From Travis Mulhauser, “who always honors his characters with firebrand intelligence, knife-sharp wit, and reckless heart,” (Nickolas Butler) comes the gripping story of a desperately hopeful foster child who’s searching for his family—even though they’re dangerous, complicated, and never see him coming.  

There hasn't been a gray wolf in Michigan's lower peninsula in over 100 years, but when one migrates onto the Sawbrook family's vast acreage, the small community of Cutler finds itself in the throes of a panic. A trail of mutilated chickens and barn cats have peppered the area's remote outskirts, and concerns about safety are accompanied by the economic and political cost of an endangered species' uninvited return to northern Michigan. The Sawbrook siblings—Lucy, Buckner, and Jewell—find themselves at odds with locals, property owners, and the state's department of resources.  

When fourteen-year-old runaway Delos Harris arrives on the family property claiming to be the siblings’ second cousin, and to have knowledge of the wolf’s exact location, the Sawbrooks are skeptical, but desperate, and can’t deny something about the boy seems oddly familiar. With time running out, they forge ahead together against gathering threats.  

The state wants the wolf moved, the locals and the developers want it dead, and the Sawbrooks see its return as a decisive victory in their battle to preserve the natural world in northern Michigan. But when a poacher is hired to settle the matter permanently, the Sawbrooks must fight to protect each other, their land, and the brave child whose mysterious connection to the wolf will either save them all, or deliver the Sawbrooks to their final ruin.