This story follows two sisters, Rainfall Dawn and Azure Sky, who are forceably surrendered into foster care by their mother, Loretta Gallete, when they are 4 and 3 years old. After surrendering them, Loretta disappears and becomes another missing/murdered Native woman in the pandemic that is devastating Indian Country. 

Loretta is Ojibwe and a member of Mozhay Point  Reservation in northern Minnesota. She herself was uprooted constantly as a child, moving from place to place with whoever would take her in, until she was eventually placed in foster care. 

The story is told through several points of view from folks that new Loretta or her family or the girls throughout their lives. There’s a family tree at the beginning of the novel (which always is an automatic signal to me that I’m going to love the book) but the tree is only somewhat useful as many of the relations identified are family in the “Indian way”. The complicated interconnected relationships can make the book confusing if you try to keep track, so I recommend you don’t. And I think that’s kind of the point. “Family” is who shows up for you, the blood relationship doesn’t matter. 

For me, and I’m sure most people, the best part of this book is the relationship between Azure and Rain. Azure is the younger of the two sisters, but in many ways is the elder sister. She’s bigger than Rain for one, and as the girls grow up it becomes clear that Rain has some kind of developmental delay that alludes diagnosis for most of her life. This delay means that for most of their lives, Azure protects and looks out for Rain, acting as the older sister, comforting her in times of crisis as the two girls navigate the foster care system. After the passing of the Indian Child Welfare Act, the girls are returned to their Ojibwe family who have spent years looking for them. 

It’s a beautiful story about family, resilience, and the bonds between mothers and daughters, between sisters, and between the family you didn’t even know you had.