ARC Review: Blood Sisters by Vanessa Little

Blood Sisters
Author: Vanessa Little
Publication: Berkley (October 31, 2023)

Description: A visceral and compelling mystery about a Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is summoned to rural Oklahoma to investigate the disappearance of two women…one of them her sister.

There are secrets in the land.

As an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Syd Walker spends her days in Rhode Island trying to protect the land's indigenous past, even as she’s escaping her own.

While Syd is dedicated to her job, she’s haunted by a night of violence she barely escaped in her Oklahoma hometown fifteen years ago. Though she swore she’d never go back, the past comes calling.

When a skull is found near the crime scene of her youth, just as her sister, Emma Lou, vanishes, Syd knows she must return home. She refuses to let her sister's disappearance, or the remains, go ignored—as so often happens in cases of missing Native women.

But not everyone is glad to have Syd home, and she can feel the crosshairs on her. Still, the deeper Syd digs, the more she uncovers about a string of missing indigenous women cases going back decades. To save her sister, she must expose a darkness in the town that no one wants to face—not even Syd.

The truth will be unearthed.

My Thoughts: This historical mystery is set in 2008. Syd Walker is an archaeologist for the BIA. She's sent home to Oklahoma when a skull is found on the land where a terrible tragedy occurred when she was young. The skull has one of Syd's old IDs in its teeth.

Syd has a number of issues. Her wife has just become pregnant, and Syd is conflicted about being a parent. She also doesn't want to go back to Oklahoma which was the site of her worst experience. But her sister Emma Lou has disappeared. Syd fears that she is using drugs again and that is why she left. She has been an addict off-and-on since she and Syd survived a home invasion that killed their best friend and her parents. But everyone insists that she wasn't using again. 

Syd finds herself looking for her sister and trying to find out who sent the message with the skull to her. And who is leaving her cryptic clues saying "Find me." And everyone seems to be keeping secrets. 

This mystery hits a lot of key notes: missing indigenous women, an area filled with poverty and drugs, and the results of lead pollution after mining is stopped. And through it all is the role of the BIA who is Syd's employer.

This was an excellent story about a woman almost consumed by survivor guilt who manages to finally come to terms with what she did. The story was packed with action and danger and even included a tornado. 

I enjoyed this story and will be looking for more about Syd Walker.

Favorite Quote:

"You should get paid for the land, finally, and be compensated for the pollutions and remediation."

"How about an ass like JLo while we're dreaming," she says with a snort. 

"I'm not joking, Aunt Missy. It's not right."

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.