this is my first from Lillie, and very coincidental for me to be reading this on Indigenous Peoples’ Day as this actually follows characters of Cherokee descent (as is Lillie herself, and the author’s note provides great context for the book’s setting). it’s a Karin Slaughter-esque gritty small town thriller following archeological expert Syd - but is really more about the search for her missing sister and uncovering the secrets of this rural Oklahoma town. well written and paced, with some good reveals and twists, definitely will be keeping the author on my radar!

What a great thriller! I enjoyed this book from the first page. I loved Syd! Syd works for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and she is called home to Oklahoma when a skull is found near an earlier crime scene. Syd needs to find out what is going on before more women disappear. With lots of twists and turns, I could put this book down!

A Cherokee archaeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who now lives in Rhode Island is called home when a skull is found in the cleft of a tree with her badge in its mouth. Once home, she learns her sister, a recovering drug addict, has disappeared. She must find her sister (nudged by the voice of a ghost) and sort out the complicated relationships she has with her family, her former community, and the wife who she left in New England, fretting about her safety.

Blood Sisters joins a growing shelf of books by indigenous women, taking the crime fiction genre as their own and rewriting the story of justice being served. I liked a lot about this book, and still am haunted by the landscape she portrays of a land divided into allotments and plundered for raw materials. It has almost too much going on, and the protagonist tends to jump into danger a bit too readily to serve the plot, but on the whole it's a fine addition to the genre, being redefined by writers who were too often left out in the past.

As soon as I finished Blood Sisters, I knew I needed to sit down and write my review. I've been a Vanessa Lillie fan from the start, but you can tell how much she's maturing and growing as a writer in Blood Sisters. Maybe this book speaks to me because of the setting, although I'm not from Oklahoma, and have never been to Oklahoma, but there are so many similarities between this setting and my home state of Maine. The oxycontin epidemic and the pollution of land are both issues that Maine has grappled with over recent years, and Vanessa's clearly well-researched descriptions ring true.. Maybe it speaks to me from the perspective of the characters, although I'm not Native, but the descriptions of the poor and impoverished being marginalized by those with more knowledge and power is a universal story that comes through powerfully throughout the book. Whatever the reasons, book one of Vanessa Lillie's new series is not to be missed. It's the best kind of thriller -- The kind that is likely happening right next door.

I really enjoyed this book. It was nice to read such a compelling story that also taught me something about Native Americans. This is an important novel about white privilege and the injustices done to America's indigenous people by the American government and the white people who felt they could take whatever they wanted from them. Vanessa Lillie did a good job taking a charged topic and making it accessible and heartfelt.
This book reminds me of one of my favorite TV shows, Dark Winds. I look forward to reading Vanessa's next novel in the Syd Walker series.

Thank you NetGalley, Berkley, and Vanessa Lillie for the advanced copy of Blood Sisters in exchange for my honest review!

I have somehow never read one of Lillie's standalone books and what the heck was I waiting for? It's incredibly clear reading this book that she put so much time and energy into it, and that is reflected throughout the entire story.

The ending legitimately blew my mind, I was not expecting so many twists! It also wrapped up in such a satisfying way, and that's huge for me.

I will definitely no longer be sleeping on Vanessa Lillie! Don't miss Blood Sisters on US bookshelves October 31st!

Sadly I didn't like it , it start out good ,then it felt like the author went into a hole other direction then what the story was supposed to be about

This book has so much to say within it's chapters that it's hard to review with mentioning the peoples, communities and politics that Vanessa Little touches upon in this story centered on sisters who will suffer racism and abuse within the borders of a few small towns in Northeastern Oklahoma, which were once part of the larger Indian Territory that has been in the national news so much lately.

Blood Sisters refers to the "ceremony" Sydney, Emma Lou and Luna conducted when they were young girls on their way to becoming women. They sliced the end of their fingers and mixed blood to become blood sisters. This binds them together in ways that will bring them together again, no matter what.

I live in this Northeastern corner of Oklahoma. I was born just outside Miama, conduct considerable business there, had many relatives living in Picher before the tornado eventually blew most of the town away. The pictures Vanessa Lillie draws in her book are eerily accurate. After reading just the first chapter, I had to research her background. I asked about her on a local Miami Facebook group and was overwhelmed by the responses. She has a dedicated fan club in this area. I will DNF a book claiming to be set in a town I'm familiar with if it's fake. Lillie has painted a very accurate picture of this area. Reading the author's notes will explain so much of the book. If you do not live here, you'd not feel the depth of the story as any resident would. Even the dedication of the local communities to the MMIDW&G is factual. The 14 counties make up the original reservation that was the end of the Trail of Tears. The citizens in this area fight on a daily basis to protect tribal rights. Ok, enough of my soapbox. I wanted you to know how REAL this fictional story is.

