Thank you @berkleypub for my complimentary copy and @prhaudio for my gifted audiobook. My thoughts are my own.

Syd Walker escaped from a grueling night of terror when she was growing up in Oklahoma. Fifteen years later, Syd lives in Rhode Island and works as a Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. When a skull is found near the old Oklahoma crime scene, Syd reluctantly returns to Oklahoma to investigate the skull as well as the recent disappearance of two women, including her sister, Emma Lou. As she delves into the case, she discovers that even more indigenous women have gone missing, and she determines to get to the bottom of things.

This compelling mystery, though fictional, brings to light some of the crimes against indigenous Americans and how even law enforcement has ignored them. With well developed characters, a complex and intriguing plot, this one kept me engaged from page one. I also listened to portions of the book but I enjoyed the print version much more than the audio. I felt the narrator did not have much expression in her voice and I found myself getting distracted.

Read this if you enjoy dark plots, complex characters, and a fast-moving, compelling storyline.

Syd Walker is a Native American archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). I have to admit I wasn't well-versed in the different governmental agencies involved with Native Americans and that was quite the eye-opener in this story. Syd is currently living in Rhode Island and gets reassigned to help investigate the case of a skull found with her ID card. Yeah. Creepy.

To say that Syd doesn't want to return to Oklahoma is an understatement. After a devastating incident in her teens, she doesn't want to go back there. There's too much trouble, too many missing girls and now her sister is one of them. Blood Ties is very much about Syd recovering from what happened with the "devils" and figuring out who she is in the present. She often sees and hears her deceased sister Luna. Her wife is pregnant and she's ambivalent about it. Lots of mixed emotions and failures color her thinking.

As Syd hunts for her other sister, she's fearless, sometimes getting into some very dangerous situations. But she doesn't give up her search for truth and justice. The story moves along quite well and there's a complexity that I liked. This was quite a bit of new material for me regarding Native American conditions and culture and I really liked that about the story, even though it wasn't always butterflies and roses. It was dark and gritty and didn't always work out the way things should.

I feel like I must mention that the author's notes are a must read for this title. The missing indigenous women are not fiction -- this story is based on real events. I thoroughly enjoyed the Native American culture that graces this book and those were the parts I liked the most. I did like Syd as well -- from her confusion to her dedication, she was a very interesting character.

So overall, I liked this story and what I learned while reading it. It wasn't just a suspenseful thriller -- it's a powerful story about indigenous people and their history. It's about exploitation of resources and the impact of addiction. There's a lot to unpack here, and it was worth it.

A gripping Own Voices story about the crisis of missing indigenous women and the woman who returns to her hometown after her sister disappears. Syd Walker left her family and life behind in Oklahoma when she began her job as an archaeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and is still processing a traumatic event that happened when she was younger. Now, she may be the only one to find her missing sister and get justice for the crime that was committed so many years ago. This was riveting and fast-paced and I couldn't put it down.

Many thanks to Berkley for the ARC.

Thanks @berkleypub for this eARC

I knew I was going to like this one but wow did it blow me away. This is one of those books that you will keep thinking about weeks if not months later. Syd works for BIA as an archeologist - she is a white passing Native - two spirits which we also get a little bit in the story. She has to go back to Oklahoma to help on a case and what comes along with that is a lot of personal trauma and history but also generational trauma and history as well. Oh, and her sister is missing. This is not only a fantastic crime(s) thriller it’s also an important read.

Vanessa does a fantastic job of keeping the readers guessing what's next while we are also learning about MMIWG2S, Native life, the history of Cherokee and other Nations, Oklahoma and the BIA. You can tell this is an Indigenous own voices novel .

I don’t know if my archeologist skills are up to Syd’s outside activities level but I love that this story can replace older narratives about archeology. I loved Syd- she is my new favorite fictional badass archy!

I can’t not wait for more of Vanessa’s work and hope we get many books in this series or a new series from her! Wonderfully done and highly recommended!!

