Novels

A man lunges in front of a car. An elderly woman silently drowns herself. A corpse sits up in its coffin and speaks. On this reservation, not all is what it seems, in this new spine-chilling mythological horror from the author of Sisters of the Lost Nation.

All Noemi Broussard wanted was a fresh start. With a new boyfriend who actually treats her right and a plan to move from the reservation she grew up on—just like her beloved Uncle Louie before her—things are finally looking up for Noemi. Until the news of her boyfriend’s apparent suicide brings her world crumbling down.

But the facts about Roddy’s death just don’t add up, and Noemi isn’t the only one who suspects that something menacing might be lurking within their tribal lands.

After over a decade away, Uncle Louie has returned to the reservation, bringing with him a past full of secrets, horror, and what might be the key to determining Roddy’s true cause of death. Together, Noemi and Louie set out to find answers...but as they get closer to the truth, Noemi begins to wonder whether it might be best for some secrets to remain buried.

Reviews
"Nick Medina blends myth and reality, supernatural danger and ordinary human menace into a story that will pull your heartstrings even as it shreds your nerves. Like the alligators lurking in its pages, Indian Burial Ground will swallow you whole."—Ana Reyes, New York Times bestselling author of The House in the Pines

"You may arrive at Indian Burial Ground because of author Nick Medina's incredible debut, Sisters of the Lost Nation, or his exceptional story in the bestselling Never Whistle at Night anthology, or perhaps he's a new-to-you author, and now you have the pleasure of reading both of these, but the important thing is you have arrived at an exceptional new novel that lingers long after the last page is turned. From two compelling points of view decades apart, Medina has crafted a story of generational trauma and mythical fears, with deep roots in Native history and modern life, that's part supernatural horror, part mystery, but perhaps most importantly, a story of hope in the darkness." —Vanessa Lillie, USA Today bestselling author of Blood Sisters

"Indian Burial Ground is wonderfully creepy and relentlessly dark. Part adventure narrative, part supernatural horror story, and part eerie mystery, this novel slithers under your skin and makes you wish you knew less with every step it brings you closer to the truth. Nick Medina is waiting in the dark to whisper in your ear about dead things, about the tamahka, about blood and Native mythology. You should let him."—Gabino Iglesias, author of The Devil Takes You Home

"An intense family drama set on the (fictional) Rez where the threat of the mysterious Takoda Vampire makes for a gripping—and creepy!—read. Nick Medina is an Indigenous writer to watch."—Erika T. Wurth, author of White Horse

"Nick Medina’s Indian Burial Ground is an expertly-paced novel, chock-full of Native lore and spine-chilling suspense. When the horror hits, it hits hard."—Jimmy Juliano, author of Dead Eleven

Additional Information
384 pages | 6.19" x 9.30" | Hardcover 

The interwoven destinies of the people of Meridian will finally be determined in this stunning conclusion to New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse’s Between Earth and Sky trilogy.

Even the sea cannot stay calm before the storm. —Teek saying

Serapio, avatar of the Crow God Reborn and the newly crowned Carrion King, rules Tova. But his enemies gather both on distant shores and within his own city as the matrons of the clans scheme to destroy him. And deep in the alleys of the Maw, a new prophecy is whispered, this one from the Coyote God. It promises Serapio certain doom if its terrible dictates are not fulfilled.

Meanwhile, Xiala is thrust back amongst her people as war comes first to the island of Teek. With their way of life and their magic under threat, she is their last best hope. But the sea won’t talk to her the way it used to, and doubts riddle her mind. She will have to sacrifice the things that matter most to unleash her powers and become the queen they were promised.

And in the far northern wastelands, Naranpa, avatar of the Sun God, seeks a way to save Tova from the visions of fire that engulf her dreams. But another presence has begun stalking her nightmares, and the Jaguar God is on the hunt.

Nominated for the Nebula, Lambda, Locus, and Hugo Awards, winner of the Alex Award from the American Library Association and the Ignyte Award from Fiyah magazine, the Between Earth and Sky trilogy is amongst our most lauded modern fantasy series from The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and USA TODAY bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse.

