Sisters in the Wind

by Angeline Boulley

From the instant New York Times bestselling author of Firekeeper’s Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed comes a daring new mystery about a foster teen claiming her heritage on her own terms.

Ever since Lucy Smith’s father died five years ago, “home” has been more of an idea than a place. She knows being on the run is better than anything waiting for her as a “ward of the state.” But when the sharp-eyed and kind Mr. Jameson with an interest in her case comes looking for her, Lucy wonders if hiding from her past will ever truly keep her safe.

Five years in the foster system has taught her to be cautious and smart. But she wants to believe Mr. Jameson and his “friend-not-friend,” a tall and fierce-looking woman who say they want to look after her.

They also tell Lucy the truth her father hid from her: She is Ojibwe; she has – had – a sister, and more siblings; a grandmother who’d look after her and a home where she would be loved.

But Lucy is being followed. The past has destroyed any chance of normal she has had, and now the secrets she’s hiding will swallow her whole and take away the future she always dreamed of.

Genres: Young Adult, Mystery, Fiction, Indigenous, Audiobook, Thriller, Mystery Thriller

370 pages, Hardcover

First published September 2, 2025

About the author

Angeline Boulley, an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is a storyteller who writes about her Ojibwe community in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. She gained attention from the We Need Diverse Books Mentorship Program. Angeline was the former Director of the Office of Indian Education at the U.S. Department of Education. Her agent is Faye Bender at The Book Group. Firekeeper's Daughter has been optioned for a Netflix series by the Obamas' Higher Ground production company.

Reviews

[Reads With Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will never recover from this

[jenny reads a lot · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am an emotional wreck, can’t breathe through all these tears and snot. My chest hurts and I’m gutted.

The book was really freaking good. You should read it if you like a little mystery and feeeling all the feelings. And I do mean ALL the feelings. Sad, happy, angry, stressed af, heartbroken, & hopeful.

This was a very compelling mystery that had me binging the book in less 24 hours. Plenty of shocking reveals and twists!

I also really enjoyed how much care went into including Ojibwe traditions as our FMC learned more about her heritage. Not to mention the information about the Indian Child Welfare Act. I leave this book with more knowledge than I started, and in my humble opinion, one of the best ways to leave a book.

I am fairly familiar with the foster care system and how poorly it functions in general but especially when it comes to indigenous children. This book is a gut wrenching, raw, and unfortunately accurate portrayal on a system that fails far too often.

I am not built for traumatic or overly sad stories - so this will need to be my one allotment for a while, but for those readers who enjoy reading real, raw stories, and whose mental health can handle a little gut wrenching, this is an absolute must read!

All that said, despite the emotional rollercoaster this book puts you through the book ends on a hopeful and joyful note!

Audio Narration: 4/5 I loved the voice, inflection, and pacing of the narrator but the pauses at the end of each sentence were excessively long. Even at 2x speed the pauses felt excessively long, which made the sentence structure and prose feel overly punctuated, which for me, makes it sound dry.

5⭐️| IG | TikTok |

Thank you publisher for the gifted book. All opinions are my own.

[Jonas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sisters in the Wind is the most impactful novel I’ve read this year. The power of fiction is providing the reader a glimpse into the lives, experiences, and struggles that are different from the reader’s lived experiences. Sisters in the Wind does this in so many ways. First and foremost, it provides an insight into the life of indigenous people living today, while also providing historical context for the battles they continue to face.

Historically, the US has not been a safe place for people of color or women. This is most and still true for indigenous women. Sisters in the Wind touches on that, but the greater focus is on how indigenous children are treated. Themes of greed and abuse in the foster care system are the drivers of the narrative. There is a lot of loss in this one, but there is also found family and hope for the future.

Extremely well paced. Characters the reader can connect with and pull for. You don’t need to read the previous three books by the author to fully understand and appreciate Sisters in the Wind. I highly recommend Firekeeper’s Daughter. I loved it, and I loved Sisters in the Wind even more. I LOVE the elders and Granny June in both novels.

