When 276 schoolgirls are abducted from their school in Nigeria, Fidelis Ewerike, a Florida-based barrister, poet, and former POW of the Nigerian Civil War, begins to go mad. Consumed by memories of his younger sister, Ugochi, who went missing during that conflict and fearful that the same fate awaits Amara, his sixteen-year-old daughter—who bears an uncanny resemblance to Ugochi—Fidelis locks her in her bedroom and offers no explanation.

As a result of that singular action, the Ewerike family spirals into chaos. After unsuccessful attempts to free her daughter from her room, Fidelis’s wife, Adaobi, seeks the counsel of a preacher, praying for spiritual liberation from the curse she is certain has plagued her family since leaving Nigeria. Fourteen-year-old Chuk, beset by his own war with the neighborhood boys, receives a painful education on force, masculinity, and his tenuous position within his family. And rebellious, resentful Amara is hungry for her life to be hers, so the moment she escapes her imprisonment, she falls in love—not with the Nigerian-born engineer-in-training her mother wanted, but with Maksym Kostyk, the son of the town drunk. Before long, the two have concocted a plan to run away. But for all that they have endured and for all that they’re tempted to forsake, the Ewerikes find that their bonds run deeper and stronger than they ever knew.

This book contains scenes depicting child abuse and domestic abuse and mentions of sexual assault.