An international bestseller in the United States and Canada

 

Winner of the 2019 New Hampshire Writers' Project Readers' Choice Award for Fiction

 

Nine-year-old Rusty Travis and his older brother Bo can’t take it anymore. The manual labor forced upon them has worn them thin and callused their hands. Water is rationed and the heat is slowly killing them. They miss their mom.

 

She lives on the same lot as them but in a different trailer, separated by a single plum tree. They’re not allowed to see her. And now that their dad has gone after their baby sister, Ruby, it’s up to them to do what’s needed for survival.

 

Desperate to change their fates, Rusty and Bo run away into the forest. They stay nearby and closely watch their dad’s trailer. When the time is right, they’ll risk it all to save themselves and their sister.

 

But the town of Plum Springs, Kentucky, and its secrets won’t make it easy. All the boys need is for someone to show them mercy. They’re just boys.

 

In these parts, family ties and twisted loyalty runs deep …

 

… maybe too deep.