The Bones of Earth is a character-driven story with a contemporary sub-theme (i.e., is eco-terrorism pro-environmental?).

KYLE HOYER is a young man from a farm family on the brink of ruin. Believing in the general opportunities education provides, his family sends him to the local university where he falls under the influence of visionary ecology professors MARC and SHANNON BATES. Stirred by the Bates’ ideals of self-sacrificial activism—and enamored with the eerily beautiful Shannon —Kyle performs ever more dangerous acts of eco-terrorism to prove his devotion to the causes Marc and Shannon espouse.

As Kyle loses himself to the environmental idealism of the Bateses, his eldest brother TOMMY HOYER struggles to keep the family farm going. The discovery of lead contamination from a nearby shooting range, and a misunderstanding with the police further endanger the Hoyer homestead. Meanwhile, watching the farm’s profitability narrow, and brooding on his recently dissolved (and secret) relationship with Shannon , the once-capable middle brother BAILAN HOYER grows distant and increasingly prone to menacing behavior.

When Bailan discovers Kyle’s responsibility for a local eco-terrorist stunt gone awry, the brothers’ mutual obsession with Shannon propels them toward an act of violence that only Tommy— Shannon ’s former fiancé—can foresee and prevent.

The Bones of Earth is about a young man shielded from the consequences of self-aggrandizing activism by the love of an older brother.