Really powerful short stories including about MMIW. Felt so many emotions from this book and loved how the author tied so many historical and current events in these stories. A must read!

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for this Advanced Readers Copy of Waiting for the Long Night Moon by Amanda Peters!

I was a huge fan of this author’s debut novel, 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗿𝗿𝘆 𝗣𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀, but I liked this collection of short stories even more. Interestingly, she actually wrote this collection first but the novel published first.

While covering a vast span of time, these stories are connected by highlighting the experience of indigenous people. From the first contact with European settlers to the present day, the author writes about the trauma and injustices they face while also bringing to the forefront their resilience, strength, and beauty of their culture and traditions. Story telling is such an important aspect of this culture and it’s done beautifully in this collection.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! This book was published on February 11th, 2025 by Catapult.

Full Rating: 3.5 stars rounded up

Amanda Peters’ debut short story collection, Waiting for the Long Night Moon, is a quiet meditation on grief, resilience, and the enduring bond between Indigenous people and the land. Through spare yet lyrical prose, Peters captures the weight of intergenerational trauma while insisting on the vitality of survival—a delicate balance between sorrow and defiance.

Each story in the collection offers a window into the complex realities of Indigenous life across time and place. In one, a grieving mother finds purpose as a water protector, her fight against state violence becoming an act of remembrance for her daughter. In another, an Indigenous family shelters their white French trading partners from English invaders, driven by a hard-earned empathy born from their own experiences of displacement. The titular story reflects on the lasting wounds of settler colonialism, as an Indigenous man reckons with how white settlers irrevocably altered his life. Time and again, Peters highlights the violent legacies of residential schools, the theft of language, and the slow, deliberate erasure of Indigenous identity. Yet, these stories are not defined solely by loss; the land itself emerges as a character, offering its own quiet promise of healing. Trees, rivers, and mud are not merely backdrops—they are witnesses, collaborators, and lifelines.

While Peters' storytelling is rooted in dignity and truth, I found myself longing for a stronger emotional connection to the characters. Though the writing is undeniably beautiful, the brevity of certain stories and the broad sweep across historical periods sometimes left me feeling unmoored. The collection's structure made it difficult to find a reading rhythm, and I finished the book admiring its themes more than remembering its people. This left me with a sense of respect, but not quite love.

That said, Waiting for the Long Night Moon is a valuable contribution to contemporary Indigenous literature. Peters reminds us that survival is resistance, and that memory—held in the soil, in language, in the body—is its own form of power. For readers seeking stories of resilience told with gentle lyricism and deep reverence for the earth, this collection offers a quiet but necessary voice.

📖 Recommended For: Readers drawn to lyrical, land-centered storytelling; those interested in Indigenous resistance, intergenerational trauma, and the resilience of community.

🔑 Key Themes: Land and Belonging, Grief and Resilience, Colonial Violence and Erasure, Memory as Resistance, Survival as Defiance.

Content / Trigger Warnings: Gore (minor), Blood (minor), Murder (minor), Grief (severe), Child Death (minor), Child Abuse (severe), Police Brutality (minor), Medical Content (minor), Physical Abuse (severe), Domestic Abuse (severe), Drug Abuse (minor), Death (minor), Cancer (minor), Alcohol (minor), Fire (minor), Violence (severe).

The author of The Berry Pickers has a new collection of stories highlighting different perspectives of the Indigenous experience.

From these short stories, the reader gets snippets into the often painful experiences that too many indigenous people have suffered through. From racism and forced assimilation to abuse, loss and death, these stories pack an emotional punch. The stories will make you sad and angry at the unfairness of their experiences. I am so glad I read it and found the narration to be great on this as well. Highly recommend this one!

