On July 17, Entertainment Weekly revealed the cover to Angeline Boulley’s thriller debut titled The Firekeeper’s Daughter, which explores Native American identity.
The Firekeeper’s Daughter follows Daunis Fontaine who gets thrust into a criminal investigation and goes undercover, trying to piece together the mystery.
The article mentioned that “Boulley spent 10 years crafting the story about corruption that threatens her Ojibwe community…” The author’s novel has been pitched as being in the vein of the adult literary fiction novel, There There by Tommy Orange.
Alongside the cover reveal was also an excerpt of the prologue an chapter one. Boulley is a member of the Chippewa tribe, according to a Publisher’s Weekly article. The cover was originally revealed through a Crowdcast with the author on July 16.
The cover artists are Moses Lunham and Rich Deas, who is also the designer.
As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. Daunis dreams of studying medicine, but when her family is struck by tragedy, she puts her future on hold to care for her fragile mother.
The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, certain details don’t add up and she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into the heart of a criminal investigation.
Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, but secretly pursues her own investigation, tracking down the criminals with her knowledge of chemistry and traditional medicine. But the deceptions—and deaths—keep piling up and soon the threat strikes too close to home.
Now, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she’ll go to protect her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known.
The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley is set to be released March 2, 2021!
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