Reviews
“Rebecca Roanhorse… [is one] of the Indigenous novelists reshaping North American science fiction, horror and fantasy — genres in which Native writers have long been overlooked.”— The New York Times

Educator & Series Information
This is the third book in the Between Earth and Sky Series.

Additional Information
608 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Hardcover

"What's happening to you is just that the visible and the invisible are finding each other through you. You are the passageway for our reconnection. You and your generation are the ones who will give our memory back to us..."

Monica, a young woman studying art history in Montreal, has lost touch with her Innu roots. When an exhibition unexpectedly articulates a deep, intergenerational wound, she begins to search for a stronger connection to her Indigeneity. A quickly found friendship with Katherine, an Indigenous woman whose life is filled with culture and community, underscores for Monica the possibilities of turning from assimilation and toxic masculinity to something much deeper-and more universal than she expects.

Travelling across the continent, from Eastern Canada to Vancouver to Mexico City, Monica connects with other Indigenous artists and thinkers, learning about the power of traditional ways and the struggles of other Nations. Throughout these journeys, physical and creative, she is guided by visions of giant birds and ancestors, who draw her back home to Pessamit. Reckonings with family and floods await, but amidst strange tides, she reconnects to her language, Innu-aimun, and her people.

A timely and riveting story of reclamation, matriarchies, and the healing ability of traditional teachings, Nauetakuan, a silence for a noise underscores how reconnecting to lineage and community can transform Indigenous futures.

Reviews
"A love letter to residential school survivors dedicated to their descendants... To create the universe of Nauetakuan, populated by giant animals and marvelous creatures, including the thunderbird, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine was inspired by her own dreams, various native myths, and ancient legends taught to her by Joséphine Bacon." -Le Devoir

"Poet, singer, actress, and Innu activist, the talented Natasha Kanapé Fontaine has written her first hard-hitting novel this fall, which cuts through us like a lightning bolt." -Le Journal de Montréal

Educator Information
Translated by Howard Scott.

Additional Information
248 pages | 5.25" x 8.00" | Paperback

The Giller Prize-longlisted author of Avenue of Champions returns with a frenetic, propulsive crime thriller that doubles as a sharp critique of modern activism and challenges readers to consider what “Land Back” might really look like.

Meet Isidore “Ezzy” Desjarlais and Grey Ginther: two distant Métis cousins making the most of Grey’s uncle’s old trailer, passing their days playing endless games of cribbage and cracking cans of cheap beer in between. Grey, once a passionate advocate for change, has been hardened and turned cynical by an activist culture she thinks has turned performative and lazy. One night, though, she has a revelation, and enlists Ezzy, who is hopelessly devoted to her but eager to avoid the authorities after a life in and out of the group home system and jail, for a bold yet dangerous political mission: capture a herd of bison from a national park and set them free in downtown Edmonton, disrupting the churn of settler routine. But as Grey becomes increasingly single-minded in her newfound calling, their act of protest puts the pair and those close to them in peril, with devastating and sometimes fatal consequences.

For readers drawn to the electric storytelling of Morgan Talty and the taut register of Stephen Graham Jones, Conor Kerr’s Prairie Edge is at once a gripping, darkly funny caper and a raw reckoning with the wounds that persist across generations.

Additional Information
272 pages | 5.50" x 8.25" | Paperback

From the author of the nationally bestselling Strangers saga comes a heartrending story of two Michif sisters who must face their past trauma when their mother is called out for false claims to Indigenous identity.

June and her sister, lyn, are NDNs—real ones.

Lyn has her pottery artwork, her precocious kid, Willow, and the uncertain terrain of her midlife to keep her mind, heart and hands busy. June, a Métis Studies professor, yearns to uproot from Vancouver and move. With her loving partner, Sigh, and their faithful pup, June decides to buy a house in the last place on earth she imagined she’d end up: back home in Winnipeg with her family.

