At sixteen, Flint has already spent eight years in detention. Part child, part full-grown criminal, he comes home to the one person he loves, his little sister, Cecile. Together they carry out petty thefts, steal their mother's car, and head south to the Crow Reservation. On ancestral land, Flint commits an act of violence that brings down the world around them. Is Cecile Flint's accomplice, or is she his hostage? Only the narrator, the children's deaf aunt, understands the strange logic of their crimes.

Sweet Hearts brims with the same "remarkable characterization ... and taut, magic current of prose, which carries an exhilarating punch" (New York Times Book Review) of Thon's previous books. A poetic fusion of family myth and American history, this mesmerizing novel brings us one woman's silent struggle to unravel the web of violence that has trapped her people for generations.