Review of Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie

Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie was on my list of Most Anticipated Mysteries and Thrillers of 2023. It’s a story about a Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is drawn back to her Oklahoma home after her sister goes missing. Check out my review of Blood Sisters!

Written and edited by Jen Ryland. Last updated on:

Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie

Published on October 31, 2023 by Berkley

Thanks to the publisher for the advance review copy which I accepted under FTC guidelines! Please see my Editorial Policy for more details.

Plot Summary for Blood Sisters

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.

Syd is still haunted by a night of violence she barely escaped in her Oklahoma hometown fifteen years ago. But when her sister, Emma Lou, vanishes, Syd knows she must return home. She refuses to let her sister’s disappearance go ignored, as so often happens in cases of missing Native women.

Not everyone is glad to have Syd home and the deeper she digs, the more secrets she uncovers.

Review of Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie

Blood Sisters has:

• Native American issues and characters
• A past/present mystery
• A sister story
• Themes of family, community, and injustice

Blood Sisters was a dark and sobering read, but also a gripping and inspiring one.

The author is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma who uses this haunting mystery to highlight the heartbreaking mistreatment of the Cherokee people.

In the 1800s, the Cherokee, along with members of the Choctaw, Muskogee/Creek, Seminole and Chickasaw nations, were forcibly relocated from the Southeastern United States to the Midwest.

Blood Sisters is set in 2008. Main character Syd has been living in Rhode Island, working as an archeologist on Narragansett land. But she reluctantly leaves her newly pregnant wife to head back to her Oklahoma hometown after she learns her sister Emma Lou has vanished.

The whole “main character drawn back to their hometown” trope is very common on thrillers, but Blood Sisters puts a very real and gritty spin on it.

Syd’s family home sits on the twenty acre allotment given to her family after the Trail of Tears. She learns that her parents and their neighbors are being pressured to take a buyout for their houses. After being aggressively mined for minerals, her entire hometown is a Superfund site, a place with poisoned groundwater, polluted air, and depleted land.

As if that wasn’t enough, as soon as Syd arrives back in town, she is haunted by a terrible tragedy from the 1990s, a night when she and her two best friends were terrorized by a group of masked men. One of the men and one of the girls died.

Blood Sisters also highlights the plight of missing and murdered Native woman, many of whose cases have not been investigated or solved.

Normally with a book like Blood Sisters, I’d say “there’s a lot going on here.”

And there is. But the issues in this book (which also include the drug trade and drug addition) are real ones, and the author does a great job of incorporating them into her story. The crime in the story was also inspired by a real one, the 1999 deaths of teenagers Lauria Bible and Ashley Freeman.

Blood Sisters isn’t all bleak, either.

Vanessa Lillie also captures the deep love of the Cherokee people for their land, their understandable suspicion of the government, and the strong and unbreakable bonds between Syd, Emma Lou, and their friend Luna.

A reviewer on Goodreads said this book reminded her of a Karin Slaughter novel, and I definitely agree. Blood Sisters was dark and sometimes very sad, but obviously written by someone who researches deeply and feels passionately about the issues she highlights.

If you loved this book or want to read other mysteries written by Native authors:

Check out my review of The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

And my review of Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley