4.25 🌟

This book does such a good job bringing to light the struggles of indigenous women and the communities they live in.

This book deals with a lot of hard struggles - drug and gambling addictions, r@pe, child abduction etc. So know you are picking up a heavy book when you pick this book up. The mystery drew me in and I think it's so important to understand the struggles of others.

Thanks, Netgalley for the ARC of this book!

Utterly heartbreaking. Where They Last Saw Her is such a powerful story. A fictionalized version of an all too common tale of kidnapped and missing indigenous women and children.

This story is centered around Quill, a native woman who has lived on Red Pine reservation in Minnesota her whole life, as well as her friends and family, as they navigate a tragedy shaking their community to its core.

I couldn’t stop reading once I started. I was so consumed by needing to know that Quill and all those she loved were alright. Thank you NetGalley and Bantam for my copy.

This is a very important--but heartbreaking--book about MMIW.

One of my favorite "small" things in the book was hearing about what an Indigenous person of this tribal group might have as part of their daily diet. I appreciated Quill's strong feeling and need to try and help these women, but putting herself in danger when she has a family at home who needs her, became frustrating. I'm so happy she wanted to advocate for these women, but alongside her husband Crow, it led me to constantly worry about her. (I adore him, by the way.) Overall a good and worthwhile read, that also reminds us we can all do better.

3 stars!

This book is really hard for me to rate and review because I think the issue it covers - indigenous women being kidnapped, assaulted, and abused often without care from government and law enforcement agencies - is extremely important, but unfortunately something about this book just didn't work that well for me.

What I Liked:
- I think that the three main female characters were very established and definitely felt like real people. I also liked the relationship between the three of them and thought they really complimented each other
- I enjoyed learning more about the indigenous culture, and as I said before, I appreciated reading more about this difficult but poignant topic

What Didn't Work for Me:
- I understand how running and races became a theme of community for the women on the reservation, but there was just so much talk about running
- The writing style was a little too simple for me. I found that I really couldn't connect to the writing, and it felt like many parts (setting, a coffee cup, other small almost unimportant details) were overexplained
- This book was also very slow paced. This is definitely more of a literary mystery (think along the veins of I Have Some Questions For You) instead of a more fast paced twisty investigative process.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Training for the Boston Marathon is not an easy task. Where can you find a long path that is safe and free of obstacles?

Quill was living on a reservation in the northern area of Minnesota near Duluth. She was three miles on her run in a wooded area when she heard a woman’s scream. This set the pace for the book where Quill was now obsessed to find out what happened to this person. Was she alive or dead?

The statistics were familiar: over 5,000 Native women have been documented as missing or murdered with trafficking as a huge problem. Women have been drugged, raped and taken to the Duluth harbor ships never to be seen again.

Quill was happily married to Crow with two adoring children. Her husband wanted her to stay safe at home but she needed to help her women friends and she couldn’t stop trying to search for those that were missing. Plus, she had to keep training for the big race.

The pace is quick and the plot is dark and tense. There were enough hints in the story to predict the outcome. However, the message was clear: something must be done to help the Native women that are missing and this book is thought-provoking and stays in your head. Running long distances helped Quill and her friends with the anxiety they faced. This would be an excellent topic for book clubs.

My thanks to Bantam and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book with an expected release date of September 3, 2024.

When Quill is out for a run on the Minnesota's Red Pine reservation, she hears a scream in the middle of the forest. She's unnerved and convinces her husband Crow to go back out with her, where they find signs of a scuffle. But when the tribal police investigate and comb the forest, they don't find anything. Quill is spooked, but this is just the beginning--soon, another woman is kidnapped from a local casino, and a second woman is drugged and barely escapes kidnapping herself. Quill is convinced everything is connected and, along with her friends Punk and Gaylyn, is determined to investigate the escalating violence against these indigenous women that no one else seems to care about.

This was a fairly intense and heart wrenching book, but I couldn't put it down. Quill is a really strong, fierce main character who doesn't always make the best decisions but who clearly has her heart in the right place, and you can't help but root for her. Her love for her husband, children, and community shines through and she's willing to put herself at risk to protect those she loves. Despite the intense subject matter, the book also lifts up female friendship and community, and it's nice to see Quill's interactions with her friends and how those relationships grow over the course of the book. Really well written, powerful book from an award-winning author (of the Cash Blackbear series, just a note that this is a standalone and not part of that series).

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley for the arc of this upcoming title.

Mysteries are something I have always gravitated towards, but in the world of tropes and what sells, i feel like I have read the same story. Could their be something new in this genre? I always hope so.

This isnt to say I disliked this, but this didn't keep the same beats. I kept a certain tone which I did appreciate. However, in the end, this was nothing new.

This was a compelling story about a timely issue, so I feel a bit awkward admitting that I did not enjoy it as much as I expected. The writing style was fairly straightforward, but the timeline was confusing in several parts, and there were inconsistencies in the story that distracted me from becoming fully immersed. There were also a few moments where a detail was shared in the narrative and it felt like it was foreshadowing something, but then nothing would come of it.

I also found the main character, Quill, to be a bit too chaotic for me. I realize she suffers from PTSD, but there were so many times that her judgment seemed way off-course, to the point that even her friends and family were trying to redirect her to better, safer options, and she was not willing to listen or take appropriate action. The reader is never told her age, but I got the impression she was relatively young - late twenties, maybe.

