In 1951 Tidewater, VA ten-year-old Gracie sits, tears streaming, clutching her dog. Her daddy is sending her and Brown Hound to Grandma Emily for the summer. They are too rowdy for her high-strung mother.

On the North Carolina farm Gracie meets her family. Great Granny Jane smokes a pipe and is fast with her cane, Grandma Emily is loving but firm, and cousin Jane has a swashbuckler's heart. It is a wild and heady freedom, away from her mother's scorn and her father's indifference. The girls explore ancient cemeteries, brave the conjure woman, fight, make up, and sleep tangled like puppies. But Marcell looms.

With unreadable eyes, dark skin that holds a tragic history and a deep hatred of dogs, the solitary housekeeper's power lies in concealing family secrets. Can she send Brown Hound away? With reckless courage born of fear and hope, the girls resolve to save Brown Hound, smash through shuttered layers of yesteryears secrets and reveal the families' truth.

"Beautifully written with raw insight and a quick wit. A story of three generations of women that find strength in one another, despite the grip of an intolerable past." - Carine McCandless, Author of The Wild Truth, the New York Times bestselling follow-up to Into the Wild