I look for stories that have an emotional punch and leave me reeling. Sisters in the Wind does just that.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to Macmillan and NetGalley for a copy of the ALC in exchange for a review. As always, my honest thoughts and opinions are directly below.

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This book follows our FMC, named Lucy Smith, who doesn't know at first that she is part of the Ojibwe. She was always told, growing up, that she is Italian. After her place of employment, a diner, is bombed, she realizes she may be targeted by whoever planted the bomb.

It is now a race against time for her to get away from those who wish her harm so she can prevent anyone else from being harmed. However, her plans of escaping are dashed by an attorney and his friend, who wish to help her reacquaint herself with her birth mother's family.

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I requested this book through NetGalley just for the Native American representation. I have Native American ancestors so I was hoping to learn more about that part of my history. I was really pleased with what I got out of this book.

I'll admit, however, that I was really sad with the end of the book. I went into a bit of slump after I finished the book because of how it ended. I originally didn't want to go into detail but there was one death that I couldn't leave out of the book.

I was really sad over Jamie's death in particular. I felt really bad for the mother of his child that he will now never meet because of the actions of Lucy's former foster parents. I was just shocked at the lengths the former foster parents went to just to make Lucy miserable.

I was questioning their motives for quite a while and I still couldn't figure out what they wanted at the end of the book. I honestly couldn't figure out if they wanted revenge for their son that Lucy's former foster sister killed or if they were helping her other foster family get their stuff back.

I'm glad that we got a happy ending at the end of the book since I will always believe Lucy deserves that. I'm glad she doesn't have to worry about someone coming after her since both foster families were killed.

I feel bad for the foster children that were at the farm house when it was burned down. They didn't deserve to be placed in the middle of that. Stressful and traumatic, much? I can understand why they were using Lucy's baby to get to her but it was all a bit much just to get revenge against her.

I was also shocked at the end when we find out that the Sterling family was behind the bombing but I shouldn't have been shocked when I looked back at it all. I should have seen that coming a mile away.

I also noticed we didn't get a resolution for the case against Lucy. Lucy had been accused of being behind the bombing and even admitted to it. Were the charges against her dropped? I guess we'll never really know, will we?

Yes, I'd recommend this book. I liked the narrator for the audio version, which is how I consumed the book. This is my first book by Angeline and I have a feeling in my gut that I'll be reading other books by her as well.

[Jennifer (Jaye) · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Bittersweet*

This book has broken my heart and then mended it, only for it to break again. I enjoyed reading and listening to the narration by Isabella Lablanc.

The emotions and events often took my breath away as I empathised with the main character Lucy.

Lucy’s life has been tough. Abandoned by her mother from birth, she felt completely loved by her father who raised her and for the most part, it was just the two of them.

However, her father withheld a crucial detail: she was always told she was Mexican. At a later age, she discovers her true identity.

The book alternates between past and present, building a picture of the hardships she endured. We witness her grief at a young age and her resourcefulness as she struggles to make a life for herself alone.

Now, she lives a life of constant vigilance, all at a young age. This is because a lot of things in her past are coming against her.

Eventually, two people track her down, offering help. However, Lucy’s life becomes even more tumultuous as she grapples with trust and the possibility of someone ever having her back.

I’ll leave it there as I don’t want to spoil anything. This book will stay with me for a while. It was difficult to accept that it was inspired by real events, though the author’s note at the end touches on this.

[Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible! Angeline Boulley is such a great storyteller and she seamlessly blends thriller elements with an impactful, character driven plot while also teaching you something important. Sisters in the Wind brings back characters we know from earlier books but focuses on Lucy - girl who has gone through incredibly traumatic experiences in foster care after the death of her white father who never told her that her mother was indigenous.

