Warrior Girl Unearthed

Content Warning: This section discusses the kidnapping, murder, and rape of Indigenous women and mistreatment of human remains.

The first book in the Firekeeper Universe is Boulley’s 2021 debut novel, Firekeeper’s Daughter. Like Warrior Girl Unearthed, it has elements of mystery, adventure, and romance. It follows Daunis Fontaine, who is 18 at the time. Daunis is deeply connected to her Anishinaabe side but is unenrolled in the tribe and struggles with her maternal side’s white, French ancestry and financial privilege. An epidemic of drug abuse and overdose plagues the Tribe. Over the course of the novel, Daunis’s best friend Lily Chippeway is killed by her ex-boyfriend, who has a substance use disorder. Daunis discovers that her brother’s hockey teammate Jamie and their coach Ron are undercover FBI agents investigating a meth cell operating out of her community. They recruit her as an informant, though her real priority is helping her community.

Daunis eventually discovers that her brother Levi and other members of the hockey team are involved in the cell. Daunis is raped by Grant Edwards, the father of one of the hockey players in the meth ring, Mike. Neither of the Edwards men is ever brought to justice.