Murdoch McNeil survives the Highland Clearances in the 1850s only to become orphaned on the streets of New York City. He stumbles into a legal career in the 1870s, where his desire to become accepted by the Gilded Age's upper middle class and resolve the trauma of the Clearances leads him to commit land fraud. Murdoch forges a deed for a tract of land in New Mexico's Maxwell Land Grant. As the United States Government decides which frauds they will accept and which frauds they will revoke, Murdoch must move his family to a land very different from his comfortable New York City brownstone and make his business appear legitimate.

Along the way he adopts Kewanee, a Potawatomi girl standing headstrong against the brutality of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Kewanee makes a bargain of her own: pass as white to become accepted as Murdoch's daughter, avoid being returned to the residential schools, and eventually pursue a legal career of her own. The two characters navigate their childhood traumas, find common ground in their relationships to being dispossessed of their land and heritage, and choose either resiliency or self-destruction as they decide how to respond to their circumstances.

This work of historical fiction uses these characters to explore the larger questions of how the United States expanded, who was able to seize power for themselves, and the bargains that individuals and governments had to make to achieve their goals. All of the references and research used to vet this book are contained in endnotes. "Land Shadows" may either be enjoyed as a traditional novel, or used in the classroom to teach about using storytelling to illustrate historical concepts.