The Origin of Ava

Three lives are drawn together by fate, flight, and the healing power of nature. "Remarkable. A tough, gritty, and richly observed story...All the more powerful when compassion, camaraderie, grace, and beauty break through."--PHIL KLAY, National Book Award winner and author of RedeploymentAva Waters has everything under control. She is a rising star in the world of ornithology, a respected professor, and comfortably in love with a fellow academic. But when her father and star student both die on the same day, Ava abandons everything and everyone she knows and retreats to her uncle's birding casa in Ecuador.Eleven-year-old Greer Groff is on the run in the wilderness of western Idaho. The only witness to an act of shocking violence, she must survive on her own using her wits, imagination, and only a dog and two llamas for company.Ezra Kittredge is determined to escape the shadow of his felony conviction. He may have served his time, but he's done waiting for freedom. He jumps parole on a container ship bound for Central America, willing to leave everything behind to escape a future defined by his past.Subtly suffused with myth and woven together by ravens, The Origin of Ava is a timeless and timely reminder that however hard we try to break with the past, we may just be setting up a collision course with our truest selves.