COVER REVEAL + SNEAK PEEK: BLOOD SISTERS BY VANESSA LILLIE
AVAILABLE September 12, 2023
I’m so honored to be able to reveal the cover for Vanessa Lillie’s buzz-worthy new mystery here on CBTB today! BLOOD SISTERS is a gripping 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. The book has already been praised as “riveting” (Megan Miranda) and “bingeworthy” (Caroline Kepnes), and it’s sure to be one of fall’s must-read crime novels. BLOOD SISTERS will be released in September, but thanks to Vanessa and her publisher, we’re able to get an exclusive early glimpse into the book right here in today’s blog post! Read on to check out the book’s gorgeous cover, read a behind-the-scenes mini Q&A with Vanessa, and dip into the book’s first few pages! And make sure to preorder your copy of BLOOD SISTERS at your favorite bookstore while you’re at it. Huge thanks to Vanessa and her publisher for giving us this early sneak peek—I can’t wait to read BLOOD SISTERS this fall!
COVER REVEAL!
About the book:
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. Even 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 back. 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.
Mini Q&A: vanessa lillie on her new thriller, blood sisters
Crime by the Book: Can you identify a particular moment or experience that sparked the inspiration for Blood Sisters?
Vanessa Lillie: My writer brain is a crockpot, so here are two main pieces! First my Cherokee heritage, which is something I’ve wanted to explore creatively for a while. My maternal family is in Northeastern Oklahoma because of the Trail of Tears, and it’s a place that many tribes were forced. While that may seem like a long time ago, there are modern implications, and I wanted to share them.
The second piece is the unsolved disappearance and murder of two young women from near my hometown that happened right after I graduated from high school. The bodies were never found, and the family continues to look and advocate for justice in the case. In fact, there’s an incredible book about it (coincidently with my same editor at Berkley, Jen Monroe), called Hell in the Heartland by Jax Miller. Blood Sisters is not at all based on that tragic crime. But the feelings I’ve had watching the family search for justice is a part of this book.
CBTB: Tell us about your book's protagonist, Syd Walker. How would you describe her to someone meeting her for the first time?
VL: Syd has a real passion for justice, and not always by the letter of the law. She has her own sense of right and wrong. I love a character who has a code they live by, and no matter what, Syd is going to do what she believes is right. Even if it puts her own life in danger (and it does often!).
CBTB: I'm fascinated by Syd's profession! She is an archaeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). How did you land on this profession for Syd? Why was this the perfect job for her to have?
VL: I’m fascinated, too! My brother worked for the BIA for thirteen years, primarily in land management. I initially thought Syd would do something similar. After an informational interview with a BIA archeologist, I realized that’s what Syd should do because when the job is done right, an archeologist helps tribes preserve their past and support their future. That goes back to Syd’s sense of justice. Plus, I really enjoy researching and writing about archeology.
CBTB: Blood Sisters brings awareness to the issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women. Could you share with us why this subject matter was important for you to explore in this book?
VL: There’s a quote at the beginning of Blood Sisters that’s shared in Native activist circles: what happens to the land, happens to the women. Often Native stories are about land – what was taken, of course – but also how to live in a healthy relationship with the land. If we aren’t, if we are abusing and stealing and polluting, that ripples into our view of people, especially women, girls and Two-Spirit, and how little they are valued.
Thankfully the conversation around MMIWG2S (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two Spirit) is growing right now, and I think it’s important to know that this injustice is not new. Pocahontas was a stolen sister 400 years ago. It’s certainly true what was happening to the land during that time of colonialism, happened to her. I’m honored to help elevate these issues in any way I can.
READ an early excerpt from BLOOD SISTERS:
AGILVGI (SISTER)
Picher, Oklahoma May 8, 1993
A Devil kicks in the front door, but he’s holding a pistol in- stead of a pitchfork. The three of us girls, watching TV in a tangle of relaxed limbs on the floor, grab one another and scream.
“Tsgilis!” I call out the name of Cherokee evil spirits from stories around campfires meant to scare us, as a real one fills the narrow doorway. His white plastic mask and horns glow with all that dark night behind him. He stomps his nasty boots into the small trailer with a thud‑thud, thud‑thud.
