelling and Anishinaabemowin language, the reader is immersed in the Ojibwe world, which adds to the depth of this narrative.

At times, this book felt a bit long-winded, but ultimately the action picked up toward the end and it was worth the time spent reading. I loved the feminist and matriarchal aspects of this book - together, women can heal from generational trauma and live in harmony with their ancestors, elders, and future generations.

Advanced copy provided courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: addiction, deception, rape, generational trauma of Native peoples, murder, suicide, gun violence

The novel follows Daunis from the local Ojibwe reservation and all of the strange things happening in her life and town. From deaths, to FBI involvement, to drug rings, and even some love with a local hockey player, the mystery of the town grows deeper every chapter. As someone who spent a good deal of time in Michigan, I loved the depictions and descriptions of the locations. While I admittedly know very little about the First Nations/Native American history of the area, the traditions of the Ojibwe people that were included in the novel made it much more compelling.

Thank you to #NetGalley and publishers for the ARC of #FirekeepersDaughter in exchange for an honest review.

This book was really special! It's both a compelling, suspenseful read and truly meaningful story. Daunis, an Ojibwe teen living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, sees her best friend killed right in front of her. After experiencing that trauma, she discovers that there are undercover FBI agents working in her community to try to find the heart of a meth ring that they believe to be running in the area. Daunis decides to work with the feds to try to prevent further deaths and devastation in her community. Romance sparks between her and her partner, but just as the relationship begins to heighten, so does the intensity of the investigation and the violence that follows.

My favorite part of this book is how seamlessly Angeline Boulley wove so much incredible detail about the practices and traditions of the Ojibwe people into this gripping mystery story. I felt like I was learning something new about Ojibwe culture on every page, but it never felt like a knowledge dump. Daunis is a character to love and root for, and closeness she feels with her community in Sault Ste. Marie is enviable.

I will be recommending this book very highly to pretty much everyone I know.

Outstanding Suspense Thriller
This is an outstanding suspense thriller that takes place on tribal lands near Sault Ste. Marie. The book is full of tribal lore, beliefs, and medicines as well as the disconnect with white bigotry. The mystery portion addresses something that has affected almost all of the families in the US. The final denouement is very surprising. The ending is satisfying and haunting. I highly recommend this book. I received this ARC book for free from Net Galley and this is my honest review.

I would classify this as New Adult Crime Fiction. However, it’s also a love story, a story about family, a culturaeautiful aspects of Daunis’ culture with hockey life but also coming to terms with who she is.

Daunis is a force. She is strong, smart, loyal and knows what she wants and how to get it. People in her life have helped her to be strong and I loved her connection to them whether alive or not.
I recommend going in blind! I did not know what I was in for abd that made it all the sweeter.


This is a partial review to not miss the archive date. Full review will be on my
Blog and Instagram on pub day

WOW - this was such an amazing debut!

This was a really fascinating read. I'd describe it as Winter Counts meets Beartown meets A Good Girl's Guide to Murder. This is definitely the type of YA novel that feels VERY adult and should not be overlooked. I honestly don't think the average teen could appreciate all the nuance in this one.

This story covers a tight-knit community of native and non-native americans living at the tip of Michigan right on the Ontario border. It was extremely immersive into tribal life and all that comes with it, as well as a small town that lives hockey. This story quickly morphs into an investigation to drug trafficking and how different people from this town are involved.

There are some VERY heavy themes here, but this was written in a way that made the story very enjoyable. I was rooting for my girl Daunis from the first page and just loved her journey throughout. Read this if you like crime mysteries, coming of age stories, learning about other cultures, complex characters and relationships....the list goes on. I will be recommending this to everyone!

"Some boats are for the river and some are for the ocean."

This book was just amazing, pure and simple. It follows Daunis, an Ojibwe teenager, as she works with the FBI to investigate a lethal new drug, all the while managing her own grief and emotions. The book is YA, but on the upper edges of the genre, and reads as a standalone mystery novel.

If I had to describe this book in one word, it would be "beautiful." This book is just phenomenal. I typically don't read contemporary fiction (I'm admittedly a fantasy reader), but I devoured this book in one sitting.

The commentary on Native American tribal dynamics is poignant, uncomfortable, and NEEDED. The descriptions by Boulley are insightful, detailed, and beautifully written. The difficulties faced by tribal members, including drugs, sexual assault, and general bigotry is so relevant and I'm so glad it wasn't glossed over or romanticized. This story stuck with me and hurt in the best ways.

