The Removed was a book that I unexpectedly loved reading. The manuscript arrived in mid-March, about a week after we transitioned to working from home and about a week into my pandemic-induced reading slump. The story of one family’s pain interspersed with the voice of a Cherokee ancestral spirit sounded interesting, but not interesting enough to distract me from reading the news, figuring out how to use the VPN, and whether or not it was okay to go to the grocery store.

I carried around the manuscript for weeks, and quickly approaching deadlines forced me to finally put my phone down and settle in with my binder-clipped pages and a pen. I couldn’t put it down.