This is the story of Kya. The book begins when she is seven and lives in a ramshackle cabin with her abusive father, mother and siblings in the marshes and swamps of North Carolina. One day her mother leaves... and never returns. Shortly thereafter, her siblings leave as well, leaving Kya alone with her father. Over the years her angry father spends less and less time at the cabin, and Kya realizes one day, that he was also gone forever.
Kya has, by necessity, grown fiercely independent, living off what the land provides, studying the animals and plants, and occasionally trading goods with the friendly man at a small local shop.
When she is 14, she meets a boy named Tate who becomes her first friend. Tate teaches her to read and helps her to discover books about the nature and animals that she so loves, that have surrounded her for all of her life, and kept her alive. She falls in love with Tate, and he with her.
However, after several years, he leaves for college, vowing to return... but he too never comes back.
Feeling abandoned by everyone in her life, she makes a new friend of a local boy named Chase who is a member of a prominent local family. She is once again in love and happy, at least until Chase's body is found, and then her life is changed forever.
Part coming of age story, largely a love letter to nature and animals, with just a bit of murder mystery thrown in... I couldn't get enough of this book. Fabulous!
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