But then into lyn and June’s busy lives a bomb drops: their estranged and very white mother, Renee, is called out as a “pretendian.” Under the name (get this) Raven Bearclaw, Renee had topped the charts in the Canadian art world for winning awards and recognition for her Indigenous-style work.

The news is quickly picked up by the media and sparks an enraged online backlash. As the sisters are pulled into the painful tangle of lies their mother has told and the hurt she has caused, searing memories from their unresolved childhood trauma, which still manages to spill into their well-curated adult worlds, come rippling to the surface.

In prose so powerful it could strike a match, real ones is written with the same signature wit and heart on display in The Break, The Strangers and The Circle. An energetic, probing and ultimately hopeful story, real ones pays homage to the long-fought, hard-won battles of Michif (Métis) people to regain ownership of their identity and the right to say who is and isn’t Métis.

Reviews
“With the same artistry and open heart that vermette’s character lyn practices in throwing and displaying her pottery, vermette has crafted real ones to explore—in real time—the traumatic outward rippling effect of a mother’s ethnic fraud on all her relations.” —Michelle Good, author of Five Little Indians and Truth Telling

“A brilliant novel, infused with anger and rich with empathy. In real ones, katherena vermette holds a mirror up to an issue that Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities are all grappling with—the rise of false claims to Indigenous identity. Vermette tells this story like no one else can. By focusing on the relationship between sisters June and lyn (who are Métis on their father’s side) following the public discovery of their own mother’s false claims, vermette offers up an understanding of the way the phenomenon reverberates at the personal and political levels. A healing and eye-opening story, real ones is a must-read.”—Michelle Porter, author of A Grandmother Begins the Story

“With conviction and compassion, vermette shines a light on pretendianism—motivations, tangled emotions, far-reaching consequences—and re-centres collective Métis identity and sovereignty.”—Chantal Fiola, author of Returning to Ceremony: Spirituality in Manitoba Métis Communities

Additional Information
320 pages | 5.50" x 8.25" | Hardcover 

Unless there is snow on the ground, never speak their name aloud.

The more they eat the hungrier they become, and they are starving.

They were meant to stay undisturbed, their dismembered limbs scattered, frozen under the permafrost, but as is always the way, the greed of industry has unburied them once more. Now, the most feared, the Wheetago, have returned, using their powers to call back the Na acho, cannibalistic giants once banished by Dene deities.

The revered hero known as the Child Finder who is fighting to cling to his humanity after a Wheetago attack, a mother and her young son, and a desperate band of convicts, form an uneasy alliance to survive the Wheetago horrors now awakened.

ROTH, from award-winning, bestselling Tlicho Dene author Richard Van Camp, and visionary illustrator Christopher Shy is the first graphic novel in the Wheetago War series.

Reviews
"A storyteller is what Richard Van Camp is—a storyteller par excellence. He tells us of family and traditions, of past and present spirits. Through Roth, he weaves his magic yet again, entwined with the richly atmospheric and terrestrial palette of Christopher Shy. With the Wheetago War series, kind-hearted and horrifically evil come together to hold you fully embraced, page after page."– Kent Williams artist & illustrator X-Men, Batman

"This spectacular, boundary-pushing book will change the way you look at graphic novels.Rooted in ancient and powerful narratives, this captivating saga will have you holding your breath until it releases you from its grip at the end, only to want more.”- Waubgeshig Rice, author Moon of the Turning Leaves

Educator & Series Information
Recommended for ages 15+.

This book is the first book in the Wheetago War series.

Additional Information
192 pages | 6.62" x 10.25" | Paperback

In stunning full color and accessible text, a graphic adaptation of the American Book Award winning history of the United States as told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples—perfect for readers of all ages

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s influential New York Times bestseller exposed the brutality of this nation’s founding and its legacy of settler-colonialism and genocide. Through evocative full color artwork, renowned cartoonist Paul Peart-Smith brings this watershed book to life, centering the perspective of the peoples displaced by Europeans and their white descendants to trace Indigenous perseverance over four centuries against policies intended to obliterate them.

