Bethany (Beautifully Bookish Bethany)'s Reviews > Blood Sisters

A slower-paced mystery/thriller tackling really important subject matter of the far too high numbers of missing and murdered indigenous woman. Honestly I thought this was great, though I suspect it might be a little slow to start for some readers.

Blood Sisters follows Syd Walker, a queer Cherokee archaeologist who works for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. As a kid, she and her sister narrowly escaped death during a traumatic attack where their best friend lost her life. Now, her sister is missing and she is assigned to aid the investigation because it involves a skull as evidence. She leaves behind her pregnant wife to go home for the first time in years, determined to find and save her sister before it's too late.

We get a slower build as we get to know the setting and characters, but this eventually becomes rather pulse-pounding. It twists in unexpected ways and has a very satisfying ending. I would love to see this character re-appear in future books. One of the things that I loved about this approach is it deals with intensely heavy and traumatic subject matter without turning it into trauma porn. There is violence, misogyny, and abuse but we don't need a lot of graphic description to understand what has happened. And for women who have already experienced trauma, they don't need to relive it in that way. I wasn't sure what to expect when I started this given the subject matter, but I thought it was excellent.