One evening, the three girls are watching movies when they are involved in an incident that will deeply affect the rest of their lives. This first chapter is so eerie, it gave me goosebumps. Then we move 15 years forward.

The rest of the book races at breakneck speed towards a conclusion that I'd never have predicted. The people you meet, the places they go, the roads they drive, all these and more contribute to the story of these women's lives and the choices they have made. Each person in the story has their own secret that when revealed will..........well, I'm not telling any more. This book is GREAT, even if you don't live in this area, you should read it. There's very little I'd change if asked, it's just great.

Excellent mystery that draws attention to the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and two-spirited people. Syd Walker is still haunted by the night of terrible violence when her best friend was murdered in front of her. Syd's sister, Emma Lou, deals with her trauma by clinging to a man who mistreats her, and has gone missing just as the skull of a murdered girl appears in a tree near Syd's family home, drawing Syd back to the town she never thought she'd return to and the horrors hidden there. Well written and solid, Blood Sisters is a good choice for mystery lovers who care about justice.

It’s not often that a book comes around that consumes you. With the astounding rates of disappearance and violence against indigenous Native American women, I wanted to read this book to hopefully learn more. Not only will the story blow you away, but the author has a raw talent that will suck you right into the storyline and not let you go until long after you turn that last page.

This author has developed an amazing story that combines multiple issues that the Native American deals with in their community —missing women, loss of land, loss of homes and businesses, and the loss of respect that is still prevalent today. Wrapped around an intricate story and plot, we are transported to Oklahoma in search of a missing sister and others.

Lillie shows us her passion and commitment to telling the story in a vivid, highly descriptive manner. Not knowing if you’re in the middle of a dream or inside the plot itself, we become one with the story and deeply feel what our main character is feeling. Fear, frustration, untrusting, frantic, fragile, emotional. It’s a roller coaster that pulls us deeper into the story.

Blood Sisters is fast-paced and ties together a mystery along with suspense and thriller aspects that captivate your senses. The story leaves you emotional and deeply touched as you follow the main character throughout the book.

Blood Sisters is definitely an experience and a story that will make you a bit angry and frustrated as you learn more and more about the Native American plight. Lillie has captured all of those emotions and laid them out into a stunning mystery that digs deep and becomes a story you certainly will not forget.

Powerful and impactful, my heart breaks for these women. This book faithfully honors the lost. Well done!

✨ Review ✨ Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie

Syd Walker left her family behind in Picher, OK, on extremely polluted, rural, Cherokee allotment land to be an archaeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Rhode Island. When she's called back to investigate a skull that's found with her ID badge in it, she not only has to return home but has to confront her family. When she finds her sister missing again, she's pulled into a feverish search not only to find her sister but to work her way through layers of lies around land buyouts, drugs, environmental hazards, and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit (MMIWG2S)

Syd and her sister Emma Lou experienced a terrible break-in / murder as teens that resulted in the death of their best friend/honorary sister Luna, and this trauma carries through their lives in this story. The book is gritty, with a supernatural element of Luna's ghost who follows Syd around, and it dives deep into these issues of environmental injustices, exploitation, drug abuse, and MMIWG2S in really powerful ways. Syd grapples with her work within the BIA, an institution with a messy past, and her commitment to helping missing women, protecting Indigenous culture and land, and being a good human.

I literally couldn't put this book down, binging it over a 24-hour period. It had all the excitement of a thriller/mystery but with an important discussion of Indigenous issues and the traumas faced from the past colonization / Trail of Tears to continued injustices faced today by how land is managed. Lillie grew up in this area, and you can tell she's writing through her own experiences, and I really appreciated how that vulnerability came through.

(cw: abuse, violence, drugs, and more)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: mystery/thriller
Setting: rural Oklahoma / Cherokee/Quapaw land
Reminds me of: Sisters of the Lost Nation meets White Horse
Pub Date: 31 Oct 2023

Read this if you like:
⭕️ learning more Indigenous history and contemporary issues
⭕️ gritty mysteries
⭕️ sister relationships

Thanks to Berkley Publishing and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy and physical copy of this book!

