{"id":5214,"date":"2023-10-24T06:06:02","date_gmt":"2023-10-24T13:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5214"},"modified":"2023-10-24T06:06:02","modified_gmt":"2023-10-24T13:06:02","slug":"vanessa-lillie-blood-sisters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/vanessa-lillie-blood-sisters\/","title":{"rendered":"Vanessa Lillie: Blood Sisters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I had a love-hate relationship with this read.\u00a0 Love: I loved the characters, the set-up, the cultural background, and the rocket powered story.\u00a0 Hate: I hated the way the main character runs into danger, alone, even though she knows it\u2019s stupid.\u00a0 The 4th<\/sup> or 5th<\/sup> time she did it I almost closed the cover, but I am so glad I didn\u2019t because this read is powerful, moving, and difficult to forget.<\/p>\n

The main character is Syd Walker, a Cherokee from Oklahoma who has made a life for herself far from home.\u00a0 She\u2019s an archeologist, married to a dentist, and the two women are trying for a baby, though Syd doesn\u2019t seem to be totally on board with the baby idea.\u00a0 As the book opens, Syd is examining the bones of a woman found on Native land in Rhode Island. As she\u2019s on her way home from the site, she gets a call from her boss.<\/p>\n

Syd works for the BIA \u2013 Bureau of Indian Affairs \u2013 and her boss is asking, in fact demanding – that she return to her tiny hometown of Picher, Oklahoma, to examine a skull that\u2019s been discovered in a tree, sporting Syd\u2019s ID badge in it\u2019s jaws.\u00a0 Syd is reluctant to return home for many reasons.\u00a0 As a child, she and her sister and their buddy Luna were hanging out one night when masked men (though ultimately known to the girls) break in, separate them, and kill one of the girls and her parents.\u00a0 Because Syd had freed herself and her sister but not managed to save her friend, she feels a load of guilt and sadness she can\u2019t seem to overcome.<\/p>\n

Syd is also being trailed by the ghost of that friend, Luna, who urges her to return home and discover what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 Syd reluctantly agrees, parting from her wife on something of a sour note, as the news of her wife\u2019s pregnancy doesn\u2019t fill her heart with joy and her wife knows it.\u00a0 Syd arrives in Oklahoma meaning to do a job of work with the uncovered bones, but she\u2019s met by a wall of resentment, secrets, and heartbreak from her own family.<\/p>\n

Her sister, a former drug addict, is missing and the family fear is that she\u2019s returned to drugs.\u00a0 She\u2019s left behind a little girl and a partner recently released from prison whom Syd is both angry at and incredibly resentful of.\u00a0 Her resentment seemed slightly unfair to me, but I understood her trauma and doubt \u2013 she\u2019d missed her wedding reception searching for her sister, who had overdosed. \u00a0\u00a0She\u2019d blamed the boyfriend, Cody, in part for her sister\u2019s drug use. Syd is weathering the disapproval of her family as they resent her absence. They know things about her missing sister that she does not.<\/p>\n

Whatever the reason for her sister\u2019s disappearance, Syd\u2019s fire and determination to find her is undimmed and she is incredibly (and sometimes foolishly) fierce as she attempts to find her. The plot also involves a dispute over the ownership of native land (much of it occupied by her own family members) as well as a meth ring and a series of native girls and women who have vanished over the years.<\/p>\n

While there are many layers here, the main force of the book is not only Syd\u2019s desire to find her sister but her own reckoning with her painful past in a way that will allow her to move forward with her life.\u00a0 Her wife has advised her to figure out what it is she wants, and that simple charge is the one that drives Syd as she reconnects with her parents, her little niece, her wild cousin and her canny and salty great aunt.\u00a0 All of her family have issues one way or another with Syd working for the BIA, which adds a layer to their resentment.<\/p>\n

While I was frustrated with Syd\u2019s continual plunge into danger I also admired her bravery and the love she feels for her sister, the love ultimately overcoming her judgement as she accepts whatever form her sister may be assuming in the present.\u00a0 The ending was so moving I went through many, many Kleenexes.\u00a0 This is a wonderful kickoff to what I am hoping might be a series.\u00a0 Syd deserves one. — Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a love-hate relationship with this read.\u00a0 Love: I loved the characters, the set-up, the cultural background, and the rocket powered story.\u00a0 Hate: I hated the way the main character runs into danger, alone, even though she knows it\u2019s stupid.\u00a0 The 4th or 5th time she did it I almost closed the cover, but … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[189,1353,1355,1351,935,1352,1354,670,1350],"class_list":["post-5214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-berkley","tag-blood-sisters","tag-bureau-of-indian-affairs","tag-cherokee","tag-family-drama","tag-missing-native-women","tag-oklahoma","tag-suspense","tag-vanessa-lillie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5214"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5337,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5214\/revisions\/5337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}