This is a book about the ICWA law and how it is intended to protect indigenous children in the foster care system by keeping them with relatives or at least with other indigenous families. It's under attack politically and this shines a powerful light on what can happen when those laws fail. It's difficult and heartbreaking, but Lucy is such a resilient protagonist and we get to see how she survives and eventually begins to find healing with her community. I truly can't say enough good things about this book or any books by Boulley. The audio narration is excellent! I received an audio review copy via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

[Nora Suntken · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am realizing that I, tragically, like each Angeline Boulley book less than the last. Some of what was discussed here I think was incredibly important (e.g. ICWA, failures of social services, sexual harassment/assault, etc.), but there was also a lot I found weird and done poorly, for lack of a better word. Lucy's character went through a lot over the course of the story. I was reading Parable of the Talents simultaneously and sometimes I forgot what book I was reading since both were incredibly bleak. This story is more of a true thriller than the other two and I honestly didn't find it all that effective. There was supposed to be this veil of mysteriousness over the plot since Lucy knew more than she told us, but all it did was make me frustrated. I get, as an author, keeping some things hidden up until a certain point, but it dragged on to an extent that I quit caring. I also found women were discussed in kind of a weird way here. Bridget is a pious woman turned comically evil; Daunis is a "horrible person" for a hot minute because Lucy makes an incorrect assumption; Mrs. Sterling is an a nothing-burger of a woman whose only purpose is to please her husband, and more that I'm forgetting right now. There was also a slightly uncomfortable natalist angle that I actively disliked. A genuinely absurd number of characters become pregnant and abortion is totally glossed over as an actual option. And not only just pregnant, they become pregnant at a young age every time! Every character I heard of having a kid was a mother by 25 at the latest. Was this partially because a large chunk of the book took place on a "baby farm"? Maybe, but it actually detracted from the overall message behind the importance of keeping children within native families/birth parents since there was never really an alternative discussed for the, basically children, giving birth. I also barely cared about Lucy in current time. She seemed to be at times just a way for Boulley to convey information through an uninformed character. The book was still incredibly engaging! I legit could barely put it down, but, again, my laundry list of issues is 100x longer for this book than her previous two. I do appreciate how she has created almost a universe within her books without making any of them direct sequels/prequels to each other. Worth a read, but easily my least favorite thing she has written.

[Kari · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 “The ultimate survival game is for girls to survive into adulthood. For the prey to avoid the predators. It’s a wry thought that turns somber when I remember my sister. Some girls don’t survive.”

Angeline Boulley has done it again, writing a book that is equal parts thrilling, emotional, educational, and important. Sisters in the Wind takes place between the time periods in Firekeeper’s Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed. Daunis continues to play a large role in the book as she tries to be a mentor and friend to our main character, Lucy. Consistent with the others in this series, the book centers around relevant topics that include Ojibwe culture, the importance of one’s people, generational trauma, and how the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) can be implemented in a restorative way for native families. Additionally, foster care and adoption play a huge role in this installment.

Weaving together Lucy’s past and present, Boulley builds tension to the point where I just couldn’t put the book down. In the past timeline we watch Lucy growing a thick shield around herself as people and systems fail her over and over again, while in the present, we see bits of that armor start to fall away. While utterly heartbreaking at points and nail-bitingly gripping at others, there are some beautifully quiet moments that make the reader feel hope for the future. The importance of community and family (whether biological or chosen) rang through every chapter, and the line about loving imperfect people (including oneself) was incredibly relatable. Boulley’s characters are so multi-dimensional and real feeling, and this is a huge reason why all of her books have made me cry at some point while reading.

If you decide to pick this one up when it comes out in September (and I think you should), I’d definitely recommend you read Firekeeper’s Daughter first. Thank you so much to Fierce Reads for sending me this book!

[Cheryl Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a story of a young Ojibwe woman's coming of age where she is forced to fight against many things:
● Her ancestry as a partially Indian woman.
● The foster care system
● Her past aggressions she committed when trying to right wrongs done to her as well as those she loved and cared about
● Males treatment of her…gawking at her as she develops early is only one thing she has to deal with
● Knowing who will tell her the truth and protect her
● Adults wielding power over her

It is such a sad thing to be a put into the foster care system, a place where children without parents to take care of them should have a second chance of being cared for properly. Many instead including our protagonist Lucy, were put in situations where they had no protection. They were placed where the foster parents had all the power and were believed over children being abused.

