Thank you so much Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this eARC!
The premise of this novel was very compelling. I really appreciate the highlighting of MMIW as this continues to be an issue that does not get enough attention. The storyline did start a little slow for me and slightly confusing. However, once I got a feel for the characters and the origin story of the Deer Woman, the story began to really flow. The FMC was fairly complicated. Given her back story, it was understandable why.
Overall, I did enjoy this novel. I think its important to tell stories that bring awareness to MMIW.

Carrie Starr has just taken a job as marshal on the reservation in Oklahoma that her father came from. She's running from her past and trying to outrun her grief at the death of her seventeen-year-old daughter. She left the Chicago PD under a cloud. Now, she's self-medicating with whiskey and weed.

The BIA has hired her because so many indigenous women are missing or murdered. A dozen or so have disappeared from the reservation where Carrie is working. She arrives to find that another young woman has gone missing. Her mother is certain that foul play is involved. Carrie isn't so sure and doesn't put her all into the investigation. Then the body of another young woman is discovered which ramps up her investigation.

Meanwhile, we also hear part of the story from some other viewpoints including the town mayor and a local rancher who are both depending on an oil company deciding to do some fracking on reservation land and who might have reasons to want the first missing young woman to stay missing. She's investigating the possibility that there is a rare colony of rare beetles somewhere on the reservation. Proving it will scuttle the mayor and rancher's plans and cost them lots and lots of money.

The story was very atmospheric and introspective. It was hard reading about Carrie's grief and seeing her make bad choices. I liked the legend of the Deer Woman which infused the whole story.

This one was just OK. As someone who lived in Oklahoma for a while and taught students that lived on reservations, I have verryyy limited exposure to reservation life and won’t pretend to be an expert, but this one….i couldn’t get over HOW MUCH SHE DRANK. We learned a lot about whiskey and bourbon but the girl never picked up a water bottle? I understand a nod to prevalent alcohol abuse and all that, but it was really hard for me to be like ummm if you store whiskey under your seat you may as well also put a liter of water in there after the FIRST time you get stranded? no? Just me?

Anyway. The twist at the end got me - and I loved the corruption. If this had like one more good edit, it would be a knockout of a novel.

Book Review Mask of the Deer Woman by Laurie L. Dove

Carrie Star takes the job as Tribal Marshal out of desperation after having to leave the Chicago police force. Although her tribal connection through her father got her the job she is seen as an outsider. Instead of the cold cases she is supposed to focus on she is immediately confronted by a missing woman and that is closely followed by a murdered woman.

I loved that the book chose to solely focus on missing and murdered Indigenous women. So topical! It delves into the multitude of complicated issues surrounding MMIW; policing jurisdictions on and off reserve, policing indifference and racism that together results in a lack of investigations or delayed investigations. The difference in how the disappearance of an Indigenous woman is treated is appalling and the anger, helplessness and fear of the families was heartbreaking and painful. It left me imagining all these mothers pleading to be believed that their child is missing.

Carrie was such a messy, complex character, not your usual detective heroine. Her complicated grief over the death of her daughter added such an emotional connection to an investigation already fraught with emotion. Her initial disinterest in the job that gradually transformed, giving way to her resolve to find Chenoa was so compelling. This POV was very unique and drew you to her. Her internal battle with her otherness and disconnection from her the community and culture was fascinating, in particular her initial responses to the missing person reports where she clearly has succumbed to the racist beliefs she was raised with. Her gradual growth from resentment to longing for connection and roots was a beautiful evolution. I particularly enjoyed Chenoa’s grandmother, her wisdom and stories but also Carrie’s changed responses to the stories and her acceptance and belief in the teachings.

The additional backstory of oil rights, friction between neighbouring white community, Reserve decisions to protect the land or provide prosperity and hope to the impoverished community was very interesting and provided an added layer of intrigue and mystery. The dilemmas, fractured relationships and manipulation seemed very realistic.

The weaving of the traditional teaching of Deer Woman who seeks vengeance on behalf of women against those who injure innocence was amazing. It added important cultural elements, a unique way to express the rage of women, and to give voice to women’s stories. It also provided supernatural elements that increased the suspense and mysticism and elevated this from the usual murder mystery genre.

"To find a missing young woman, the new tribal marshal must also find herself.

At rock bottom following her daughter's death, ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr has nowhere to go but back to her roots. Starr's father never talked much about the reservation where he was raised, but the tribe needs a new marshal as much as Starr needs a place to call home.

