Blood Sisters and The Bone Thief are the first and second novels in Vanessa Lillie’s Syd Walker thrillers about Native American women. While both can be read as a standalone novels, readers will get more out of the series if they read them in order. In both, Lillie takes on important contemporary issues: (1) The ongoing disappearance and/or murders of indigenous women and the fact that they count so little in modern society that they rarely are searched for nor receive justice. (2) Misappropriation of tribal history. (3) Theft of tribal land and belongings. (4) The effects of the drug epidemic on Native populations. Lillie weaves these hot topics seamlessly into her plots.
At the beginning of Blood Sisters, protagonist Syd Walker, suffering from PTSD after a traumatic family event, has moved from Oklahoma to Rhode Island near Narragansett tribal lands where she serves as an archaeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She’s temporarily reassigned to Oklahoma to investigate newly-discovered remains near her family’s home. Her return reignites her memories from the event and heightens her loss of connection with her family who feel she abandoned them when she moved East. Her investigation uncovers lies, deceit, and violence going back generations as Whites have systematically stolen from the Indigenous people there and uncovers a “bone yard” of Indigenous female bones, the lost and missing who were never investigated. She also looks at the Oxycodone and methamphetamine epidemics and its effects on Oklahoma.
In The Bone Thief, Syd wraps up the Oklahoma investigation and returns to Rhode Island to uncover the bones of an Indigenous woman buried several hundred years earlier. Those remains, on the property of the Founders’ Society, disappear overnight. The Founders’ Society is an exclusive group of Whites who trace their ancestry to the early colonists and thus claim ancestral rights to land stolen from the original Indigenous people. They are determined their side of history is the only correct one and will kill to protect their views. Another Native girl has vanished, and police are not investigating, insisting she merely ran away.
Both books are interesting and fast paced. That said, I did not enjoy them as much as the Firekeeper’s Daughter series I reviewed recently. Lillie’s prose doesn’t seem as cohesive nor the plots as tight as those of Angeline Boulley.
********************
Blood Sisters (September 12, 2023) is available through:
Your local independent bookseller | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
The Bone Thief (October 28, 2025 is available through:
Your local independent bookseller | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
********************
You can read my review of the Firekeeper’s Daughter series here.
********************
This post contains affiliate links to third party sites. These can help you visually identify books I recommend. If you make a purchase, I may receive a small compensation at no additional cost to you. This offsets some of the cost of maintaining this blog.
