Blood Sisters

By: Vanessa Lillie

Narrated by: Carolina Hoyos, Erin Tripp

Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

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 15 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.

©2023 Vanessa Lillie (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Gripping…provides a valuable insider’s look at the injustices that continue to be part of daily life for many Native Americans.” —Washington Post

“Blood Sisters is about Syd and Emma Lou, as well as the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women whose cases are never solved, if they’re investigated at all.” —New York Times

"Just a few pages in and this novel is roaring with mystery, danger, anguish and regret. Lillie fuels her Native characters with hope, resentment, anger and despair…A crime novel's journey often runs toward escapism, but the best, like Blood Sisters, lead us on a path toward knowledge and discovery." —Minneapolis Star Tribune

Writers can easily place you in the middle of the action!!

Vanessa Lillie is a very illustrative writer… you can see the surroundings she is placing characters and she describes the characters so you can visualize them! Lots of different spins on this story but completely believable coming from fro Eastern Oklahoma! Excellent read!!!

A great page turner with a social message

I appreciate how the themes of MMIW, illegal land seizure, meth crisis and the bond of family and friendship was seamlessly integrated.

Secrets and lies

Still reeling from this harrowing adventure. Top 10 best books for me. Full review to follow...

Picher, Oklahoma

I was raised and lived in Picher and the town of Miami, Oklahoma until I was in my 30’s. Picher had been a surging mining town that died when the veins ran dry. I had a good life and never experienced the “bad” gangs. It was a sad economic area but the people that were left were the “salt of the earth”. I guess we were the survivors. Yes, this book is fiction but the area she describes is real! Great Job Vanessa! BTY I’ve know Vanessa forever!

Very Accurate

From Picher myself. Excellent book and very accurate description of our land. I enjoyed reading this book very much. It made me smile when they mentioned the landmarks of my childhood. Great Job!

The Tragedies of Indigenous Women

This book has given us only a small glimpse into the issues that surrounded the Indigenous Peoples in America for over the past 5 centuries. The cruelty passed down through generations against the female keepers of our land has gone on for way too long. These women need to be respected and loved as givers of life.

Heart wrenching

I saw the author on GMA last week. The subject interested me. The book was all and more than I could have been imagined. It kept me engaged and excited. MMIW is finally being brought to the attention of the public. The narration was done to perfection. Thanks to Vanessa Lillie for writing this story.

I loved the way Sid went to the extreme to save her sister Emma Lou

The story was awesome and well written I didn’t dislike anything. I also liked the pace of the book

A New Light

Stories that must be told, even disguised as fiction or entertainment. But it is certainly so much more…..

The tale of the contemporary 2–spirit woven into the fabric of the story is neither over, nor understated. A valuable + appreciated perspective.

Thanks Vanessa and for another scrape at some all too often overlooked surfaces. Well done. I hope it’s only the beginning.

A Real Page Turner!

5 stars for Blood Sisters by the talented Vanessa Lillie. This brilliantly complicated mystery starts with a big ol' punch to the accelerator right on page one with a home invasion and three terrified Indigenous girls and a suggested but not spelled out cataclysmic ending to that crime. The intensity does not let up from there but you do fast forward ten years where one of the main characters involved in the original crime, Sid, has uncovered the body of another Indigenous woman likely the victim of a violent crime and then she learns that her sister back home in Oklahoma is missing. Believe it or not the author skillfully ties all these strings together over the course of the story. The genre is a bit of a mashup with a the mystery of what happened to Sid's sister being the most prominent story, but there is also some historical fiction (Trail of Tears, mining towns in Oklahoma and the chat hills and silicosis) told and heavy cultural themes that the author blends together for one helluva good book! Personally I love historical fiction when it brings to light something in history that I was not aware of and personalizes it with a fictional character that I care about. I definitely cared about Sid and the entire town of Picher by the end of this novel and had to google what chat hills were and silicosis! This is also the first book by an Indigenous author that I have read that takes aim with the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs.) And, I had to applaud the respectful but frank call out on some of the most notable ways the BIA has not only failed the Indigenous People but actually caused direct and intentional harm. Bravo, Vanessa Lillie. She also introduced me to what it means to be "Two Spirit" ~ or gay/non-binary. As with most Indigenous fiction there is a big cast of beautifully drawn characters and the author took meticulous care with each of them. Another thing I so enjoyed was the folklore and I personally loved Ghost Luna who was present on almost every page to heckle (in an affectionate way) the main character, Sid. This is just a really good book. It's a page turner. It's important. And, it's done in a way that will not only entertain you but really make you think. I would recommend this book to anyone. 5 well deserved stars!