In the past decade, too many young women have disappeared from the rez. Some have ended up dead, others just...gone. Now local college student Chenoa Cloud is missing, and Starr falls into an investigation that leaves her drowning in memories of her daughter - the girl she failed to save.

Starr feels lost in this place she thought would welcome her. And when she catches a glimpse of a figure from her father's stories, with the body of a woman and the antlers of a deer, Starr can't shake the feeling that the fearsome spirit is watching her, following her.

What she doesn't know is whether Deer Woman is here to guide her or to seek vengeance for the lost daughters that Starr can never bring home."

Deer Woman! YAS!

Laurie L. Dove weaves a compelling narrative about indigenous communities and the land surrounding them with a side heaping of murder and intrigue. While it was slow at parts, the ending was action packed enough to keep me hooked. 3.5 stars rounded up to four for goodreads.

Plot:
Carrie Starr is the new Reservation Marshal in the Saliquaw Nation of northern Oklahoma. Running away from the grief of her daughter's death, she takes the job with her father's people out of desperation, but stumbles upon so much more. There's a slew of missing indigenous women that is only made more daunting by the constant reappearance of the Deer Woman, a malignant (or is she???) spirit of native belief. With so many suspicious characters to choose from, the prospect of fracking, and a new missing girl on the rez Marshal Starr's road ahead is NOT an easy one.

Thanks:
Thank you to NetGalley, Laurie L. Dove, and Berkley publishing for this ARC.

A powerful story about missing Indigenous women and girls starring a deeply complicated detective who refuses to give up. Starr is jaded after losing her job as a Chicago detective and is still grieving the murder of her daughter. So when she's tasked with investigating the disappearance of a teen girl on tribal land in Oklahoma, she's determined to stop the loss of another life. Haunted by the spirit of the mythological figure of the Deer Woman, Starr must determine if she's working with or against her. It's gritty, dark, and keeps you guessing to the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for giving me access to this eARC!

Wow, I gobbled this book up so quickly. Although this is a fictional novel, there is a real epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Another real issue is the erasure of Indigenous heritage through residential homes, the sixties scoop, etc. Dove, as an Indigenous woman adopted by a white family, speaks from the heart in her writing as these are topics that mean something to her. I was captivated by the human-ness of Starr, our protagonist who is inherently flawed. My heart also wept for Junior, Odeina, Chief Byrd, and the other members of the community who suffered loss and prejudice. Dove also created some very intriguing villains, and not all of them got their just desserts. The twists and turns this book turned kept me so drawn to every page, I needed to know what happened. Chenoa's ending and storyline in general was also quite satisfying.

This was a 4.5 star read for me only because at times, I really wanted to smack Starr over the head. I'm sure this was intentional but unlikeable protagonists and I have a complicated relationship.

I cannot wait to read more from Laurie L. Dove!

DNF - I get that MMIW are a real problem that we're ignoring, but the "detective who doesn't really belong on the rez" has been done better by others.

eARC provided by publisher via Netgalley.

Good read, but very predictable! I think the main character had a lot of demons and the demons almost finished her off.

Review coming soon!

Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC.

Opinions are mine.

In her debut novel, Mask of the Deer Woman, Laurie Dove highlights the issue of missing Indigenous women this tale of a mixed-race woman who is assigned to a reservation on the Kansas-Oklahoma border, where many young women and girls of the fictitious Saliquaw Nation have disappeared over the years. Now, Marshal Carrie Starr must search for a college student, whose mother insists she would not have disappeared on her own.

I didn’t find Starr to be a particularly likable person. I’m not sure she even fits the definition of an anti-hero, at least not for most of the plot. She just wants to do enough to get by. She’s a sorry excuse for a law enforcement agent, at least initially. She’s been sent to the rez mainly because of her heritage and because she messed up big time in Chicago. This is her last chance to prove herself. Starr doesn’t really expect to find Chenoa Cloud because she does believe that the woman left on her own, like so many others who have nothing to live for on the rez. Starr herself has little to live for; she’s grieving the death of her daughter. She’s angry, not just at the person responsible, but at herself and at the world.