Things I enjoyed about the story: character development was solid, especially for the three main female protagonists, and Quill's husband, Crow. I found the strong bond of friendship between the women both authentic and inspiring. I liked the inclusion of Ojibwe cultural, linguistic, and spiritual elements. And the author knows how to create tension in the getaway scene near the end - my heart was racing!

Rendon’s latest novel was utterly gripping. It tackles heavy subjects like child abductions, sexual violence, and family trauma, making it a tough but compelling read. As someone who is from the area she is writing about, this is SUCH AN IMPORTANT topic to discuss. Despite the harrowing content, I couldn’t look away. I've had multiple people within my community and in my personal life affected by the topics discussed within this book. This intense and eye-opening book sheds light on an urgent and often overlooked crisis.

This novel is set near Duluth Minnesota area and is about a young woman on the Ojibwe reservation who is training for the Boston Marathon. While she is out running she hears a high pitched scream somewhere near her. She tries to find the victim but is not able to do so. The rest of the story is her intense effort to find the missing woman even though it means putting her loving family and friends in real danger. This story is written in such a way that the reader is deeply involved in the story and learns so much about life on the Indian reservation. The story is masterfully crafted and all characters are developed so that the reader is hooked and breathless as the story slowly unfolds. This is mystery at its best while teaching us all about the plight of indigenous women on the reservations and how they are kidnapped and disappear in alarming numbers and very few are found. I highly recommend this book and I look forward to reading more by this author in the future.

I wish to thank Net Galley and Bantam Random House publishers for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. I have voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine | Bantam for sharing thisdigital reviewer copy with me in exchange of my honest thoughts.This is a story of the Navajo people as it focusses on how the pipeline workers in Minnesota were able to abduct and engage in sex trafficking of the native women under everyone's noses.

Last Saw Her by Marcie R. Rendon. The book effectively builds slowly, allowing us to get to know the characters and Quill’s life. I loved Quill, who risked so much to investigate the women that went missing from the reservation. Her relationships with her friends and family were well-defined and felt genuine. With the backdrop of the horrors of the missing Native women, at its heart this book is about friendship, family, love, and community. Do not miss this stunning book.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for allowing me an ARC of this read. Overall I enjoyed the books. I enjoyed how the plot progressed. I did think that the main character was a bit impulsive and it felt to me like the first half of the book took a long time to get through. Overall, I would give the story 3/5 stars.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this arc!

What a good book!!! Such a great writing style. This was my first by this author and will not be my last! Slow burn thriller mystery! My favorite!!!

This story brings to light some of the issues the Native Americans face in our current world. There are some twists and turns and the characters are well developed.

Quill has lived on the Red Pine reservation in Minnesota her whole life. She knows what happens to women, women like her. When she hears a scream one morning, and only an earing left behind she begins to wonder.

Then another woman goes missing so Quill begins to investigate.

As she closes in on the truth about the missing women, someone else disappears. Can she figure this out before it’s too late?


This is one of those books that is an important read because it brings attention to the horrors that indigenous women face. The characters were likable, and I was rooting for them the entire time. I also did enjoy the story despite the numerous heavy topics. I did struggle with this one for a few reasons because the pacing is incredibly slow, and for such a heavy topic I needed it to be quicker. The author also included phrases in a different language without translation. I have no issue with including other languages in books, it helps make for a more authentic experience, but in the case of this book I had no idea what was being said because the context was also missing so I was just left missing pieces of the story. I also found the book written in a novice type format. While I knew this was an adult novel, it felt that the writing style was more middle grade in how simplistic it was (not that I would recommend this book to middle grade at all).

Where They Last Saw Her
4.5 ⭐️

This book was so so hard to read but it was so impactful at the same time.

Set on the Red Pine reservation in Minnesota, a woman hears a scream while she is out on a run. As she works to figure out what happened to the missing woman, she uncovers a whole lot more is going on as others start to disappear.

This book covers a lot of really difficult topics that affect the Native American community today - trafficking, child abduction, rape, etc. were all front and center in this book. I definitely took my time with this one but I’m so glad I read it and know a little more now about those focused on mmiw issues.

I had a hard time tearing myself away from Rendon's latest novel. Emotionally, it wasn't an easy read, child abductions, missing women, beatings, rapes, sexual slavery, intimidation, family trauma. There is so much horror in these pages, yet knowing how real it is, I couldn't look away. I had to fight through with Quill, our tense and torn heroine divided between keeping her family safe and sane and her consuming desire to help those in her sphere being preyed upon by the evil engulfing her community. This is a timely and gripping novel giving a personal face to an ongoing and frustratingly overlooked epidemic. Bring our women home!

Thanks to NetGalley and Bantam for giving advance access to this title in exchange for an honest review.

Quill has a pretty ideal life: two great kids, a doting husband, and a strong community on the Red Pine Reservation. All are endangered when she hears a blood-curdling scream during one of her marathon training sessions deep in the Minnesota woods. She knows in her heart that it was yet another Indigenous woman being brutalized, but clues are scarce and the official response is lackluster. Quill and her running buddies investigate on their own, uncovering a deep vein of rot running right through their community. Quill is equal parts strong and reckless, a necessary combination when confronting a deep-rooted and very real evil. Thanks, Netgalley.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance review copy in return for an honest review. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. A very dark yet captivating novel. It kept the suspense the whole time.