This historical mystery is set in 2008. Syd Walker is an archaeologist for the BIA. She's sent home to Oklahoma when a skull is found on the land where a terrible tragedy occurred when she was young. The skull has one of Syd's old IDs in its teeth.

Syd has a number of issues. Her wife has just become pregnant, and Syd is conflicted about being a parent. She also doesn't want to go back to Oklahoma which was the site of her worst experience. But her sister Emma Lou has disappeared. Syd fears that she is using drugs again and that is why she left. She has been an addict off-and-on since she and Syd survived a home invasion that killed their best friend and her parents. But everyone insists that she wasn't using again.

Syd finds herself looking for her sister and trying to find out who sent the message with the skull to her. And who is leaving her cryptic clues saying "Find me." And everyone seems to be keeping secrets.

This mystery hits a lot of key notes: missing indigenous women, an area filled with poverty and drugs, and the results of lead pollution after mining is stopped. And through it all is the role of the BIA who is Syd's employer.

This was an excellent story about a woman almost consumed by survivor guilt who manages to finally come to terms with what she did. The story was packed with action and danger and even included a tornado.

I enjoyed this story and will be looking for more about Syd Walker.

Syd is an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She currently lives in Rhode Island, but is called back to her home in Oklahoma. A skull has been found near the crime scene of her youth, and where her sister vanished. She refuses to let her sister’s disappearance, or the remains go ignored – like many Native women.

Even though Syd is welcomed home with open arms, she feels like she is in someone’s crosshair’s. The deeper Syd digs, the more she uncovers about a string of missing indigenous women going back decades. To save her sister, she must expose a darkness in the town no one wants.

I love reading books that help shed light into areas that I am not as well versed in as I’d like. This book was interesting because it was about an archeologist, and it discussed how many Indigenous people of America women and children go missing or die each year. I have seen stories about this on the news, and the numbers are troubling. This book is a great read, despite being so troubling at times. I did find some of the choices that Syd made along the way in the book to be interesting, and not in a good way. They felt that they were out of left field, and not rooted in any sort of rational decision for being such a smart woman. The story was captivating though and held my interest throughout. I really enjoyed reading this one and I hope it gets lots of attention so it can bring awareness to the important issues discussed.

Thank you to the publisher Berkley Publishing, @berkleypub, and Netgalley @netgalley for this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When Sid is assigned a new territory in her job as a Cherokee archaeologist, she dreads going home. When she gets there to find her sister is missing again however, Syd can’t help but want to solve the mystery and bring her sister home once and for all. While her family is glad to have her back, not everyone in town is happy to see her, and once she starts digging, she is going to have to watch her back.

Phew. This is a heavy book. A bingeable, but heavy book. It’s also a book that will teach you even more about the way that the Indigenous people were and are treated in the good ol US of A. I mean we all know that there are thousands of missing women that are just marked as “run off,” while the search party is endless when it’s a white girl. I really enjoyed learning more about how people could literally just steal land from others, but the storyline of Syd trying to find Emma Lou and defeat “the devils” is what really had me unable to stop turning pages. I certainly did not see some of the twists coming, and by the end of the book I had tears falling.

I received a digital advance copy of Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie via NetGalley. Blood Sisters is scheduled for release on October 31, 2023.

Blood Sisters follows Syd, an archaeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. As a Cherokee who watched violence erupt in her Oklahoma hometown fifteen years ago, Syd works to protect indigenous lands while avoiding her own family’s past. A skull found near her childhood home calls Syd back, just as her sister vanishes, one of many Native women that has disappeared over the years. Syd is forced to try to save more than her tribe’s land, she needs to save her sister.

From a big picture scale, Blood Sisters has an interesting and enjoyable story line, with interwoven highlighting of issues that continue to surround tribal lands. As a result, I enjoyed the book, but struggled in some moments with the details of the story.

Throughout the novel, Syd makes choices that are not driven by her motivations or any sort of logic. They are choices that seem to exist for the purpose of creating conflict or moving the story in a certain direction. These choice combined to make Syd seem less intelligent that she was, as she continued to make nonsensical or ridiculous choices. Plot events sometimes suffered this same issue, with a lack of cause for events other than the plot needed those things to happen.

Despite those issues in the details, Blood Sisters gives the reader a view of Native women gone missing, and the connection to the use of tribal lands.