Recognized for his adaptation of W.E.B. DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk and his extensive expertise in the comics industry, Peart-Smith collaborates with experienced graphic novel editor Paul Buhle to provide an accessible introduction to a complex history that will attract new generations of readers of all ages. This striking graphic adaptation will rekindle crucial conversations about the centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regime that has largely been omitted from history.

Reviews
“Adapting a work of history as dense and as vital as Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (2014) to comics form is no easy feat, but Peart-Smith is up for the task . . . A thoughtful, radically hopeful work that is sure to resonate with readers of all ages.” - Booklist

Educator Information
The publisher does not provide a recommended age range, but notes in the description that this graphic interpretation "will attract new generations of readers of all ages".

Table of Contents 

Additional Information
120 pages | 8.22" x 10.28" | Hardcover 

A Kiowa woman faces new threats to her tribe and identity while struggling to keep her Silicon Valley business afloat. She must search deep within herself to find answers—and a murderer—in Mary Higgins Clark Award finalist D. M. Rowell’s thrilling sequel, perfect for fans of Winter Counts.

While back on tribal land, Mud Sawpole uncovers an illegal fracking operation underway that threatens the Kiowas’ ancestral homeland. But there’s an even greater threat: a local businessman involved in artifact thefts is murdered, and a respected tribe elder faces accusation of the crime. After being roped in by her cousin, Denny, they begin to investigate the death while also pursuing evidence to permanently stop frackers from destroying Kiowa land, water, and livelihoods.

When answers evade her, Mud heeds her grandfather's and great-aunt’s words of wisdom and embraces Kiowa tribal customs to find the answers that she seeks. But her ceremonial sweat leads to a vision with answers wrapped in more questions.

Mud and Denny race against the clock to uncover the real killer and must face the knowledge that there may be a traitor—and a murderer—in their midst. It’s already too late for one victim—and Mud may be next.

Educator & Series Information
This book is part of the Mud Sawpole Mystery series.

Additional Information
320 pages | 5.72" x 8.52" | Hardcover 

A young Native girl's hunt for answers about the women mysteriously disappearing from her tribe's reservation leads her to delve into the myths and stories of her people, all while being haunted herself, in this atmospheric and stunningly poignant debut.

Anna Horn is always looking over her shoulder. For the bullies who torment her, for the entitled visitors at the reservation’s casino…and for the nameless, disembodied entity that stalks her every step—an ancient tribal myth come-to-life, one that’s intent on devouring her whole.

With strange and sinister happenings occurring around the casino, Anna starts to suspect that not all the horrors on the reservation are old. As girls begin to go missing and the tribe scrambles to find answers, Anna struggles with her place on the rez, desperately searching for the key she’s sure lies in the legends of her tribe’s past.

When Anna’s own little sister also disappears, she’ll do anything to bring Grace home. But the demons plaguing the reservation—both ancient and new—are strong, and sometimes, it’s the stories that never get told that are the most important.

Part gripping thriller and part mythological horror, author Nick Medina spins an incisive and timely novel of life as an outcast, the cost of forgetting tradition, and the courage it takes to become who you were always meant to be.

Reviews
"Sisters of the Lost Nation weaves Native folklore with truths that we feel in our bones to create a story that is as beautiful as it is sad, as powerful as it is frightening, as familiar as it is otherworldly."—Alma Katsu, author of The Fervor and The Hunger

"Sisters of the Lost Nation is a dark and excruciatingly timely debut about the very real horror of Native girls going missing. Medina’s decisive authorial voice and unforgettable characters make for an incredibly powerful read."—Alexis Henderson, author of The Year of the Witching

Additional Information
368 pages | 5.22" x 7.97" | Paperback

A gripping, gut-punch of a novel about a Cherokee child removed from her family and sent to a Christian boarding school in the 1950s—an ambitious, eye-opening reckoning of history and small-town prejudices from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble.