When she arrives, members of the tribe do not seem to accept her. No one wants to give her information about the missing woman. To them, she’s an outsider, despite the fact that her late father once lived there. As the hours and days pass, Starr feels like she’s getting nowhere. She copes by swigging whiskey that she stows under the seat of her Bronco and toking weed that she keeps in her pocket. It seemed to me that someone would’ve gotten a whiff of that, but no one says a word about it, at least not to Starr. And she seems to barely eat regular meals. With habits like that, how she could function was beyond me. Another death reminds her of her daughter, sends her reeling, but how many more will there be? Maybe she can find Chenoa before it’s too late.

It is Chenoa’s grandmother who, in her rambling, seemingly delusional way, speaks to Starr of the Deer Woman. Is she real? People claim to have seen her. Maybe Starr does too. Motivated by the memory of her daughter and the Native women who are lost, Starr is determined to keep on searching.

Life on the reservation is hard. People live in poverty, and they do what they can to survive and to cope. When the town and a big company offer a chance for the Nation to become prosperous, the tribal council is all for it, but some in the community disagree. There will be a steep cost to the land, the water, and to the wildlife if the development plans proceed.

Laurie Dove has created a story that is both magically mystical and painfully realistic. Despite my early skepticism, the more Starr became engaged in her job, the more I became engaged in following along. The Mask of the Deer Woman is an impressive debut novel.

I received an ARC copy. Thanks to NetGalley, Berkley, and Ms. Dove. My thoughts and opinions are my own.

4 stars

Such a well written book that will keep you captivated until the very end. This should be in everyone's tbr for 2025.

As soon as I began to read this book it sucked me right in. The pages were flying, my mind was turning, and my heart was breaking for these Indigenous girls and woman who have disappeared from the Rez. The police, BIA, FBI, anyone who could be of any help have turned their back on the Saliquaw Nation. Giving any excuse they can come up with not to do an actual investigation. Ex-Chicago Detective Carrie Starr has been assigned as the new tribal marshal. Carrie has never lived on the rez, but her father grew up there. Making her eligible for the position. Her life has been turned upside down since the death of her daughter. Carrie finds the bottom of too many whiskey bottles. She needs a fresh start, a place to mourn, and hopefully turn her life around.

After arriving Carrie has no time to settle in. Chenoa Cloud has disappeared. Her mother cannot get ahold of her, and it has been days. Chenoa has been hunting for an endangered beetle. Which could save the rez from the newest oil venture. As Carrie begins to dig into the missing girls, she is beginning to see the puzzle pieces beginning to move. Who has the power and who does not? She must also confront her own past. Leaving her to wish her father brought her back to the rez more often and to teach his ways. As the past and the present comes to a head, leaving all to bear.

I loved the atmospheric vibe that was created. The intense cold, the wind, the driving rain, made me burro deeper into my blankets. The daily hardships that people on the rez run into made my heart bleed. Thank you to Laurie L. Dove and Berkley Publishing for my gifted copy of this phenomenal book.

This book is full of brutal truths, and brokenness caused by trauma. The author does not shy away from the tension between wanting to ignore a part of yourself, and feeling like you don’t belong anywhere. Starr is a woman with no hope-teetering on the edge of a cliff into full-blown despair. She drowns herself in alcohol to numb all pain, and is only doing her current job because it is her last chance at something better. Dove draws us into Starr’s despair, and also her initial refusal to accept any Indigenous folklore because facts are the only truth she is willing to believe.

As the reader gets further into the story, we are shown the heartbreaking reality of Indigenous people living on reservations, and the women who disappear without much care or thought from anyone outside of their community. They are the forgotten, the neglected, the lesser than, and the pain their families feel is a blip on the radar of those not living with it everyday.

This book was heavy, agonizing, and a slap in the face with hard truths we must be willing to accept. And although the ending isn’t a happy one, it’s more honest and true to the daily life of Indigenous peoples. Sometimes life doesn’t give you a clean and neatly tied up answer to your problem. Sometimes the only thing you can do it keep going. This book was very good, and I would recommend it to anyone.