Blood Sisters is an enthralling narrative that delves into the intricate dynamics of family relationships, shedding light on both the shadowy aspects of human nature and the boundless potential for redemption. This compelling tale explores the fault lines that exist within families, offering profound insights into the complexities of human behavior.

Lillie's masterful storytelling captivates readers from the very beginning, drawing them into a world where familial bonds are tested and strained. With a keen eye for detail and a deft hand at character development, the author skillfully unravels the intricate web of emotions that bind the characters together. Through her vivid prose, Lillie paints a vivid picture of the darker aspects of human existence, while simultaneously offering glimpses of hope and the possibility of transformation.

This book is a well written mystery. Syd goes back home to her family after her sister goes missing. They both survived an attack and a fire as children. This book was beautifully written at times, other times it was more focused on action, at other times, information about Native cultural , history and oppression. Information that was at times well integrated and other times , felt like too much explanation in terms of making the story work. I also liked the easy acceptance of her and her wife and their story. Again at times it felt like two or three different books, which was a bit disorienting. That is not to say I wasn't interested or didn't like it. I did like it a lot 4.5 rounded up

Thank you to the publishers at Berkley and Netgalley for my e-ARC of Blood Sisters!

𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔
👻 believe in ghosts
💀 want to be an archeologist
🌪️ grew up in tornado valley
👀 love a twisty thriller

• 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓

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.

• 𝐌𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒

Wow! Blood Sisters had me hooked immediately from chapter one. I loved Syd, and her job, and her determination to find out the truth about the indigenous missing girls that keep popping up all over native land. When she started to see the ghost of her long gone cousin, Luna, I knew this was the story for me! I really enjoyed her tenacity to find out the truth, even if it meant doing everything herself. Syd is the definition of a strong FMC! And the twists! Let me tell you, I kept asking myself “what the heck is happening” out loud again and again! Fantastic writing, engaging mystery, and I loved that fact and truth was a huge part of this story. I enjoyed learning more about a subject that isn’t brought up enough. I look forward to reading more by Vanessa!

Blood Sisters is full of family and community drama, danger and heart pounding action. The mystery had some shocking twists, and the plot was fairly fast paced and very compelling as both family and town secrets were pulled into the light. Someone should really make this book into a movie. The writing is so vivid, it would be awesome!

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for access to this arc.

Listening for the Voices

We are blind. We are deaf. Thousands of Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls call out and those voices are lost in the wind. Genocide is being perpetrated and we are oblivious. Make the victim one close to your heart and the issue would burn.

Syd Walker is a Cherokee archeologist working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Rhode Island. While studying the remains of a murder victim, she is called back to her home in Pincer, Oklahoma, where a skull has been discovered containing an old ID tag of hers. Someone is sending her a message and it has to do with a traumatic episode in her past in which five people died– including her friend, Luna, and one of the ‘devils’ Syd shot and killed. Her sister, Emma Lou, survived the attack but was never the same, spiraling into drug addiction. Syd remains haunted by survivor’s guilt and the ever-present spirit of Luna.

When Syd arrives back home, she discovers Emma Lou has disappeared. Pincer is now beset with major drug dealings, multiple body discoveries, shady land grabs, and an environment poisoned in the aftermath of mining. She is driven to find her sister, unwilling to allow her to be lumped into the thousands of missing Native women. After a few stumbles, the action picks up, there is a shocking twist revealed, and distractions are pushed aside as you make time to rush to the conclusion.

The character of Syd Walker possesses the potential to lead an important series. An independent Cherokee archeologist - investigator who is also lesbian– you just do not hear that voice much in literature. Fighting to change the culture of the BIA, “…created to control and, in many cases, eliminate Native peoples’ relationship with the land,” she is looked down upon by many of her own as working for the enemy.

This is a promising time for Native voices. Tony Hillerman’s Navajo novels have been retooled by Native artists in “Dark Winds.” The FX series, “Reservation Dogs” has also produced some incredible work, screening realistic, three-dimensional people. On the literary front, authors such as Morgan Talty, Tommy Orange, and Mona Susan Power are just a few recently breaking down preconceived notions and increasing awareness of past and present realities.

A very enjoyable read, as Vanessa Lillie succeeds in delivering an engrossing mystery, bringing out important issues without preaching a heavy-handed sermon. I hope to see the world through Syd Walker lens in the near future.

Thank you to the Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #BloodSisters #NetGalley