Since her mother’s death, Kit Crockett has lived with her grief-stricken father, spending lonely days far out in the country tending the garden, fishing in a local stream, and reading Nancy Drew mysteries from the library bookmobile. One day when Kit discovers a mysterious and beautiful woman has moved in just down the road, she is intrigued.

Kit and her new neighbor Bella become fast friends. Both outsiders, they take comfort in each other’s company. But malice lurks near their quiet bayou and Kit suddenly finds herself at the center of tragic, fatal crime. Soon, Kit is ripped from her home and Cherokee family and sent to Ashley Lordard, a religious boarding school. Along with the other Native students, Kit is stripped of her heritage, force-fed Christian indoctrination, and is sexually abused by the director. But Kit, as strong-willed and shrewd as ever, secretly keeps a journal recounting what she remembers—and revealing just what she has forgotten. Over the course of Stealing, she slowly unravels the truth of how she ended up at the school—and plots a way out.

In swift, sharp, and stunning prose, Margaret Verble spins a powerful coming-of age tale and reaffirms her place as an indelible storyteller and chronicler of history.

Reviews
"Verble tells a memorable and sobering story about injustice, hypocrisy, and resilience. Verble upholds her legacy of indelible Cherokee characters—and weaves a dynamic mystery, too.”— Kirkus Reviews

Additional Information
256 pages | 5.31" x 8" | Paperback

“Swim Home to the Vanished is a lush and fantastic journey through strange lands and minds from an incandescent new voice full of my kind of melancholic brilliance and unromantic magic.”—Tommy Orange, author of There, There

After the death of his brother, a grief-stricken young man seeks refuge and oblivion in a secluded fishing village dominated by a family of brujas in this haunting debut novel, inspired, in part, by the ramifications of Diné history and thought—a mesmerizing, original tale in the tradition of works by Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami, and Gabriel García Márquez.

When the river swallowed Kai, Damien’s little brother didn’t die so much as vanish. As the unbearable loss settles deeper into his bones, Damien, a small-town line cook, walks away from everything he has ever known. Driving as far south as his old truck and his legs allow, he lands in a fishing village beyond the reach of his past where he hopes he can finally forget.

But the village has grief of its own. The same day that Damien arrives, a young woman from the community’s most powerful family is being laid to rest. A stranger in town, Damien is the object of gossip and suspicion, ignored by all except the dead girl’s mother, Ana Maria, who offers Damien a room and a job.

Grateful for her kindness, Damien soon begins to fall under Ana Maria's charismatic spell. But how long can he resist the rumors swirling through town suggesting she might have had something to do with her daughter’s death? Or deny his strange kinship with one of Ana Maria's surviving daughters, Marta, who knows too well the grief that follows the loss of a sibling—and who is driven by a fierce need for revenge? Swiftly, Damien finds himself caught in a power struggle between the brujas, a whirlwind battle that threatens to sweep the whole village out to sea.

Resonant with the Diné creation story and the unshakeable weight of the Long Walk—the forced removal of the Navajo from their land—Swim Home to the Vanished explores the human capacity for grief and redemption, and the lasting effects it has on the soul.

Additional Information
240 pages | 5.31" x 8.00" | Paperback

The final installment in the most lauded trilogy in the history of horror novels picks up four years after Don’t Fear the Reaper as Jade returns to Proofrock, Idaho, to build a life after the years of sacrifice—only to find the Lake Witch is waiting for her in New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones’s finale.

It’s been four years in prison since Jade Daniels last saw her hometown of Proofrock, Idaho, the day she took the fall, protecting her friend Letha and her family from incrimination. Since then, her reputation, and the town, have changed dramatically. There’s a lot of unfinished business in Proofrock, from serial killer cultists to the rich trying to buy Western authenticity. But there’s one aspect of Proofrock no one wants to confront…until Jade comes back to town. The curse of the Lake Witch is waiting, and now is the time for the final stand.