Blood Sisters follows Syd Walker, an archeologist with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who is called back home after a skull is found close to where a horrific event occured 15 years ago. Upon returning home, she discovers that her sister is missing and begins to suspect the two cases may be connected.

I enjoyed the mystery and following along with Syd as she uncovers secrets about her community that some would rather keep buried.
To be honest, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Syd a majority of the time but I appreciated her determination to not only bring her sister home but to get justice for the countless missing Indigenous women that the government has ignored.

My interest did begin to wane around half-way through but I’m very glad I stuck with it because there were some good twists near the end that I did not see coming!

Vanessa Lillie's Blood Sisters is a powerful and compelling mystery, featuring Syd Walker, a BIA archaeologist who finds herself enmeshed in both a case and its connections to her currently missing sister and the murder of her best friend while in their teens. Set in 2008, we weren't talking about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in the same way we are now, and this looks at the insidious, pervasive issue and the other ways law enforcement and government fail and neglect Native individuals and communities. This book has some truly breakneck moments of action, and if you're like me, you'll be reading the last 50 or so heart pounding pages barely breathing.

3.5 Stars
Syd, an archaeologist working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is sent to her hometown to investigate after a scull is found at the site where she and her sister were nearly killed. Returning home stirs up all kinds of emotions for Syd, still being haunted by the events of the past. It’s also difficult since she hasn’t kept close ties with her family.

When Syd arrives, she discovers her sister, Emmy Lou, is missing, and her investigation into the scull gets put on the back burner as she races to find her.

Blood Sisters was an engrossing thriller with some twists and action, but I struggled with Syd and her TSTL decisions. Constantly going off half-cocked into dangerous situations with no plan, backup, or weapons was frustrating.

I did appreciate how the author featured real-life struggles and injustices affecting Native people, both currently and throughout history.

Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie is out now! Massive thanks to NetGalley & Berkley Publishing for the gifted copy, which I voluntarily read & reviewed

Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie is a phenomenally chilling mystery about a Cherokee archeologist that works for the Bureau of Indian Affairs as she returns home to Oklahoma after the disappearance of two women, one who happens to be her sister.
The haunting of her past meet the horrors of her present for one hair-raising, terror-filled mystery. This is such a well-written story that is extremely powerful & important. The author did an incredible job of creating a foreboding atmosphere throughout the story.

Blood Sisters is perfect for those looking for…
🖤Action-Paced Mystery
🖤Traumatic Past Crimes
🖤Ghosts
🖤Unique & Powerful Story
🖤Indigenous Representation

I read this story in one day. This is unlike anything I’ve read before & exactly what the mystery genre needs. The author wrote a very well researched novel that showcased the horrific history of especially Indigenous women. It weaves important fact with realistic fiction for one unforgettable story. I really appreciated learning more about the MMIWG2S movement. The author’s note was incredible. I loved the scientific & archeologist aspects to the novel as well. I found them very fascinating.

I sincerely hope this author writes more stories.

If you are looking for a fast-paced, action-packed & powerful mystery, I highly recommend Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie!


Content Warnings: This book mentions &/or contains murder, kidnapping, abuse & gore.

I’ve posted to Amazon & I am waiting for my link to go live. I will add it once it does!

Writing is a craft and sometimes that writing is so smooth and so immersing that you actually forget you are reading. Vanessa Lillie has accomplished this with Blood Sisters. I felt like I was alongside Syd for this journey. Not only is this a mystery that is twisty but there is so much needed info about the Indigenous women who need a voice. Blood Sisters is a visceral, must read book.