The characters are beautiful and flawed and so well developed. Daunis is a robust character, with understandable and relatable emotions and motivations. She is such a great person. A great daughter, sister, and friend.

I highly, highly recommend this read to everyone.

There is non-graphic sexual assault, drug use, and drug related death in this story, so if this is upsetting to you, please be prepared going in to this story.

This review will be posted on my blog, thebarnaclebookshelf.com, and on my Instagram, @the.barnacle.bookshelf, on March 1st.

This book has stuck with me long after putting it down. I learned so much about Native American culture and customs as well as the difficulties someone like Daunis can be caught between. This mixed in a beautiful blend of mystery and romance and drama. It gripped me and held on and by the end I was shook. I'm still thinking that ending and how everyone is doing since then. The twists just kept coming coming and as the reader I felt them just as enotionslly impactful as the characters did. I hope to read more from this author and learn more through her stories too.

Thank you to Henry Holt and Co. and NetGalley for this eARC.

This book is amazing. It's classified as a YA thriller, but it's much deeper than that. I recommend it even if you don't typically read much YA.

Daunis is biracial, feeling like an outsider both in her mother's wealthy white family and as an unenrolled woman in the Ojibwe tribe. She is incredibly intelligent, excelling at science, thinking in terms of the scientific method, and correcting the misuse of Occam's Razor. And she pairs that with her practice of Ojibwe traditional medicine and culture. Danius is also a remarkably good athlete who played hockey on the men's varsity team in high school until she graduated just before the start of the book.

The book packs a lot in including discussions of drug abuse, per capita payments from casinos, colorism, and law enforcement on and off tribal lands. Most notably, it highlights missing and murdered indigenous women. It addresses each of these in a way that is incredibly powerful, as we see it all through Danius's eyes.

I found the twists this book took riveting. I could not put it down and found myself skipping sleep to finish. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to read and learn from Danius's story.

TW: rape, drug abuse, gun violence, suicide

4.5 stars.

This isn't the kind of book you can read in one day and eventually forget about. It's the kind of book that will take days, maybe weeks, to get through, and it will be remembered for a long time. I hope it gets all the hype once it's released. Especially since there are so few books about contemporary Native American girls.
Plus, it's set in 2004, so there's some early-2000s nostalgia there too.

It's not your average YA thriller, either. Recently, I've gotten tired of all the stories about rich private-school kids killing each other over petty drama, but this isn't anything like that. It's a story about the devastating effects of drug addiction, grief, and family secrets.
In the beginning, we see that Daunis has decided not to go far away for her first year of college so she can help her mom care for her grandmother, who has recently had a stroke and is now in an assisted-living facility. She's also watching her brother prepare for his senior-year hockey season, even though an injury has prevented her from playing after high school. She doesn't think that this year is going to be particularly eventful.
Until she witnesses her best friend get killed by her meth-addicted boyfriend. Now, with the help of undercover officer Jamie Johnson, she becomes involved in an FBI investigation about the origin and distribution of this type of drug. In order to not blow his cover, she agrees to pose as his girlfriend, which results in her spending a lot more time around the boys' hockey team, where she learns things about them that could possibly help the investigation. But Lily's not going to be the town's only loss this year, and with every new death, finding out who is distributing the meth becomes more and more urgent.

The story is really long for YA-- almost 500 pages. But every one of these pages is necessary. Some people criticize stories for having too much going on at once, but that was never a problem here. We have our main mystery plot line, but there's also Daunis's family background and how that has played a role in her life (her mom getting pregnant with her at 16, her dad being married to someone else by the time she was born, her mom's white relatives not approving of Natives, etc.) I normally roll my eyes at stories with dead parents, but I didn't really see any way to do this story with her dad still alive. Especially since she wasn't close with him and it happened 11 years ago and never gets in the way of the part where she loses her best friend or her uncle several months earlier.

And even with all the different conflicts (which include the meth investigation, sexual assault, and the deaths of four young people) there's still a happy ending. Or at least, a happy ending for Daunis. I guess I'm not surprised that the perpetrators didn't exactly get fairly punished, or that it took so long. But there is hope for Daunis and her future.

I'm sure I forgot to mention some things, but it was really hard to write this review without spoilers. In conclusion,

This was a great fantasy read for teens and adults alike. I would absolutely recommend it to people and will add it to our library YA section.