When you read as many mysteries and police procedurals as I do, they can all sort of run together. It's especially hard to create a distinct main character. But Dove has done it with Carrie Starr. Carrie really has no interest in solving cases. She’s just started a job as the BIA tribal marshall. Starr is still suffering the loss of her daughter to a drug overdose. This job is her last chance. “All she had to do was give the appearance that she could do her job.” She’s tasked with finding answers to the number of rez women who have gone missing. In particular, the latest woman to go missing is Chenoa Cloud, a college student who came home to do research for her entomology class.
Dove does an excellent job of describing life on the rez - the hardships, the despair. There is a political aspect as an oil company is looking to frack on the reservation land. It divides the community between those looking to finally make some money (this is the only reservation without a casino) and those afraid of the environmental implications. I would have liked this aspect to have explored a little more fully. This is definitely a character driven story. The book is a slow burn with limited action until the end. But it has lots to say about loss - of family and community, of meaning in one’s life.
There is a magical realism aspect to the book, which can be problematic for me. But it wasn’t overwhelming and worked within the confines of the plot.
My thanks to Netgalley and Berkley Publishing for an advance copy of this book.

Dove crafts a seductive tale that seamlessly weaves commentary on environmentalism, the inequities that Native communities face in this country, and a propulsive mystery plot. The book represents the author's commanding voice and is a debut to watch.

MASK OF THE DEER WOMAN, the debut novel from Author Laurie L. Dove, explores the daily tragic realities faced by Indigenous People living on reservations - the hopelessness, despair, poverty, youth lost to addiction or big cities, rape of land and resources as well as the heartbreaking, ongoing epidemic of missing Indigenous Women who disappear from reservations yearly with little to no recognition or concern from the news media or law enforcement.

After the murder of her teenage daughter left her drowning in grief and guilt with no place to turn, ex-Chicago Detective Carrie Starr finally lands a job as tribal marshal for the new Bureau of Indian Affairs on the Oklahoma reservation where her father grew up. Hoping to be accepted home, her main priority is to investigate the cold cases of missing and murdered Indigenous Women others have deemed unworthy. The urgency and stakes increase when Chenoa Cloud, a local college girl researching the possibility of an endangered species of insects on a plot of reservation land, disappears with clues pointing towards a connection to past disappearances. As Carrie begins investigating, her own dark, haunting memories surface, leaving her lost in foggy hallucinations of the Deer Woman, a mystical Indian lore figure with a female body bearing a deer's antlers - one she recalls from her father's long-ago tales, but why is she repeatedly appearing to Carrie? As she digs deeper, Carrie begins uncovering widespread corruption among the town's leaders including a get rich scheme involving oil found on reservation land. . . the same land that may be an endangered species' habitat. It's up to Carrie to connect all the pieces of the puzzle before another girl disappears. Carrie failed to save her own daughter . . . she can't let these women down.

MASK OF THE DEER WOMAN is an intense, highly atmospheric story about the plight of a nation of people long ignored by authorities as well as the news media. Most of the story unfolds through Carrie's point of view, allowing readers to ride shotgun as she frantically searches for the missing women hoping to bring closure to grieving families while trying to keep a handle on her own sanity. Carrie's repeated hazy visions set a dire tone of malice, driving a steadily rising pace as she races the clock to find the missing college student before she too is lost. The author does a fantastic job offering up red herrings with plausible motive to keep readers guessing until the final climax and reveal. The magical realism element of Indian lore is beautifully written and incorporated into the story in a manner that enhances the plot line while driving the suspense. Characters and readers are left wondering if the deer woman is friend or foe.

Author Laurie L. Dove's debut novel, MASK OF THE DEER WOMAN, is the heartbreaking story of missing and murdered Indigenous women often ignored by law enforcement. It's the story of the difficulty faced by one woman in her search to find her place in a cruel, unaccepting world that took her daughter from her – to find a place of healing where she belongs when she's pulled between two vastly different worlds, neither of which welcome her. Intense and highly visual, MASK OF THE DEER WOMAN is for fans of mysteries, suspense and heartfelt stories with a touch of magical realism.

Being Native American, I’m always appreciative to see books with indigenous characters, especially when they are the main character. While a fictional book, the storyline hits on how missing and murdered indigenous women do not make news headlines. I was unfamiliar of the deer woman and found myself researching her when I was not reading. Although the pace of the book was slow at times, I really did enjoy the read and am happy to recommend it.

A Marshall, dealing with past trauma, the loss of her daughter, alcoholism, the loss of her job is sent to the rez to find a missing girl. Her father was part of the tribe at one point, her mother was white so she didn't grow up belonging. Merging cultural myths of the deer woman, political issues that the rez is dealing with and the sad reality of so many missing girls not getting the help and attention they need is a tricky task, it succeeded part of the time and other times, it didn't quite work for me. If the subject matter is new to you, it would help educate