Lucy's woes were increased by the prejudice of many individuals against “Indian” people.

The pace of this book was fast and both of the dual time lines were action packed as they converged to meet.

Lucy and several other key characters were so well written. That included the black, the white and the morally grey characters.

There were so many other extremely interesting characters including the other teens in foster care along with Lucy, the foster care officials as well as relatives.

Books like Sisters In the Wind are so important. A magnifying lamp should be held up to spotlight works like Boulley's that bring attention to the prejudicial words and actions that our indigenous peoples must endure.

Having read both her first book The Firekeepers Daughter and her sophomore novel Warrior Girl Unearthed I am so grateful for the work she continues to do. She is certainly a writer I will continue to follow.

I highly recommend this well written and heart felt novel.

A huge thank you to one of my very favorite authors Angeline Boulley and her publishing house, Henry Holt and Company for the opportunity to read an advance copy of Sisters In The Wind. As always a thank you to NetGalley for facilitating the reading of advance reader copies.

Publication day is September 2.

[Azanta (azantareads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars rounded up / i am actually devastated 😭😭😭😭😭 Angeline Boulley breaks my heart with every book she writes and i come back for more each time omg i need a hug

[rachel x]

new boulley! i could not be more excited

[Kobe]

my heart broke for so many characters in this story who were victims of a flawed system SUCH a compelling book

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Angeline Boulley delivers another powerful YA novel with Sisters in the Wind. It’s a stand alone novel, but readers of Firekeeper’s Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed will recognize a couple of familiar characters.

Set in 2009 in Northern Michigan, we follow Lucy Smith, an eighteen-year-old who was placed in foster care after losing her father and being abandoned by her stepmother. Raised to believe she was part Italian by her white father, Lucy is often mistaken for Native American—an identity question that takes on new meaning when a lawyer approaches her with a chance to connect with her Ojibwe family. Through him, Lucy learns about the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) and the role it plays in preserving Native identity. Flashbacks to her five years in foster care show how the system stripped her of those roots. But as Lucy begins to learn of her heritage, dangerous secrets from the past has put her life at risk.

Lucy is a well-drawn character, relatable for young readers, and her journey has both tender and heartbreaking turns. While the pacing slows a bit in the middle, the novel is an engaging, suspenseful, and meaningful read about reclaiming cultural identity, intergenerational trauma, belonging, and resilience.

[Zana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would make such a great drama/slowburn crime thriller film or TV series. I'm thinking a moody atmosphere and a gray palette to match the Michigan fall/winter. Definitely a Native led production with a compelling teen actress at the forefront of the movie. Film gods, hear my plea. (It's difficult to turn off my hyperphantasia.)

This was a really slow read for me due to the heavy topics (foster care, child abuse, etc.) and the fact that I didn't want it to end. This is one of those stories where you have to be in the right mindset (I wasn't), so it took me a while to finish this audiobook.

I wish this was a 4.5 or higher star read for me. The middle was pretty bogged down by middling details so it was sort of difficult to parse out what was important and what wasn't. The FMC was also an unreliable narrator at times. Combine that with a lot of flashbacks and I was a bit confused with some of the subplots and relationships.

Other than that, Isabella Star LaBlanc was a wonderful narrator who really made me feel like I was listening to a friend telling me her life story. Props to her for pronouncing the names of Michigan places correctly! It added another layer of immersion and relatability.

And of course, we always stan an ownvoices audiobook narrator.

Thank you to Macmillan Young Listeners and NetGalley for this arc.

