The Origin of Ava
Three lives are drawn together by fate, flight, and the healing power of nature.
Ava Estmund has everything under control. She is a rising star in the world of ornithology, a respected professor, and comfortably in love with a fellow academic. But when her father and star student both die on the same day, Ava abandons everything and everyone she knows and retreats to her uncle's birding casa in Ecuador.
Eleven-year-old Greer Groff is on the run in the wilderness of western Idaho. The only witness to an act of shocking violence, she must survive on her own using her wits, imagination, and only a dog and two llamas for company.
Ezra Kittredge is determined to escape the shadow of his felony conviction. He may have served his time, but he's done waiting for freedom. He jumps parole on a container ship bound for Central America, willing to leave everything behind to escape a future defined by his past.
Subtly suffused with myth and woven together by ravens, The Origin of Ava is a timeless and timely reminder that however hard we try to break with the past, we may just be setting up a collision course with our truest selves.
Author: Annie Lampman
Publisher: Torrey House Press
Published: 03/10/2026
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.59lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.25w x 0.58d
ISBN: 9798890920201
Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 02/01/2026
Booklist 03/01/2026
About the Author
ANNIE LAMPMAN is the author of the award-winning novel Sins of the Bees and the poetry chapbook Burning Time. Her short stories, poetry, and narrative essays have been published in seventy-some literary journals and anthologies, including Orion Magazine and The Massachusetts Review. Lampman holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Idaho and has been awarded the 2020 American Fiction Award for Crime Thriller, the Dogwood Literary Award in Fiction, a Best American Essays "Notable," and a Pushcart Prize special mention. She lives in Pullman, Washington, where she bird watches, grows a pollinator garden, and restores a National Historic Registry home.