Sisters in the Wind is a lovely book, part coming of age, partly about incredible resilience and a lot about trauma. Lucy’s very close to her father. He is very socially conservative and rigid but loving in her upbringing. Her mother died when she was very young. But then, her father starts dating for the first time. The woman he dates, then marries seemed fine, but eventually things go awry very soon after her father dies. Her stepmother turns out to be of the Snow White variety. Lucy commits a vengeful act and flees. Eventually, she ends up in the foster system.
We meet Lucy when she is older and working in a restaurant where she is loved and accepted. But when a man comes there and tried to convince her she is of the Ojibwe tribe and she has family members who are indigenous, Lucy flees again. During her foster years, she first lived with a lovely older woman and an older foster sister she dearly loved. She then is placed with a very religious family with a lovely younger girl and a teenaged son. Has to leave. She ends up with a kind family on a farm that feels like a dream come true. Has to leave. And then, her restaurant. A very bad thing happens there soon after she meets the man. Lucy is the target. It becomes clear she is being pursued and it is unclear by whom. Her entire past, known and unknown comes flying back in a jumble where safety is indiscernible. She has to make each dangerous decision instinctively about how to survive.
Boulley’s depth in developing Lucy’s story and the way she grows, with values good and bad that she retains or develops along the way makes this novel. It is interesting, unnerving, sweet at times, unspeakably upsetting at others. The people Lucy ticked off are very, very scary. I superdeduper recommend this novel. Just writing about it long after I read it makes me want to listen to it again, even knowing all the surprise twists in it. Audio Book narrator, Isabella Star LaBlanc was unbelievably good.
They Called me Bookworm 