[BiblioBrandie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gosh, I had such high hopes for this one. I really liked Firekeeper's Daughter, loved Warrior Girl Unearthed, and this started out really strong for me. Set five years after FD and five years before WGU, I was thrilled to see Daunis and Jamie back in the story. This one follows Lucy, who's on the run, and you don't know why until flashbacks slowly reveal what happened. Everything's going fine until the last 80 pages or so, when so many sharks are jumped, I just couldn't even.

Everyone dies. What the heck? I wanted the bad people to get their comeuppance by rotting in jail, not this. I have a hard time believing the lengths her former foster parents go to for revenge just because she outed their pedophile son. All these teens go missing from the farm, and that family still gets assigned foster kids—seriously, wtf? There's no resolution for all the lost kids or the bodies buried on the farm. Is baby farming really that big a problem in foster care? Maybe I'm just uninformed, but both families were in on it? What? And her manipulative stepmother, Bridget, was apparently some master grifter playing the long game with Lucy's dad. No resolution with her character either.

It all made for a deeply unsatisfying ending.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to wait a bit before reviewing this, to see if I might change my mind about the rating. Unfortunately, I think 3 stars might even be too generous. It started off strong, but stalled very quickly. It seemed like nothing happened at all through the middle of the book, and then when things finally started moving along and the pieces started "coming together", it just left me feeling irritated and confused. The mystery made absolutely no sense to me, and there were a lot of plot lines that didn't get resolved. The author brought up the Indian Child Welfare Act, so I thought that would be a major driving force in the story, but it was barely a footnote. It just felt really messy overall, and I really wanted to like it more than I did.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved Firekeeper’s Daughter, but this one was a total miss for me. The main character is pretty one dimensional and while I am happy to see Daunis and Jamie again, it seemed more for convenience to the plot than anything that made real life sense. The plot doesn’t hold together well and the pacing is off. Just when you think you will start to put the pieces together, the story veers off into another lecture about ICWA. Firekeeper’s Daughter managed to be educational but never took you out of the story the way this one does. Finally, the denouement is straight up ridiculous and terribly sad at the same time. I actually see glimmers of a good story in this, but the execution is a failure sadly.

[TheNextGenLibrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the world of The Firekeeper’s Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed comes a new YA mystery by @angelineboulley
🪶
Lucy has been a part of the foster care system for the last five years, ever since her father died and her stepmom turned out to be someone very different than she led them to believe. One day when she’s waitressing a man and woman show up to say they want to look after Lucy. They also share that Lucy’s father was Ojibwe and she has siblings and a grandmother who wants her live with her. In addition to this revolutionary bombshell Lucy also realizes someone is following her and she wonders if it’s all connected somehow.
🪶
Boulley does an amazing job, as always, highlighting past and current atrocities and history of Indigenous Peoples’. This book specifically discusses the foster care system and stolen Native children, something that is still such a shock for me to have learned about not that long ago. We need more books like this to bring light to issues we don’t hear enough about. This novel releases September 2!

CW: sexual harassment, religious bigotry, misogyny, sexism, death, generational trauma, stalking, foster care, missing people, kidnapping

I just can't love these like others do and it really bothers me! 3.5 stars

[B 🌻 · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was beyond amazing, I learnt so much! I don’t think I will ever forget this book.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

ALL the stars! Oh my goodness gracious, my heart is in shambles. I'm not sure why Angeline didn't mark this book as the sequel to Firekeeper's Daughter, because it really needs to be, since the story wouldn't make sense unless you've read Firekeeper's Daughter first. I experienced all the feelings during this book: anger, profound sadness, frustration, indignation, horror, joy, love, hope, sorrow, terror, injustice, plus many more. I couldn't really ask for more out of a book; it was educational and engaging, it was equally heartwarming and heartbreaking, and it was very thought-provoking. As great as the US can be at times, this country has also done some god awful and unforgivable things. Overall, I absolutely LOVED this book and will absolutely read this again.

This book is technically a young adult book, but man, is it heavy. It reads more like an adult novel.

Format: ebook

Thank you SOOOO MUCH to NetGalley, Angeline Boulley, and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for the ARC! It was an absolute honor to review this book.

