A slow burn, atmospheric story of two sisters, who for more than a decade take different paths to cope with their mother's disappearance but ultimately come together to try to solve the case of what happened when they were 13 and 19 years old. Jess, the younger sister, escapes the small town of Knife River but not her fears and the self-loathing that came with deserting her older sister to face their shared demons alone. Liz stayed, trying to solve the case and get closure, living every day in fear of the suspected killer Nick Haines. Her lonely, boring lifestyle as a bank teller gave her solace while she remained in their childhood home, stoking a lingering hope that she would be there to welcome her mother if she ever returned.

A murder mystery at its surface, this is really a layered story about sisterhood, imperfect women, friendships, love and how shifting memories can shape and reshape the legacy of those we think we know and love. The beautiful, and often haunting writing makes the reader feel like they are living every day with Liz and Jess in their has-been, factory town that has been virtually frozen in time.

With Knife River, the reader is taken on a slow, redemptive journey with Liz and Jess, one that is both powerful and immersive until the very last page. Thanks to Net Galley, and The Dial Press for the advanced copy in exchange for my review.

Rating: 4.5 stars

I have not read a book that took over my thoughts like this one has in such a long time. This debut novel by Justine Champine is about two sisters whose mother disappeared fifteen years ago, and the case has never been solved. The older sister, Liz, still lives in the house they grew up in and has kept in touch with law enforcement throughout the years. The younger sister, Jess, left their small, dying town when she was of legal age. Fifteen years later, bones from a body are discovered, and they turn out to be the girl’s mother.

This story is a mystery about a woman’s disappearance and one about two sisters and their relationship, or lack thereof. The author’s detailed use of imagery and description painted a clear picture of the fictional rural town in upstate New York. Growing up in a small town, I know how the politics within a place like this can be.

The two sisters had excellent character development. I cannot imagine what they have felt for the past fifteen years. Every time I took a break from reading the book, I couldn’t help but feel saddened and melancholy because Liz and Jess had been dealt such a poor hand in life. While the book moved slowly, it picked up in the last third of the book. There were clues throughout the story, and new characters were introduced, leading me to ask if they had committed the murder. If you enjoy intense slow-burn mysteries, this is a book for you.

The publisher asked me to participate in a pre-publication book club for Knife River in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion. Discussing with other readers and the publishing team was a fantastic opportunity, and I hope to be able to do that again. Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for that experience.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6302505134
StoryGraph: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/1179df93-cadf-4a0d-9a3d-33e935b0e99d
Instagram: will post to @read.rest.recharge closer to publication date

Five starts for Knife River by Justine Champine

Knife River by Justine Champine is a wonderful and masterful first novel that stays with you long after you finish reading. The book tells the story of two sisters that navigates the grief of their missing mother and the long quest to finally have answers.

The characters were superbly written, the dynamic between the sisters rang true and the town of Knife River is, really, a character in itself too.

The atmosphere the book gives and dark and gritty. It is a slow-burn that goes back and forth between the past and the present so effortlessly.

I found myself thinking about the book in between reading sessions and long after turning the last page.

I would recommend the book to any slow-burn thriller fans, but also for lovers of character studies, and anyone going through grief.

I received a free copy from NetGalley. A little on the slow side, but it did have a few twists. More a novel then a mystery.

I thoroughly enjoyed this debut novel. I am normally more of a thriller reader but this family drama about two sisters reuniting 15 years after their mother disappeared (because her bones were finally found) grabbed me from the first chapter and never let go. Great character development and a well paced plot kept me reading straight through and I finished it in two days. I was fully engaged with the first person narrator for the entire book and her struggles with both her family and her romantic relationships were real and believable. The small town setting was almost a character in itself as it informed so much of what happened with the characters. Highly recommended

Thanks to NetGalley and The Dial Press for an advanced reader copy

I was lucky enough to win an e-ARC of KNIFE RIVER by Justine Champine from a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you for the early look, and have a safe and happy weekend!

Wow! How can one book tackle so many deep subjects so well? On an ordinary day, Jess and Liz's mother goes for a walk and never returns. They are left to navigate life alone. Liz dreams of going to college to study but must postpone college to raise her younger sister, Jess. Years later Liz calls Jess to ask her to return home. Their mother's remains have been found. The sisters will deal with the official death of their mother, postponed dreams, and a path forward. Do you mourn someone you lost long ago? Will the community support the girls as they once did?

