Winter's Bone

Ree Dolly receives unfavorable news from the sheriff's officer at the front door. The Dollys risk losing their home if their father fails to appear in court on his next scheduled date because he has skipped bail on accusations that he operated a crystal meth lab.

Ree's dad vanished a while back. Rathlin Valley residents are used to arrests—and the efforts to evade them—because the Dolly dynasty has operated on the murky side of the law for many years. However, unless something terrible occurred, the home is all they own, and Ree's father would never give it up to the bond company. Ree knows she needs to bring her father back, dead or alive, or else see her family tossed out into the merciless cold since she has two small boys who rely on her and a mother who has sort of entered a second childhood.

Raised in the terrible poverty of the Ozarks, sixteen-year-old Ree rapidly learns that asking questions of the tough Dolly clan may be a deadly mistake. She perseveres through many challenges and eventually faces the most powerful members of the family.

Ree uncovers unsuspected depths in herself and in a familial network that will stop at nothing to protect its own on route to a startling discovery.