Honestly, this book is a powerhouse. It does take a while to really get into (I started getting hooked around 21% into the book) and you will need to take some time to take in all the information about the tribes, the terms that the author gives you in the beginning (it's a bit of an info dump, but as info dumps go it's actually well done) before you can sit comfortably and read the story.

It's classified as a thriller but is so much more than that, and I feel its biggest strength really is the protagonist, Daunis Fontaine. She is such a nuanced, rich character, one that you will grow to love and (at the end), admire for her incredible strength and graciousness of spirit. This book is definitely one that you need to read slowly, but is worth your time and effort. Highly recommend!

I devoured this book. Daunis Fontaine is a biracial unenrolled tribal member and she feels like she only partially fits into her white and indigenous communities. When her world is rocked by witnessing a horrific murder, she is thrust into a criminal investigation that makes her begin to question everything. As she begins to put the puzzle pieces together, she has to make some decisions that could affect her and her community forever.


Daunis is a nuanced character and as you dive into her story you get to see her layers unfold. Because Daunis is grappling with establishing her worldview, you too get to expand yours by learning more about the Ojibwe culture. This book has themes of community, respect, friendship, family, romance, coming of age, and justice. It will take you on a journey you won't want to leave.


If you like Veronica Mars or the CW Nancy Drew show, pick up this title.

Absolutely loved this book.

I felt so many emotions with in the first 30% of the book; I laughed, cried, got pissed, and missed relatives. Which felt like precursor as continued to read the book. I slowly got back in to joy and then dipped back into sorrow as we follow Daunis as she tries to solve this mystery of how meth is being distributed into her community as deaths are mounting up.

Daunis Fontaine was a strong independent young woman who understood her strengths and weaknesses and had the support of her family and community.

This book touched on a lot of important topics in the native community and I thought they were very well handled. There were even discussions on topics I wasn't anticipating and got really excited about as they reflect similar experiences in my life as a native person in California.

I loved hearing about Daunis's family as well as her people's history, particularly the language, if you're able to I highly suggest the audiobook as it helped me understand how certain words were pronounced.

This book made me miss our ceremonies that we have yet to have for a year due to the pandemic, but it gave me that taste of food, comradery and over all "home" feeling and sense to get me eager for when we are able to have them again.

I can't wait for my pre-order of this book to arrive!

To say I loved this book would be an understatement! It is by far one of the most empowering books I've read. The main character, Daunis, has graduated from high school and made the decision to attend college locally instead of moving to attend medical school. Daunis is a complex character who learned, from a young age, to navigate the culture of her caucasian mother and her family, the Fontaines, while learning and living the customs and cultures of her father's Ojibwa family, the Firekeepers.

As tragedy strikes, through a series of events, Daunis decides to help her community by going undercover as an informant for the FBI. The mysterious pieces of the story are woven in with the culture and community so authentically and realistically, I had to remind myself this was a fiction novel. Although heavy topics such as drug use, rape, racism, sexism, and violence are all interwoven into the main plot, the foundation of healing, strength, wisdom, and love are strong currents supporting a very empowering and healing story full of respect, understanding, and celebration of Ojibwa life.

Thanks to NetGalley, Angeline Boulley, and Macmillan Publishing Group for an advanced eBook in exchange for my honest review.

Okay, first of all, this cover. Absolutely stunning. I’ll be purchasing a physical copy of this book because I need this on my bookshelf.

And, wow, this story was just amazing. I ended up listening to the audio version but will likely reread a physical copy in the coming months because the story was just that good. This coming of age debut novel was so heartbreaking but also so beautiful and informative. This is one you won’t want to miss.

CW: Addiction, drug abuse, murder, death of a loved one

Thank you @netgalley and Henry Holt for the egalley.

This story follows Daunis, an Ojibwe teen. Read it. Okay that’s all I want to tell you about this book. 😆 Jk. Kind of. Im a person who loves to know the least possible about plot and I found that rewarded in this book. Though there are some content warnings I’ll place at the bottom if anyone wants to know before reading the book.

As far as reading experience, I found it compelling, smart, lots of plot that keeps it moving along with a sense of suspense. It includes so much about Ojibwe culture and traditions. It follows Daunis, an 18 year old biracial teen, as she navigates her identity and events that happen in her community. I don’t want to give more set up than that, but if you need more plot, feel free to look up the synopsis.
I throughly enjoyed this book!
Trigger warnings below.
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Cw: drug use, rape (off the page), murder, suicide, grief