This is a unique thriller that I really enjoyed. It was a great bonus that it highlights the horrible treatment that missing indigenous women experience. The narrator for the story is beautifully flawed and I was rooting hard for her. Syd hasn’t been home in years, but she works for the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) and her old intern badge was found in the mouth of a skull in her home town. Her boss wants her loaned on special assignment. When she arrives she finds that her sister is missing. At first she is just sad, convinced her sister has relapsed again, but as she learns more of her sisters current life she realizes the devil returned for her and it seems clearer and clearer that she isn’t gone of her own free will. Past and present intertwine in this story as do politics including the poor treatment including theft from indigenous people. This was a strong book and I definitely will keep an eye out for more books from this author. Overall I gave it 4.5 stars rounded up.

I do my best to support the concept of Own Voices, and I was glad to see that the author of this book is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. In reading the Author’s Note at the end, it was clear that she knows the setting and circumstances she wrote about intimately.

I loved getting to know Syd and her family and friends in this novel. It was a page-turner while at the same time there were a lot of things that were difficult to read. There’s a lot of direct violence and action, in addition to the generational and colonial violence the characters encounter. This is an approachable book for readers of popular fiction who want to learn more about the experience of a group of Indigenous people as well as the sad truth of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

Thank you to the publisher - I received a complimentary eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am so thankful to Berkley Pub, Vanessa Lillie, Netgalley, and PRH Audio for granting me advanced digital and audio access to this one before it hits shelves on October 31. I realize that that was yesterday, but I've been meaning to get to my reviews on Netgalley, so here's my honest review for this one.

I am ALL about highlighting and elevating indigenous stories whenever I can, but this one didn't hit well with me. I recognize my privilege for being cast aside by the violence and I should have held a better attitude towards finishing this one, but I truly struggled. I apologize.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for allowing me to read this ARC!

Content Warning: violence, death, misogyny, racism, off-page sexual assault/rape.

Syd Walker is haunted. Fifteen years ago, a single night in her small Oklahoma hometown changed her life forever, driving her to move to Rhode Island and leave behind her family. Although she's sworn she'd never go back, Syd also works for the Bureau of Indian Affairs as an archeologist, and the past has come calling with the discovery of a skull on a piece of land that is near and dear to Syd's heart. When she returns to Picher, she's shocked to find out that her sister, Emma Lou, has vanished -- and begins to suspect that her sister's disappearance is linked to the skull and to that night so many years ago that Syd has been running from ever since.

An exploration of the murdered and missing Indigenous women epidemic, Blood Sisters is set in the small, now abandoned, town of Picher. In 2009, Picher was officially declared as uninhabitable, owing to its high level of toxicity due to waste from mines. Our heroine, Syd, grows up amongst the chat piles, playing with her friends until the day that her life changes forever. While the premise itself is interesting, and the featuring of Picher adds another layer of depth and intrigue, the execution simply did not live up to its potential.

Syd, our narrator, is one of the main problems. She's neither interesting nor likable enough to carry the novel on her back, and what's most jarring about her is that she constantly and consistently makes decisions that are simply unbelievable. In spite of the fact that she works as an archeologist for the BIA, and there seems to be the suggestion of her intelligence, she acts and operates in a way that can only be described as stupid. It's understandable that she values her own life very little, a common problem that arises with survivor's guilt, but she also seems to not think very much about the people in her life and how her actions put them into danger, too. You would think this would be something she'd be highly aware of, due to her past, but apparently, that's not the case.

There's a gimmick that doesn't work well in this book -- I won't spoil it, although it happens very early in the book and continues until the end. It somehow felt cheap, and as if the author was looking for a way to impart information that Syd couldn't know, making the eventual reveal of what's truly happening all the more eyeroll inducing. In a further exploration of what I mentioned with Syd's character, it's also worth noting that none of the other characters fare very well, either. All of them are flat and one-dimensional, and sometimes the characterization (particularly in regards to one character at the end of the book, which I can't go into without spoiling the entirety of the plot) feels like it's out of a bad action movie.