New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones has crafted an epic horror trilogy of generational trauma from the Indigenous to the townies rooted in the mountains of Idaho. It is a story of the American west written in blood.

Series Information
This is the third book in The Indian Lake Trilogy.

Additional Information
464 pages | 5.50" x 8.37" | Hardcover 

Thrust into the foster care system from an early age, Apple moves from house to house on Prince Edward Island without finding a home until she's a teenager and taken in by a couple who never managed to have children themselves. When she falls pregnant, her foster parents are keen to raise the baby with Apple still in the house—to live as a family.

That opportunity is torn from Apple by members of the Catholic Church along with social workers and government officials. Their vicious practices take the babies of unwed mothers and give them to wealthy families in exchange for large "donations" to the church. Apple's beloved baby ends up with a rich couple in the U.S., and is lost to her.

The Baby Train traces her life in the aftermath of that loss, raising subsequent children, creating deep bonds of friendship with other women struggling against society's rigid norms, and carrying underneath it all an unending love for her firstborn child.

We also follow her baby's path, and watch his affluent, neglected childhood and then adulthood unfold. He never knows that his birth mother still yearns for him, still lights him birthday candles every year.

The shameful legacy of forced and coerced adoption in Eastern Canada is brought to life in this sweeping novel.

Educator Information
PEI's birth alert practice allowed hospitals or social workers to flag expectant parents whom they felt might put their newborns at risk. Generally, this practice targeted Indigenous and unwed women.

Additional Information
224 pages | 5.75" x 8.00" | Paperback 

Based on an Inuit traditional story passed down orally for generations, The Cannibal tells the horrific tale of a family experiencing starvation when the animals they rely on for survival disappear. While the wife stays alive by eating plants she gathers daily, the husband does the unthinkable, resorting to murder and cannibalism. Horrified, and terrified for her life, the wife eventually finds herself alone in camp with her husband. She knows what will happen to her if she does not find a way to escape. Hatching a plan, the exhausted wife embarks on the journey with her murderous husband in pursuit. After safely arriving at a nearby camp, she shares the story of what has become of her camp, and her own children. Soon the husband arrives, and the camp must decide how to deal with the cannibal. Both horrific and poignant, this cautionary traditional story provides a window into the at times harsh realities of traditional life.

Reviews
"The Cannibal by Solomon Awa and Louise Flaherty is a stark and compelling novel centred on an Inuit family facing extreme survival challenges in the Arctic. When the family’s father, driven by desperation, begins to resort to cannibalism to stay alive, the story delves into harrowing themes of survival, morality, and the impact of isolation on human behaviour. This topic is suitable for an older audience, not younger students." - David D., Indigenous Educator & Administrator, Indigenous Books for Schools 

Educator Information
The publisher labels this work as an "Adult Graphic Novel."

Recommended in the Indigenous Books for Schools catalogue as a valuable resource for grades 10 to 12 for English Language Arts and Social Studies.

Themes: Animals, Death, Environment, Loss, Reconciliation

Caution: Contains cannibalism

Additional Information
44 pages | 7.00" x 10.50" | Paperback

Ela Tahoe, a runaway turned deputy sheriff, is forced to contend with a Confederate invasion of her New Mexican town three months after the conclusion of the Civil War. Ela will need to confront her heritage and past with the Apache in order to get their aid to combat this Confederate threat, leading her to look at the world from the Native American perspective once again. Conceived as a tightly paced, gut wrenching western thriller, Ela fights tooth and nail to save the lives of her townspeople and most importantly, her son.

The American Western Frontier is arguably one of the most widely misrepresented histories, rife with inaccuracies and stereotypes. Black Mi'kmaq and Anishinaabe author Tristan Jones powerfully and critically reimagines and reclaims a historical retelling of the Frontier with a focus on the historically missing Indigenous narrative. Illustrated by master sequential artist Alexander Bumbulut, The Forgotten Frontier should be on everyone's reading list.

Additional Information
140 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback