4.5 rounded. I loved Elatsoe and was so excited for more of the beautiful world that Darcie Little Badger created! This is a prequel series about Ellie's grandmother when she was a teen. As with her first book, Darcie's world is so exciting. It is magical realism plus Lipan Apache culture and mythology. Similar to Elatsoe, the main character, Shane, has the power to raise the dead and has a mystery to help solve. The story is clever and the writing is vivid and easy to read. Shane is the kind of main character that you cannot help but root for but the supporting cast were well developed as well (I love the Grandpa).

I really hope Darcie continues to expand on this world. (Side note, that I think A Snake Falls to Earth is this same world, but not 100% sure). It is a really unique take on YA fantasy and YA thriller/mystery.

Thank you to NetGalley and Levine Querido for providing an eARC of this book.

After reading Elatsoe recently I was excited to see that Darcie Little Badger was coming out with another book - and a prequel at that! Unfortunately, Sheine Lende didn’t have the same magic to me that Elatsoe did. Still enjoyable, but the story seemed to drag on a bit longer and I came away feeling like there were plot holes and questions that remained unanswered.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Elatsoe is one of my favorite books of all time, so I thought there was no possible way that Sheine Lende could compare.

AND YET!

I LOVED Sheine Lende. This book was reminiscent of a warm hug from your parents when coming inside from a thunderstorm. Building upon the amazing world Elatsoe held, this prequel is centered on Ellie's grandmother, a Lipan Apache teen named Shane. This book had it all - a beautiful and exciting world, a strong, smart, and brave main character, a reckoning with generational trauma, an appreciation and deep love of mothers and the matriarchal line. Not only was this book all of this and more, it was clever and well-written, with descriptive scenes and characters that felt like friends.

I'm grateful to be in a world where Darcie Little Badger's writing exists. And where Rovina Cai's art exists!! Darcie Little Badger is easily an auto-buy author for me and Sheine Lende only solidifies this.

I encourage all who read this book to learn more about the Lipan Apache Tribe, who continue to endure after hundreds of years of attempted colonization - i learned a lot from lipanapache.org, which also has a nice list of recommended reads (https://www.lipanapache.org/LAT/books.html) including “The Light Gray People: An Ethno-History of the Lipan Apache's of Texas & Northern Mexico,” by Nancy McGown Minor. 📚

I love the Elatsoe series! I was really happy to read more in this world and see more cool animal ghosts.

Sheine Lende starts out as a story about a mother and daughter who have ghost dogs to help them find missing people and turns into a book about community. The focus on family, found family, and friendships in this book was really the standout for me. I feel like the depiction of imperfect family relationships was very important too. The story is unique, heartfelt, and hopeful. Something I wish I could’ve grown up reading. I also really enjoyed all the illustrations included at the start of each chapter. They are gorgeous! Darcie Little Badger does such a great job incorporating the more fantastical elements of her stories into the realistic settings and the Lipan Apache culture. I look forward to reading future books and seeing how she further expands the world she has created.

Sheine Lende is a worthy successor to Little Badger's terrific Elatsoe. It taps into Native identity and wisdom, explores coming of age and friendship, and is full of many good dogs. I love the matter-of-fact tone in regard to the Fae realm, was captivated by the description of Shane's journey into the Underworld, and felt great joy in reading about adults who trusted younger people and children. This is a beautiful book that will please all kinds of readers.

Thanks to NetGalley & Levine Querido for the early copy in exchange for an honest review.

A fun supernatural mystery involving missing kids and Shane's mother. Shane digs deep into investigative work in the real and fantastical in order to bring her mother home.

Sadly, I didn't find this as compelling as Elatsoe. I thought it ran into the same issues as the other one--the lack of expanding on worldbuilding. The author would drop some really cool supernatural elements and not expand on them or just act like it was completely normal.

I did like Shane as a character and her grandfather was a pretty interesting guy too.

Thank you to Levine Querido for providing a free digital copy to review via NetGalley.

Sheine Lende is a prerquel to Elatsoe, centering on Ellie's grandmother when she was a teenager. Shane is a tracker, who was trained by her mom. One day, her mom goes missing and Shane must find her with the help of her family and new found friends.

Despite the high stakes of the story, I found the first half to be quite slow paced. It was worth taking my time with and I found the second half to be more compelling. The storytelling within the novel created any layers and nuance to the characters and plot. I especially enjoyed the few chapters in first person in contrast to the ones in third, as they felt more emotional.

Another aspect I enjoyed was how the conflict in the story arose very natually from the circumstances of the characters' lives and how they were well equipped for their journey. This adds a level of believability that many speculative stories can lack and for me, raises the stakes, due to the reality mixed in with ther fantastical.

The ending was incredibly satisfying and very rewarding.

This is the third novel I have read by Little Badger and I am always excited to return to her work. Her signature writing style remains beautiful, the much needed focus on familial and platonic relationships was present, as well as poignant themes of colonialism. Little Badger manages to have a distinct style, while each of her works functioning as its own distinct story. I am excited to see what she has in store for us next!

Sheine Lende
By Darcie Little Badger

Remember how I raved about Elatsoe last year? It’s time to rave about the prequel.

The overarching structure of this book is a rescue. Shane and her mother are looking for missing siblings, but something goes terribly wrong and Shane is left hunting down both her mother and the young boy.

But more than that, I felt like this was an exploration of identity. Shane and her family were displaced and have gone through several horrible events because of it. They had to scatter and so Shane feels that she is losing a part of herself as she realizes things she has forgotten, or things she forgot to ask her elders so that she could carry them on. She doesn’t know the Lipan language well and mourns that she stumbles over pronouncing her own name. Darcie Little Badger managed to write this in such a visceral way. As someone who doesn’t feel she has ties to any specific culture, I was mourning it along with her. And rejoicing when she found connections to her past and her people’s past.

Isn’t it fascinating how books can do that? I read somewhere that people who read (especially fiction) turn into more empathetic humans and I think this book really highlights how that happens. I’ll never fully know how that feels, but I now have a better understanding of, appreciation and sympathy for, peoples who know that all too well. Because, unfortunately, this isn’t an issue only of the past.

I hope I’m saying that coherently.

Thanks to @netgalley for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Darcie Little Badger is the kind of author I wish I was exposed to in my youth. I love her works and will read anything and everything she puts out.
It was nice to be back in the world of Eltasoe and get to know her grandmother, Shane. Little Badger continues to weave in the Lipan Apache culture seamlessly throughout the novel, as she did in Elatsoe.
Sheine Lende at first glance disguises itself as a mystery novel, but it is so much more. It is about individual and collective grief and loss, friendship, culture, community love, support, and keeping hope alive no matter how dire things may seem.

Things I loved:
Sibling love
Friendship love
Community love
Flawed characters
Lipan Apache culture and not shying aways from the harm caused (and continue to cause) to their people on a systemic level, while taking care not to highlight trauma that could cause more trauma.
Nellie
The Below

Some things that may have worked better for me:
We got a lot of internal and external dialogue of Shane telling us her thoughts and what was going on versus showing. Compared to Elatsoe and A Snake Falls from the Sky, this wasn’t as strong for me.
More depth to the Fae, fairy rings, and that world.

Overall, I enjoyed this and look forward to Little Badger’s future works.

Thank you to Netgalley and Levine Querido for making this available as an ARC.

I really liked Elatsoe, and this is about Ellie’s mom, Shane (Sheine Lende). Like Ellie, Shane also has a ghost dog to help her out. While Elatsoe had a sort of Scooby Doo feel, this book is more "search and rescue" journey as opposed to solving a mystery.

Thank you to Levine Querido and NetGalley for allowing me to read a copy of this book!

Elatsoe had previously blown me away, and I'd fallen in love. I recommended it to one of my students while I was student teaching, and they too enjoyed it, as I'd see them reading the book during free time in class. Sheine Lende, I think, is tighter-written, showing Darcie Little Badger's growth as an author (when she was already so fantastic!) and deeper depth to the world, with Shane narrating her world.

I did absolutely tear up several times while reading, both at the historical contexts, the findings, and the familial fear. My anticipation was building in every page and I both wanted to read quicker, to get to the end, and never put this book down. Shane was a fantastic narrator, and I truly felt as if I was traveling around with her, like a lesser version of Sunflower.

I absolutely did tear up again at the author's note. And then I reread Elatsoe and A Snake Falls to Earth. Thank you so much. I cannot wait to reccomend this book to my students; I've already started with friends.

Once again, an amazingly beautiful and heartwarming book from Darcie Little Badger. I love the uniqueness of this story, and the quiet strength of it (like all her books). It has such good friendships and family relationships & cultural elements. I love the combination of paranormal creatures and science/ecology, and the almost fairytale logic of some of the storytelling, while also being very grounded in real experiences.

I did sometimes think, when is this set? it feels more modern than it must be (if it’s Ellie’s grandmother), but maybe it’s because it’s an alternate world, or just a me thing, and anyway it didn’t bring me out of the story that much.

I also can’t not mention the beautiful illustrations by Rovina Cai, not only the cover (which, oh, parts of it make more sense after reading the book!) but also the chapter illustrations that tell their own story.

It made me cry a lot, mostly in a happy/bittersweet kind of way. It might not be for everyone, but it is a perfect book to me!!

Thanks netgalley for the arc!

Thank you NetGalley for a free e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"Sheine Lende," a prequel to Darcie Little Badger's acclaimed "Elatsoe," is a captivating blend of mystery, fantasy, and Indigenous storytelling. With Rovina Cai's evocative illustrations enhancing the narrative, this Young Adult novel delves into the world of Ellie's grandmother, Shane, and her extraordinary journey.

The story revolves around Shane, who, alongside her mother and their ghost dogs, dedicates her life to finding missing persons, often without the promise of payment. Their lives are marked by loss, having been displaced from their home after a tragic flood claimed Shane's father and grandparents. The plot thickens when Shane's mother and a local boy disappear under mysterious circumstances involving a fairy ring. Shane, accompanied by her brother, friends, and a distrusted surviving grandparent, embarks on a quest that transcends the boundaries of time and reality.

Little Badger's narrative is both gripping and rich in cultural depth. She masterfully intertwines elements of traditional stories with contemporary themes, creating a world that is both fantastical and deeply rooted in Indigenous experience. The characters are well-developed, with Shane standing out as a resilient and determined protagonist. Her journey is not just a physical one but also a voyage of self-discovery and connection to her heritage.

The book shines in its seamless integration of supernatural elements into the modern world, making the fantastical aspects feel natural and believable. However, some readers might find the shifting timelines and realms a bit challenging to follow. Despite this, the novel's pacing is well-managed, balancing action with character development.

Cai's illustrations add an extra layer of allure to the story, capturing the essence of Little Badger's world in a way that is both haunting and beautiful. They enhance the reader's immersion into the narrative, complementing the textual storytelling superbly.

In conclusion, "Sheine Lende" is a remarkable addition to the YA fantasy genre, offering a unique blend of mystery, Indigenous lore, and rich characterization. Darcie Little Badger and Rovina Cai have created a world that is not only enchanting but also resonant with cultural significance. This book will not only appeal to fans of "Elatsoe" but also to new readers looking for a story that is both magical and meaningful.

Sheine Lende sees infamous Elatsoe ancestor Shane, working with her mother and their ghost dogs to track down missing persons in their town. When Shane's mother goes missing, a new cast of characters must traverse the thin barriers between worlds to retrieve both her mother and friend's brother.

Thumbs up: An imaginative world filled with heart, magic, and very real tales of oppression that weave this multilayered story together. Fans of Elatsoe will be delighted for another opportunity to re-enter the world from another era.

Thumbs down: I think this novel is quite dialogue heavy (e.g. a lot of "he said" and then "she said" and then "she said") and could have spent more time within the world building of the novel. The draw for me in picking this up was the fantastic elements of the novel. Unfortunately, it didn't feel that enough time was spent building up the reader's imagination. For example, there are ghosts, time/space travel, and Fae mentioned but it seems like such an afterthought to the plot. I would have loved to see more effort spent on the fantasy aspects then the extremely heavy dialogue.

Was it a nail biter? It was a good book and I hope to see more from the author in the future! 3/5.