The plot completely and totally goes off the rails. It's melodramatic, it's unbelievable, and it makes you want to put the book down and not pick it back up again. It's hard to believe what you're reading. It becomes so convoluted, so much like the aforementioned B action movie, that it loses any interesting threads it's picked up along the way. I was actually quite shocked that Lillie went down the route that she did, and the second half of the book is where it really all went downhill for me -- ending up with only two stars.

I'm giving Blood Sisters two stars only because the first couple of chapters are pretty good, and I think the premise was unique and interesting, but it's not something I'd pick up to read twice.

I get it now …

I saw everyone swoon over Blood Sisters today and I realized I was missing out on one heck of a big deal.

What took me so long?

What’s wrong with me?

That’s rhetorical, don’t answer.

Enough about me, let’s talk about this slam dunk, straight shooting, mind bending, 5 star read.

Did you get all that?

I can do it again…

Vanessa Lillie, I don’t know where you came from but I am so happy you are here.

This book right here is literary gold. There is not one person who will ever disagree with me on that statement and if they dare try… they are lying .

This book is…

Twisted
Thrilling
Suspenseful

And you have to have it .

Check out this teaser :

A visceral and compelling mystery about a Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is summoned to rural Oklahoma to investigate the disappearance of two women…one of them her sister.

There are secrets in the land.

As an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Syd Walker spends her days in Rhode Island trying to protect the land's indigenous past, even as she’s escaping her own.

While Syd is dedicated to her job, she’s haunted by a night of violence she barely escaped in her Oklahoma hometown fifteen years ago. Though she swore she’d never go back, the past comes calling.

When a skull is found near the crime scene of her youth, just as her sister, Emma Lou, vanishes, Syd knows she must return home. She refuses to let her sister's disappearance, or the remains, go ignored—as so often happens in cases of missing Native women.

But not everyone is glad to have Syd home, and she can feel the crosshairs on her. Still, the deeper Syd digs, the more she uncovers about a string of missing indigenous women cases going back decades. To save her sister, she must expose a darkness in the town that no one wants to face—not even Syd.

BLOOD SISTERS tells a tale of Native Americans who are often overlooked. Oppression, exploitation, drugs, poverty, cultural history and tradition, trauma, murder, and kidnapping are all touched on here to great effect. It is a heavy mystery but well worth the read.

Bureau of Indian Affairs archeologist Syd has done her best to put trauma from 15 years ago behind her. But when a very personal case takes her back to her home town, she finds herself smack in the middle where her past and present collide.

I really enjoyed learning about an area of Oklahoma that I knew little about. The setting is stark and based on a real place and circumstance. The characters are complex, and the story is layered with plenty of twists and turns. I am not usually a great fan of first person present tense writing, but here it adds tension and helps move the story along. It is compelling from the first sentence, but it really gets interesting about 60% into the story.

I recommend BLOOD SISTERS to any thriller fan looking for a fresh perspective and protagonist.

You do not want to sleep on this story. I really enjoyed it, about a woman who returns home, when a skull is unearthed close by where a muuuurder occurred years ago. Being home brings up a lot of unresolved issues, particularly with family and the community at large. The only one who seems to be in her corner is Rayna, who, if I was ever in a fight, I would want in my corner. Rayna's the best!

The first half of the story builds around her return and why it's so triggering to be back. But, there is also an unsettling feeling that any minute now, the other shoe is going to drop. I know it's a cliche, but the best way to describe reading this book is like being on a rollercoaster. The first half was the incline, you feel unsettled, but also feeling okay. Let me know when you get 50% in because it drops and it does not let go until the very last page. I am a sucker for a good car chase and there were plenty. The twists and major gotcha moments keep coming, and then... you're done. And, you're sad that you're done because the ride was so much fun! I might even hop back on again.

Also, be sure to read the author’s note!

