elatsoe
by Darcie Little Badger, illustrated by Rovina Cai
Locus Award Winner—Best First Novel
A National Indie Bestseller
Nebula Award Finalist
Lodestar Award Finalist
Ignyte Award Finalist
A Texas teen comes face-to-face with a cousin’s ghost and vows to unmask the murderer.
Elatsoe—Ellie for short—lives in an alternate contemporary America shaped by the ancestral magics and knowledge of its Indigenous and immigrant groups. She can raise the spirits of dead animals—most importantly, her ghost dog Kirby.
When her beloved cousin dies, all signs point to a car crash, but his ghost tells her otherwise: He was murdered. Who killed him and how did he die?
With the help of her family, her best friend Jay, and the memory great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother, Elatsoe must track down the killer and unravel the mystery of this creepy town and its dark past. But will the nefarious townsfolk and a mysterious Doctor stop her before she gets started?
A breathtaking debut novel featuring an asexual, Apache teen protagonist, Elatsoe combines mystery, horror, noir, ancestral knowledge, haunting illustrations, and fantasy elements in one of the most-talked about debuts of the year.
Type: Young Adult Novel
Pages: 368
Format: Paperback
Publication: October 31, 2023
ISBN: 9781646142767
Type: Young Adult Novel
Pages: 368
Format: Hardcover
Publication: August 25, 2020
ISBN: 9781646140053
Praise
Locus Award Winner
A National Indie Bestseller
TIME’s Best 100 Fantasy Books of All Time
FINALIST:
Nebula Award • Lodestar Award • Ignyte Award • AIYLA • NEIBA Award
Best of the Year:
NPR • BookPage • Publishers Weekly • Buzzfeed • Shelf-Awareness • Booklist • Chicago Public Library • AICL • REACTOR • KIRKUS
A Publishers Weekly Flying Start
★ “A fresh voice and perspective.” —Booklist (starred)
★ “A unique and powerful Native American voice.”–BookPage (starred)
★ “A brilliant, engaging debut.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
★ “A fast-paced murder mystery.”—Publishers Weekly (starred)
★ “A Lipan Apache Sookie Stackhouse for the teen set.”—Shelf-Awareness (starred)
“Groundbreaking.” —TIME
“Deeply enjoyable from start to finish.”—NPR
“Utterly magical.”—SyFyWire
“Atmospheric and lyrical...a gorgeous work of art.”—BuzzFeed
“One of the best YA debuts of 2020. Read it."—Marieke Nijkamp
Q&A
Darcie Little Badger speaks to André-Naquian Wheeler about seeking out asexual representation growing up, the theme of justice in her work, and pandemic productivity. Read more ›
About darcie little badger
Darcie Little Badger is an Earth scientist, writer, and fan of the weird, beautiful, and haunting. She is an enrolled member of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas. Her Locus Award-winning debut novel, Elatsoe, was a National Indie Bestseller, named to over a dozen best-of-year lists, and called one of the Best 100 Fantasy Novels of All Time by TIME. Her second novel, A Snake Falls to Earth was longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature and received a Newbery Award Honor.
About Rovina Cai
Rovina Cai is a freelance illustrator based in Melbourne, Australia. She works out of an old convent building that is possibly haunted. Her work has been recognized by the Society of Illustrators and the Children’s Book Council of Australia. Recently she has illustrated books by Patrick Ness and Margo Lanagan.
Follow Rovina on Twitter at @RovinaCaiArt.
