When Mackenzie wakes up with a severed crow’s head in her hands, she panics. Only moments earlier she had been fending off masses of birds in a snow-covered forest. In bed, when she blinks, the head disappears.
Night after night, Mackenzie’s dreams return her to a memory from before her sister Sabrina’s untimely death: a weekend at the family’s lakefront campsite, long obscured by a fog of guilt. But when the waking world starts closing in, too – crows stalk her every move around the city; she gets threatening text messages from someone claiming to be Sabrina – Mackenzie knows this is more than she can handle alone.
Travelling north to her rural hometown in Alberta, she finds her family still steeped in the same grief that she ran away to Vancouver to escape. They welcome her back, but their shaky reunion only seems to intensify her dreams – and make them more dangerous.
What really happened that night at the lake, and what did it have to do with Sabrina’s death? Only a bad Cree would put their family at risk, but what if whatever has been calling Mackenzie home was already inside her?
Jessica Johns is a Nehiyaw aunty and member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta. Bad Cree initially began as a short story that went on to win the 2020’s Writers’ Trust McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, but Johns didn’t feel like the story was completed. So, she decided to expand the story, and write her debut novel. Bad Cree will take you by the hand and show you the power of dreams – that they shake, alter and profoundly change lives.
Mackenzie struggles to live a normal life as she is haunted by dreams of her sister’s death. The dreams don’t always reflect her memories, but to her, they seem real, as if she’d just simply forgotten them. But then things begin to deteriorate further when her waking and dream worlds begin blending and Mackenzie finds herself being stalked by angry crows wherever she goes. Desperate to find answers, she returns home, only to discover that her dreams are becoming reality…
This novel is a tale of grief, love and the power of family. As Mackenzie is haunted by her dreams, so too is the reader. Guilt consumes her everyday life and when it bleeds into her dreams, she finds it difficult to function, but she never gives up. Readers will find Mackenzie’s unbreakable spirit relatable, and will come to admire her for it. Johns also introduces us to other likeable, feisty characters who are proud of their Cree culture, and I certainly learned a lot from these strong women and men. They teach important lessons of learning to trust your gut, ask for support when needed, and never give up. It’s a novel that’s full of heart and shows us that, even in the darkness, there is always hope.
In this gripping, horror-laced debut, a young Cree woman’s dreams lead her on a perilous journey of self-discovery that ultimately forces her to confront the toll of a legacy of violence on her family, her community and the land they call home. Bad Cree is a powerful page-turner that will captivate the hearts of all kinds of readers. If you love thrillers with deep, emotional characters, this book is for you.
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