[Ashlee DeGraaf · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am unwell. This book was outstanding. Not once has Angeline Boulley missed.

[Violet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for the Fall Goodreads Native Voices Reading Challenge:
https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/2...

I chose to read this book because of its high rating but should have picked a different genre for this challenge, as young adult fiction doesn't appeal to me.

[Mirabel (kinda back) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Patty (IheartYA311) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boulley is an auto-read author for me. I love her writing. This story was strong, heavy, and emotional, but won't be as memorable as her previous work (for me). There were lulls in the pacing that bogged down the story. The characters were complex and fresh. I think she set an unreachable bar with Firekeeper's Daughter.

If you love active book communities, check out LiterALLy BOOKiSh Book Club (on Facebook)! Games, giveaways, discussions, reviews, bingo, swaps, traveling books, and a lot more!

[Ashlie Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sisters in the Wind is the September 2025 Book Club Babes pick! Maybe sure you listen along wherever you pod. 😘

“You waste more energy fighting the sad than sitting with it.”

“But I learned a long time ago that we can love imperfect people, and that includes ourselves.”

It’s hard to write a spoiler-free review of Sisters in the Wind that does this beautiful book justice. Boulley writes with her entire heart. She was able to make the book devastating and thrilling and so so beautiful, all in one.

[Leah (Jane Speare) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my god that was heartbreaking.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

I loved this author's Firekeeper’s Daughter. So there were expectations going into this one. I definitely caught glimpses of that same brilliance here. The author knows how to weave a compelling story that keeps me turning the pages. Add to that a cast of characters cloaked in mystery and who hold their cards close as the layers and their motives are revealed.

What I appreciate the most about this author is that her stories feel new. They're not recycled plots that I've seen again and again. She also has a real flair for the unexpected...and as in her other book that I've read, she has a flair for the the highly unlikely. To buy into the more improbable twists, I need to fully love the characters. That wasn't quite the case here. Interesting? Yes. But I wasn't completely pulled in.

Overall, I liked this one. The writing and plot felt fresh, wild moments and all. So, I'll round up to 4 stars.

[Bethany Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

ANGELINE BOULLEY NEVER MISSES 💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻

Thank you so much to @henryholtbooks for the advanced copy to review!

Y’all. @angelineboulley never misses. Her books are ALWAYS incredible, full of rich and flawed and wonderful characters, packed with emotional punches, and full of Indigenous life. I have been obsessed since reading Firekeeper’s Daughter. In case you were wondering, these books can be read as standalones BUT I would recommend reading them in pub order.

Sisters In the Wind had me completely captivated from page one. I wanted to fly through it but also savor the journey Lucy went on. The dual timelines in this story were *so* effective. My heart raced each time we went back and forth. The mystery was fantastic. I loved seeing Daunis and Jamie again. I LOVED the twists and turns this story took. Watching Lucy grow was a privilege. That ending!!! Had me shook!!!

I would return to this world again and again, because how can I not? No spoilers - but let me tell you, this book is NOT to be missed. It is so fresh and interesting and heartbreaking and there are also beautiful moments of levity.

Absolutely recommend. I preordered and will patiently wait for my opportunity to see Angeline in person again because she is AMAZING and I have to add this one to my signed collection

[Lisa Penninga · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my new favorite of the three Boulley books! Wow! I loved the use of flashbacks, former characters from the first two books, and exposure to the foster care system as well as corrupt adoptions. Lucy is a strong protagonist with a motif of fire and ash surrounding her, which is such a powerful symbol and use of plot development. The use of Michigan history, allusions, and settings is so well done. I loved it from the first page to the last, and definitely got emotional reading it. The message that we all carry good and bad with us, and should never shame others into thinking you can only be good or bad, is so well done and acknowledges the way that some Christians do that in a toxic manner. I definitely recommend reading this book, as a true finale to The Firekeepers Daughter.

[Elizabeth Kennard · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Angeline Boulley has no readers I am dead