Thank you to @librofm and @recordedbooks for the complimentary audiobook and to @netgalley @thebookcatapult @counterpointpress @softskullpress for the digital copy of this collection

Thank you to NetGalley, author Amanda Peters, and Catapult for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

A powerful read. I saw Peters' first work, The Berry Pickers, everywhere last year, and now I definitely have to pick it up. Her writing is luminous yet simple in the best way; the stories unfold themselves and her writing just happens to emphasize what is being told. This was a very hard read at times, as there are many tragic and heartbreaking stories. I appreciate, though, that none of the stories shy away from the very real horror Native Americans have faced and continue to face. My favorite story was the one about guarding the river (apologies as I forgot the title), as it showed a contemporary perspective. I learned a lot from this small collection and have much to think about, the markers of an outstanding read.

Title: Waiting on the Long Night Moon
By: Amanda Peters
Pub. Date: February 11, 2025

Genre: Fiction, Short Stories, Historical, Indigenous,

Favorite Quotes:
“Where are your words?” He stopped her mid-story, “I don’t use them. They are not my words anymore, they are yours.”

“The eyes of a doe,” my mother would say. “Soft and gentle, but vulnerable to those who feign kindness.”

“Made of toothpicks and sawdust, you are. A good wind would blow you away to the four corners of the earth,” my grandmother used to say.

Summary/ Review:
Deep, Dark, and Reflective..

Amanda Peters does it again with an authentic collection of real, genuine, short stories that will resonate with the reader long after the last page. Peter's writing is profoundly sincere, while approaching sensitive topics of racism, grief, despair, loss, and fear, she weaves a few similar stories of joy.

Note from the author: "At times sad, at times disturbing, but always redemptive, the stories in Waiting for a Long Night Moon will remind you that where there is grief there is also joy, where there is trauma there is resilience, and most important, there is power.”

Thank you to Amanda Peters, Catapult, Counterpoint Press, and Soft Skull Press, and NetGalley for the Advanced Readers Copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

#AmandaPeters
#Catapult
#CounterpointPress
#SoftSkullPress
#reluctantreaderreads
#advancedreadercopies
#NetGalley

𝗪𝗔𝗜𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗟𝗢𝗡𝗚 𝗡𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 𝗠𝗢𝗢𝗡 is a raw collection of stories about the Indigenous experience. I loved Amanda Peters' debut novel 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘗𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘴 (which was inspired by a short story of the same name included here) and her writing is as descriptive and evocative as it is in her book. It's hard not to be moved by the topics she explores, but at times I found myself struggling to understand when each story occurred. The timeframe ranges from first contact with the European settlers to current day, and I think the collection would have been more impactful if the stories had been in chronological order. It's a small thing, though - this is a beautiful and harrowing look at the trauma and triumph of the Indigenous people that everyone should read.

Thanks to Catapult for the copy to review.

Thank you for the ARC.

I really enjoyed all of the stories in this book. The prose is poetic and layered, lush-- while the characters are fully formed, even in short stories.

Peters’ (The Berry Pickers) beautiful debut collection ranges from first contact to the consequences of residential schools, to the modern waterkeepers and includes the award winning, “Waiting for the Long Night Moon.” There are stories of heartbreak, loss, family and tradition. I highly recommend!

A compelling collection of short stories about indigenous peoples. Heartbreaking, tragic, and grieving, but also tinged with hope.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What an excellent collection of stories! Some were very short, some were longer, but all were equally impressive. Amanda Peters is becoming an auto-read author for me. Each story was heartfelt and touched on Native stories from across time. Some were tragic, some were hopeful. All of them showed perseverance.

What a great writer Amanda is! I ate these stories up as I did her book and hope for many more to come. Loved every story in here. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher!

What an overall wonderful read. The stories spanned time, place, and Indigenous experience, and varied in length. I am not usually a short story person, mainly because I love getting to know characters throughout a novel, but so many of the characters and their stories that Peters crafted were intriguing and real enough to hook me in a short amount of time. While some of the stories grapple with darker storylines- residential schools, colonialism, drug addiction- others were so incredibly beautiful, especially those about love, family, and tradition. The heavier emotions some stories evoked were balanced with the joy and familiarity I felt from others. Niawen for this collection, Amanda!