Native American Fiction
National Native American Heritage Month, observed in November, honors the histories, cultures, and contributions – historical and ongoing – of American Indians and Alaska Natives. Tribal affiliation(s) listed before annotations. (Updated October 2024) Annotations from NoveList, unless otherwise attributed.
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All I See Is Violence
(Liidlii Kue) A woman warrior, a ruthless general, and a single mother—three stories deftly braided into the legacy of a stolen nation. All I See Is Violence weaves love, loss, and hard truths into a story that needs to be told—a journey through violence to bear witness to all that was taken, to honor what all of our ancestors lived through, and to heal by acknowledging the shadows in order to find the light.
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Wandering Stars
(Cheyenne and Arapaho) Traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through to the shattering aftermath of Orvil Red Feather's shooting in There There.
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Beautiful Beautiful
(Heiltsuk) Twelve-year-old Derik Mormin travels with his father and a family friend to Bella Bella for his grandfather’s funeral. Along the way, he uncovers the traumatic history of his ancestors, considers his relationship to masculinity and explores the contrast between rural and urban lifestyles in hopes of reconciling the seemingly unreconcilable, the beauty of each the Indigenous and “Western” way of life—hence beautiful beautiful.
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Where They Last Saw Her
(Minnesota Chippewa, White Earth Band) A young Native American woman confronts pervasive violence, standing up for others who might be dismissed or forgotten. (Kirkus)
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Moon of the Turning Leaves
(Wasauksing) Years after a mysterious cataclysm caused a permanent blackout that toppled infrastructure and thrust the world into anarchy, Evan Whitesky's community is running out of resources in remote northern Ontario. Evan and his fifteen-year-old daughter, Nangohns, lead a small scouting party to their traditional home on the north shore of Lake Huron, to discover what kind of life--and what dangers--still exist in the lands to the south.
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Fire Exit
(Penobscot) From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine's Penobscot Reservation, and, on the far bank, he caught brief moments of his neighbor Elizabeth's life--from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties; but there's always been something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from her and the rest of the tribal community: it's the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Cold
(Curve Lake Ojibway) Elmore Trent is a professor of Indigenous studies who finds himself entangled in an affair that's ruining his marriage; Paul North plays in the IHL (Indigenous Hockey League), struggling to keep up with the game that's passing him by; Detective Ruby Birch is chasing a string of gruesome murders, with clues that conspicuously lead her to both Elmore and Paul. And then there's Fabiola Halan, former journalist-turned-author and famed survivor of a plane crash that sparked a nationwide tour promoting her book. What starts off as a series of subtle connections between isolated characters quickly takes a menacing turn, as it becomes increasingly clear that someone—or something—is hunting them all.
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If I Stopped Haunting You
(Choctaw-Cherokee) It's been months since horror author Penelope Skinner threw a book at Neil Storm. But he was so infuriating, with his sparkling green eyes and his bestselling horror novels that claimed to break Native stereotypes. Neil wants nothing less than to be trapped in a castle with the frustratingly adorable woman who threw a book at him. But as their writers' retreat begins, Pen and Neil are stunned to find themselves trapped in a real-life ghost story.
Format: Book
Availability: No Longer Available
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