For 15-year-old Emma Wilson, everything is changing. Uncomfortable at home and in school, Emma is growing up and feels isolated from her friends and family. Things go from bad to unfathomably worse when Emma inadvertently triggers an accident that kills her increasingly distant father on a spring break canoe trip meant to bring them closer together. Suddenly, Emma’s efforts to reconcile with her father as a parent and a person have to happen without him, and she must confront her guilt and her grief to begin moving forward. With the help of river rats, ranch hands, and her horse, Magic, Emma finds strength in herself as she and her family navigate their reentry into “normal” life.
- Reading the West Award Winner
- Oregon Book Awards Reader’s Choice Award Winner
“Treichel’s realistic and compelling characterization of Emma highlights a maturity into adulthood that offers no easy solutions to the difficulty of grief, but celebrates the best of her family.”
Publisher’s Weekly, starred review
“This story about fathers and daughters and grief takes you on an unexpected trip through a girl’s sudden coming-of-age, and the deep canyons of who she might be long after the last page. A brilliant and subtle book that sweeps through you with the grace and violence of a river.”
Carrie Mesrobian, author of Just a Girl and The Whitsun Daughters
“With insight, passion and sneaky humor, Treichel probes deeply in life’s pool of what’s trivial and what’s not.”
Robin Cody, author of Ricochet River