Knife River takes readers on an adventure much like a white-water rafting experience. You think you know where you're headed, only to find the bottom drop out from under you. Love, loss, sacrifice, delayed coming-of-age, and revenge are all part of this emotional story. Jess and Liz have been in a type of holding pattern waiting for news of their mother. Neither one has fully emotionally matured into an adult. Finally knowing their mother's fate brings closure to the sisters. Realizing they now can move on, Liz and Jess feel the freedom to leave the past and step into their futures.

As the sisters await the cause of death for their mother the question remains - was she killed? If so, who killed her and why? Remember, nothing about this disappearance is as it seems. Enjoy this spine-tingling psychological thriller!!

Two sisters, Jess and Liz seem suspended in time, especially Liz. Ever since their mother disappeared years before there have been no answers to what happened.
Parts of the novel were drawn out too much and I thought could have been truncated.
I had sympathy for both sisters, but didn’t have an affinity for either one. Liz just existed and Jess lurked on the periphery of life.
I didn’t like the ending because Jess withholds the truth from Liz which was really unfair.

Jess and Liz were teenagers when they lost their mother. She went for a walk and never returned. Years later, Liz has stayed in their childhood home, but Jess has bounced between jobs and relationships since graduating from high school. Suspended for years between hope and resignation, the sister are stunned when their mother's bones are found in the nearby woods.

Thrown together by the situation, Jess and Liz struggle with their own hopes and fears for solving their mother's case and planning for their separate futures. The local sheriff and the detective assigned to the case seem to care about the mystery, but don't deal well with Liz's increasingly aggressive demands for them to arrest a local man who was once a suspect in the case.

The sisters try to find common ground while searching for the truth of their mother's death. They are two very different people with very different reactions to their mother's disappearance. I found neither character very likeable and wouldn't have finished the book except I wanted to know who the killer was. I found their attitudes, especially those of Jess, annoying and off-putting.

The book has some good twists and turns right up to the end. I found the whodunit reveal to be disappointing and frustrating because it relies on information that the reader could never have known. Things get wrapped up with a pretty bow in the end which is unbelievable.

Overall, the story has good bones (no pun intended) but doesn't deliver nearly as well as it could have.

Knife River started pretty slowly for me. I felt like the first third of the book could have been summed up as: Woman returns home to live in her childhood home with her estranged sister after the bones of her long missing mother were discovered.

However, things did pick up for me and I got more invested in the characters. The introduction of Eva was a turning point for me where I felt like the plot was moving forward and I was learning more about Jess and her life decisions. By the end, I very much enjoyed the book and she and her sister Liz will stick with me. The author made an interesting choice in separating them by six years so their experiences growing up were different and that allowed for reflection on how the same event can shape a sibling differently.

Since the book felt much like a character study first and a mystery second, I wasn't sure what kind of resolution to expect regarding who had killed their mother. It felt like the kind of book that may not be interested in answering every question, but I was very happy with how the book ended.

The synopsis of this book sounded promising, but I struggled to enjoy it. I liked the character development, especially Jess. I enjoyed that the storyline included the two long-lost/distant sisters reuniting to finally learn what happened to their mother after she went missing many years prior. I liked littld old Brenda and her fierce protectiveness of the sisters. That said, the book just dragged for me. It felt really slow and honestly kind of boring for most of it. The ending did manage to surprise me. I won’t add details because I hate spoilers, but I really didn’t foresee what happened in the last few chapters.

“Knife River” is a debut novel by Justine Champine. This book follows the main character, Jess, whose mother went missing 15 years prior. A phone call from Jess’s sister, Liz, brings Jess back home to Knife River. I think this book was more of a coming of age book with a bit of a mystery thrown in. Jess basically has been drifting in life - trying to figure out who she is and what she wants from life, while Liz has been, more or less, stuck in life. At times the murder/mystery seemed to take a backseat to the self-discovery of both women. Not to say that self-discovery books aren’t good, but at times this one felt so overwhelmingly depressing (though losing a parent in the way they did was difficult). The timeline at times jumped from present to Jess mulling about the past - sometimes jarringly. While that’s pretty typical of how people go about their daily lives (folding laundry and one flashes back to an earlier time folding laundry), on the page at times it felt and read awkwardly. For a debut novel, this wasn’t bad - but I don’t think I’m the target audience for this book. I’m glad I read it, but I don’t need to read it again.

Knife River is the story of what happens to two sisters when their mother mysteriously disappears when Liz the older is a teenager and Jess the younger is still a child. The consequences are destructive to both sisters lives, making it hard for both to settle and develop relationships. It's described as a mystery, but it's more of a sisters story. It lovingly tracts female relationships not just of the two sisters, but also the various women in their lives. The female characters are all well developed, the male character less so calling into stereotype. The book is very atmospheric, but very sad. The well-developed female characters and the mystery kept me reading.

This book was both surprising and disappointing. I somehow expected a mystery/thriller and instead got an atmospheric smalltown upstate New York location, with two sisters working through the mysterious disappearance of their mother. Unexpected was the central theme of a young woman trying to live her life as a lesbian. How was Jess' inability to commit connected to her mother's disappearance? And was it really Eva, her high school crush and first love who was still in town that was responsible?

There was some very lovely poetic writing in this novel, particularly the descriptive sections of weather and landscapes. It was, however, a novel that went on for much too long a period of time where nothing much happens, (with the exception of much repetitive soul-searching and some very uncooperative police) until the rapid and surprising denouement. This happens within the last few pages. In between, the sisters, two neurotic women Jess drinks too much and can't sustain a relationship and Liz, her older sister, still a virgin at almost 40, devoted to her job as a bank clerk). Perhaps I was expecting more of a mystery, or less about two characters I found unrelatable, but this book did not grip me.

Thanks to Net Galley and The Dial Press for an ARC copy of this novel to review.

From the very first page I was curious to find out what was going on. During the first few chapters more information about the disappearance of their mother was slowly revealed. However that didn't last that long.

Most of the book was about the main character trying to navigate in a world while not really knowing herself. The book takes time to explain how certain characters work and why they are the way they are. It felt like the mystery itself wasn't the main focus of this book. The story mostly talked about how people deal with such a mystery.

Reading how two sisters dealt with a disappearance of their mom and the grief it brought along sure was an interesting take for both had their very own beliefs and theories. I really liked how different they dealt with thinks. That isn't always highlighted in books.

I did feel confused by the timeline in this book. Scenes ended abruptly and then the next chapter could be weeks later without a clear connection. It made me feel like I was reading random snippets of a bigger story. For some reason some character's also immediately knew when the MC was hiding something. All of it felt a bit too convenient to me.

I am also not a fan of the smut scenes in this book. Things felt chaotic so it was hard to follow what was happening. For example, some erotic things were briefly mentioned then you'd read a lot of deep thoughts from within the main character's mind before being thrown back into the smut scene.

The ending was well done and while I think this book wasn't meant for me I am glad I did finish it because the ending did serve the tension I would expect from a thriller.

So if you are a fan of reading how characters deal with the grief and sadness that comes along with losing a loved one that went missing, then this might be the book for you!

I was giving a chance to read this book as an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Special thanks to The Dial Press, Justine Champine and Katy Nishimoto!

Justine Champine writes BEAUTIFULLY. At times in the story, I found myself becoming frustrated because nothing was happening. However, the more I reflect on that, the more intentional I think this decision was, to portray the absolute purgatory of not-knowing that these sisters experienced for many years of their lives. I will be picking up future Champine novels!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an invitation to read this engaging novel.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.

Interesting character study of the impact a missing single parent has on her two daughters left behind, as they grow and experience life throughout the years, forced to live without knowing who took their Mother's life.

This has to be one of the most painful situations someone can experience, someone is there one day, gone the next, with no answers and precious few, if any clues left behind.

After years pass, familial remains are found, however, there are still no answers provided (the two daughters always assumed that their Mother was dead, as she certainly would not have left them). However, now the sisters must deal with the ineptitude and inexperience (even a lack of interest) of the local small town cops of Knife River.

No spoilers here, you will have to pick up a copy of this book to see if the two young women must continue living in a hellacious form of limbo, or if they will finally get an answer to the pressing question of what happened to their beloved Mother.

Okay, I posted this when ALMOST done with this book, so I am returning as the last two chapters were just the perfect way to end this book, I loved these characters so MUCH (the two Sisters and older friend).

Note to author: a home run with your first novel is amazing. PLEASE revisit these characters, they are almost like family to me now, I would buy a reunion book (perhaps they lose a friend and find clues) Knife River Volume 2 in a heartbeat! Thank you for this amazing read.

I had higher hopes for this book based off the premise. I'd say this book falls more with contemp fiction vs. mystery/thriller but ultimately was a good read. The author kept just enough questions guessing that I wanted to finish it.

Nice flowing mystery that explores the relationship of sisters and the ones they choose to love. Jess and her sister have gone through hell in their own ways.

I had a hard time getting through this book. The premise was promising. A woman comes back to her hometown when bones are found that may be her mother who has been missing for 15 yrs and to her sister who still lives in their childhood home. The character development was good and I felt I really understood these two women and why they led the lives they did. I was hoping for more action regarding the murder of the mother. The story moved very slow, however I did like how the author wrote about the girls/women and the stifling town where they grew up. It became a character on its own. Thanks to the author and Dial Press for the opportunity to read this book.