Image 1 of 1
“With richly-drawn characters and environments that sing, this relatable novel tackles breathtaking adventure and quiet introspection with equal aplomb, and breathes with timeless, universal truth.” —Jennifer Giacalone, author of Art of the Chase
In 1475, along the windswept shores of what would become the Delaware coast, seventeen-year-old Queskakons struggles to find his place among the Lenni Lenape people. Promised in marriage to the sachem’s daughter but drawn to his mystical cousin, Saski, Ques yearns for something greater than the fishing nets and village rhythms that have defined his ancestors for generations.
When the tensions escalate with the warlike Susquehannock people, Ques joins a scouting mission that ends in disaster. Ques is captured and enslaved in an enemy village far from the healing salt winds of home.
Through a brutal summer of forced labor and starvation, only the secret kindness of a Susquehannock woman keeps him alive long enough to attempt a desperate escape. Returning transformed by his ordeal, Ques must find a voice of leadership as he navigates a web of forbidden love, tribal politics, and the growing threat of war that could keep him forever from the home and people that define him.
As he discovers his true calling as a peacemaker and diplomat, he faces an impossible choice between the safety of tradition and the dangerous path of change that could either unite the scattered Lenape peoples—or destroy everything he holds dear.