I listened to this one and I swear before I knew it the book was over! I got totally caught up in the story! This reminded me a bit of the show #Reservationdogs but with a more serious tone.
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Syd is an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She gets a call to investigate two missing one women, and one is the women is her sister. Syd returns to the home she swore to never return to after the night that haunts her dreams. She needs to face that traumatizing night head on as her past meets her present.
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Huge thank you to @berkleypub @berittalksbooks @thephdivabooks @dg_reads @prhaudio and @netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
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Maybe a 4.5? I ended up really liking this! I had a tiny bit of a hard time getting into it, but then I was quite intrigued and wanted to see where this story was going to go. This is a twisty mystery with some family drama and small town secrets. On top of everything else, this book gives a voice to the missing indigenous people, and women specifically, that have suffered and continue to suffer so many injustices at the hands of the U.S. government and otherwise. Lillie does a beautiful job weaving in indigenous culture throughout this story, giving a voice to people that have been silenced for waaaaay too long. My only issues with this one are that a) I wasn’t as connected as I wanted to be to the characters. Like I wanted to FEEL it all more. And b) there is A LOT going on so some things are more successful than others. I had to rewind audio and think through some stuff a few times. But overall, I would definitely recommend this one to mystery lovers. I think it’s going to stick with me for a long time.

The first chapters of Blood Sisters introduce the main character, Syd Walker, an archaeologist for the BIA. Before reading Blood Sisters, I was unaware that the United States had an organization known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs or BIA. Blood Sisters quickly unveiled my disparity of knowledge regarding Native American history.

Within the first few moments of the story, readers come to understand that Syd’s job is to protect the history of indigenous people while taking on the role of both investigator and archaeologist in Rhode Island.

About 10 percent into the book, the storyline changes, and Syd returns to her hometown in Oklahoma to help identify a newly discovered skull. It’s clear that Syd’s past is somehow intertwined with this cold case, and the matter becomes even more complicated with Syd’s sister’s disappearance. The story becomes much more character-driven as we’re introduced to Syd’s family and the insidiousness that her Cherokee neighbors cope with daily.

Blood Sisters changed pacing often. It sometimes slowed to describe necessary background information and the town's history. At other times, the pacing quickened as pieces of the various mysteries began to come together. I know that this was necessary to the story, but I did wish the pacing had been a bit faster.

I liked Syd Walker’s character, and I appreciated the unique perspective Vanessa Lillie shared through her own Cherokee upbringing. This one is a work of fiction rooted in history. Not only is the historical representation of oppression and violence towards indigenous people authentically represented, but the crime Blood Sisters revolves around was inspired by a tragic 2008 cold case that occurred in Vanessa Lillie’s hometown. Blood Sisters is a well-written mystery, and I will be looking for more from Vanessa Lillie in the future.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing Group and Netgalley for an advanced reader’s copy. All opinions are my own.

Syd Walker is living in Rhode Island in 2008, working as an archeologist for the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs). While the BIA was initially responsible for great damage to America's Indigenous people, including forced assimilation and annexation of Native land, the Bureau was working to better serve these communities. Syd, who is Cherokee, left her homeland and her family in Oklahoma unable to deal with an abduction 15 years earlier, which resulted in the murder of her best friend Luna and Luna's parents. The BIA summons Syd back when a skull is found with a message clearly meant for her. Syd's sister, Emma Lou, has just gone missing, joining a list of other local Indigenous women who had disappeared from the area. The police treated the women as runaways with no serious investigations taken. Once Syd returns and searches for her sister, who had been battling addiction, she has to also face the trauma of her past and many well-hidden secrets.

Blood Sisters is an intense, suspenseful mystery. Author Vanessa Lillie has created a complex character in Syd Walker, who has been battling her own demons. This is a heartbreaking story as although it is fiction, it tells the true history of the terrible and unjust treatment of Indigenous communities. The injustices done by the very people whose jobs it was to protect our Native people is beyond disturbing. In addition to a compelling story, it will surely tell you more than you knew before about American history.

It's an engaging and eye-opening book.

Rated 4.25 stars.