Welcome back, friend! Yesterday, I shared about Blood Sisters. Today I am beyond thrilled to bring you this interview with Vanessa Lillie! Get ready for insights into the story and some indigenous book recommendations! 🙂
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 fifteen 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 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.
Get to know the author: Vanessa Lillie
Hi Vanessa. Welcome to Armed with A Book. Please tell me and my readers about yourself.
Thank you for having me! Maybe it’d be fun to start with where I overlap with my main character from Blood Sisters, Syd Walker. We are both Cherokee women from Northeast Oklahoma. We both live in Rhode Island and are Two Spirit, which within Native communities can mean Queer, but also the idea of holding within you both the masculine and feminine, and it’s a term outside the typical Western gender norms.
Blood Sisters is the start of a new series. How did the idea for this one come to you?
While Blood Sisters is absolutely fiction, there are true parts of this story that have been with me my whole life. The crime at the heart of the book is based on a real case that happened in a nearby town in 1999 where two girls were stolen from their home. The family wasn’t believed by authorities that they needed to look for the girls immediately, and the bodies have never been recovered. This is a sad occurance many in tribal communities understand. That’s why this book (and future books in this series) will have Missing Murdered and Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit (MMIWG2S) at the heart of the stories, a tragic issue I’m deeply committed to elevating in whatever way I can.
I also wanted to write about my Cherokee heritage and explore what it means to be Cherokee today. Just like Syd, my Cherokee family were forced to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. In fact, I gave Syd the same last name, Walker, after my Cherokee ancestor who walked the trail as a child. But there’s a whole modern world I wanted to share as well as questions I’m still exploring through my characters.
Syd is an archaeologist for the BIA, trying to bring justice to her tribe and culture through her work. She has a stressful relationship with Northeast Oklahoma, not having visited home in three years. On a personal level, she feels unworthy of becoming a mother. What has happened in Syd’s past to shape her present in this way?
The story opens with a home invasion where Syd wasn’t able to save her friend’s life. She’s lived with that trauma, and it’s followed her around her whole life – literally in this case, since the ghost of that friend who was murdered is a character in the book. To me becoming a mother brought up every ghost, so to speak, especially those around worthiness. I felt like Syd would have difficulty stepping into the responsibility of being a parent because she feels like she wasn’t able to keep her friend safe.
What kind of research do you pursue for this novel?
So much! I absolutely love research. In fact, I’d say more of this novel is true than fiction. The history of the place it’s set, the tribal and environmental injustice, even the natural disaster at the center of the story is all real. While I’m from there and in some ways lived with much of the story, it was different to go back as an adult and look at where I’m from with that writer lens.
Which part of the story would you say was the most challenging to write in Blood Sisters?
What a good question. I think getting the balance between sharing the history and injustices that are based in reality with the need for this to be a page turner and not preachy. As a reader, I like to learn and be moved by what I read. Social justice is at the heart of most mysteries and thrillers because it’s the most intense moment in your main character’s life. But my number one job as a writer to make sure that readers are engrossed in the story. It took a lot of revision to get that balance right.
If readers could take one thing away from this book, what would you want it to be?
I hope it increases awareness of the Missing and Murdered Women, Girls and Two Spirit crisis as well as just seeking out connection to tribal communities in their area. We are all on Native land. I think it’s powerful to connect and support those who have been here from the earliest of days.
For someone who loves Blood Sisters, please recommend three books to check out next.
Only three?! Definitely read Hell in the Heartland, by Jax Miller, which is the true crime account of the case at the heart of Blood Sisters that happened right after my senior year of high school I mentioned earlier. I love Never Whistle at Night, a new dark fiction anthology by Indigenous authors and Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley, which also features archaeology and tribal justice.
Do you already have ideas for the follow up book to Blood Sisters? Will it also be from Syd’s point of view or is there another character you might explore as the protagonist?
I have a first draft, and it’s Syd Walker again, but this time she’s back in Rhode Island on Narragansett Native land. I’m exploring what it’s like to be Indigenous in the heart of colonial America.
I learned from your bio that you have investigated local ghost stories! Can you share something spooky or strange that has happened to you?
If you read Blood Sisters, you’re familiar with the Spook Light, which is a single light that appears at night, floats above a dirt road, and can approach your car. I’ve seen it many times, in fact, going on a hayride to see it was a common activity in my hometown church.
You are active in the crime fiction community through your Instagram. What advice would you give to a new writer looking to write crime and suspense?
Try to connect with other writers, especially those who are at the stage you’re in. I’ve made friends through online classes, Twitter pitch contests, chatting on social media, National Novel Writing Month, and there have been real in-person opportunities, too. Also, it’s free to join International Thrillers Writers, and I’d highly recommend that, too.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Wado (or thank you in Cherokee) for featuring Blood Sisters, and please connect with me over on Instagram , Facebook, or my author newsletter, which you can sign up for on my website.
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me and sharing with my readers. 🙂
Wado, my friend, for joining us for the interview! Big thanks to the team at Berkley Books for the opportunity to review an advanced copy of Blood Sisters and to interview Vanessa.
Add Blood Sisters to your Goodreads and read my review here.
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