A second devil follows on the metal stairs. The trailer creaks like a roller coaster to hell. Syd clings to my arm as tight as when we play Indian rope burn with the boys at school.
“Sister, are they raven mockers?” Syd hisses, referring to the soul-stealing Cherokee witches older cousins told us about.
“Them are dollar-store masks.” My voice shakes though I try to sound tough. “Ain’t no witch wearing that.”
The two white Tsgilis are not long and lean, but thick like tree stumps. I wonder if the real devil wears a shiny vest or prom tuxedo. No way he looks like these two in their sweat-stained shirts tight across their beer bellies.
Terror triggers a baptism over my body. A flood of helpless- ness spreads from my chest and washes down to my curled toes. It’s a feeling of smallness only those who live nowhere with nothing understand.
The moment stretches and their horned plastic masks catch the light in the wobbling ceiling fan. Pale blue eyes focus on us. I swear the frozen grins on the masks curl.
“You girls stay put,” yells the first devil. He stabs a fat finger at where we’re trembling in the center of the living room. The other devil beside him barely lifts his mask to spit chew on the ratty carpet.
My heart thumps in my ears, but I try not to let on. I’m pretty sure these kinda men are like wild dogs, surviving on meanness and the smell of fear.
“Where’s your daddy?” the second devil hisses at me like he hasn’t already scared us bad enough.
Our gazes whip around at one another like tether balls. Syd always insisted we’re old enough to be alone, even out in the mid- dle of nowhere. I can handle it. I’d never let anything hurt you.
The truth is out here, out nowhere, no one can be saved.
The only sound in the trailer is cheesy laughs from Full House on the TV. We stay quiet except for muffled sobs. Usually at least one of us can comfort the other when something goes wrong. Not tonight. Maybe not ever again.
We scoot closer together until our arms are around each other. Skin to skin, warm and familiar. We bow our heads like we’re asking for forgiveness at the pastor’s altar call.
There is a click and the devil aims his pistol right at the center of where we’re clinging to one another. “You girls don’t got no voice now? Yapping usually, ain’t ya?”
I glare at that devil and see his eyes flash blue. I realize he’s stared at me before. Watched me, even, from high up in the trees along the fence line. This devil is a hunter, just like Tsgilis.
“Now, listen here,” the first devil calls. “Tell us where your daddy keeps his money from that skunk weed he’s been selling.”
Only canned laughter from the TV breaks the silence.
“We can make you talk,” the other devil barks. “Or we can make you beg.” He aims his gun and fires right at the screen. I’ve heard shots ring out plenty, but in this small room, the sound is a piercing explosion like a firework gone wrong.
We shiver and sob but don’t say shit.
The devil with the gun lunges at us. “Have it your way.” He jams the pistol inches from my face. “Start with the pretty one. That’ll teach her daddy.” Then he points the gun at Syd. “Put this one that looks like a boy in a closet. I’ll tie that one up.”
We scream for each other, arms outstretched, as we’re ripped apart.
“Luna!”
“Syd!”
“Emma Lou!”
Syd tries to kick the devil who’s grabbed her under the arms. She stops fighting quicker than I’d ever expect. She’s supposed to protect us. To save us when we step wrong. But then I see why she lost her fight. The devil is dragging Syd to the tiny storage closet by the kitchen. She knows what I know: there’s a loaded shotgun in there.
I’m flipped hard onto my stomach, and my face is shoved into the carpet by a nasty boot.
I pull away, but the hard toe connects with my jaw. Fresh pain blooms as I squeeze my eyes shut and try to slow my breathing. To stop shivering. To not give these wild dogs what they want.
Play possum, that’s what we do in the middle of nowhere to survive.
Play dead until Sister saves us from the devils.
I go completely still except for a prayer on my lips, whispering to a god who’s never answered out here, out nowhere, Let Agilvgi send the Tsgilis back to hell.
Excerpted from BLOOD SISTERS by Vanessa Lillie published by Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2023 by Vanessa Lillie
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