Reviewer’s Choice | Midwest Book Review

May 2025

“In 1999, Abby Reyes lost her partner, Terence Unity Freitas, as he and two others were murdered after departing Kajka Ika (the heart of the world) of Indigenous U'wa territory in Colombia.

Imperiled by multinational oil interests, U'wa lifeways were under attack. Terence, Ingrid Washinawatok El-Issa (Menominee), and Lahe'ena'e Gay (Hawaiian) arrived to listen to community needs and accompany the U'wa. But then they disappeared. Days later, their bodies were found, bound and bullet-riddled in a cow field across the border in Venezuela.

Twenty years later, Abby finds herself in Case 001 of Colombia's truth and recognition process. They want to know her stories. They want to know her questions. They want to know her truth demands: the fragments she's held for decades about the last days of Terence's life…”