The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Boulley, Angeline. Firekeeper’s Daughter. Henry Holt and Co., March 16, 2021. Kindle.

In the novel The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley, narrator and main character Daunis Fontaine struggles to find a balance between protecting her Native American heritage and helping the FBI stop a meth epidemic. Daunis is asked to take her Uncle David’s place as a confidential informant after he is found dead of a meth overdose. Daunis believes David died because he relapsed. However, the FBI believes his death was suspicious. Daunis agrees to work with the FBI because her best friend, Lily Chippeway, was murdered by her boyfriend when he was high on meth. Through her investigation, she traces the meth distribution to a source closer to her than she had ever thought possible.

Daunis is introduced to Jamie Johnson, whom she believes is a teenager who has just made the Superiors, a junior hockey league, by her brother, Levi Firekeeper Jr., also a member of the team. Levi asks Daunis, who played hockey in high school, to be Jamie’s Ambassador. Daunis is attracted to Jamie because they appear to have so much in common. At a powwow for minors, Daunis witnesses as Lily is shot by her boyfriend, Travis Flint. Lily was trying to break up with Travis because of his drug habit. He had been taking meth, and Lily had caught him making it. After killing Lily, Travis shot himself. Daunis watches in shock as Jamie checks for Lily’s pulse. He tells Daunis they have to leave. As she puts together the information she has about her situation, Daunis concludes that Jamie is an undercover police officer.

During the course of Lily’s four-day death ritual, Jamie and his “uncle,” Ron Johnson, tell Daunis why they are investigating her community. Other Native American communities in the area have had an influx of meth made with mushrooms found only in Daunis’s region. In one case, the teenagers who received the meth had a group hallucination and craved more meth. Jamie and Ron believe someone associated with the Superiors is trafficking the meth because the drugs show up in other communities after their local teams play the Superiors. Daunis agrees to work with the FBI so she can help bring closure to Lily’s family.

Daunis is busy researching and cataloguing the mushrooms on Sugar Island, where the majority of tribe members live, believing she can help the FBI track the meth if she is able to find hallucinogenic mushrooms. She has a breakthrough when she locates her uncle’s last journal hidden in the bottom of his desk drawer. He also studied mushrooms. He had written in his journal that the mushrooms are a dead end, a detail he did not share with the FBI.

David writes that he suspected one of his students, whom he identified with a symbol, a light bulb, was making the meth. Daunis assumed that the student was Travis, but she knew there must be other people involved because two more young adults had died as a result of meth since Travis killed Lily and himself. About the same time, Levi leaves a birthday gift for Daunis in her room. Daunis is already suspicious of Levi because she has learned he changed the address on their joint account to have statements sent only to him. Levi has accumulated a high balance and has explained it by telling her that he is saving his money to buy some property as an investment.

Daunis’s mother tells her that Levi left two boxes in her bedroom, one wrapped and one not wrapped. Daunis locates an unwrapped box of souvenir hockey pucks hidden in her closet. When she examines one of the pucks, she discovers that it has a lid that unscrews to reveal a small package of meth. Daunis searches Levi’s room at his mother’s house to find more evidence against him.

Later, Daunis lets Levi’s mother, Dana, into her house when Dana comes to her claiming that she is worried about Levi. Dana drugs Daunis and kidnaps her. She takes her to a trailer on a remote portion of Sugar Island where Jamie is already being held hostage. Levi tells her that to save Jamie’s life, she must agree to cook meth for him and the other hockey players who are distributing the drug. Daunis agrees; but, as she is being driven to the makeshift lab, she grabs the wheel of the vehicle, causing a crash.

Daunis is able to alert the authorities and saves Jamie before he is hurt. Mike Edwards, the leader of the drug ring, escapes the police. Levi, who was injured in the crash, is arrested. The coach of the hockey team on which Daunis once played is also arrested as part of the manufacturing team. After Jamie is saved, Daunis loses consciousness and almost dies as a result of her injuries. She has a vision in which Lily comes to her and kisses her on both cheeks, thanking her for bringing to justice those who were causing the drug deaths.