Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Out West Books in Grand Junction recommends three novels that explore the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
Sisters of the Lost Nation
By Nick Medina
Berkley
$18
March 2024
Purchase
From the publisher: Part gripping thriller and part mythological horror, a young Native girl hunts for answers about a string of disappearances, all while being haunted herself. Anna Horn is always looking over her shoulder. For the bullies who torment her, for the entitled visitors at the reservation’s casino…and for the nameless, disembodied entity that stalks her every step—an ancient tribal myth come to life, one that’s intent on devouring her whole.
With strange and sinister happenings occurring around the casino, Anna starts to suspect that not all the horrors on the reservation are old. As girls begin to go missing and the tribe scrambles to find answers, Anna struggles with her place on the rez, desperately searching for the key she’s sure lies in the legends of her tribe’s past.
From Didi Herald, bookseller: Stories are one of the best ways to inform people and inspire care about issues and problems they may have never known existed. I picked this up looking for a thriller which I got but it also led me to look for more information about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, an issue I was aware of but had never spent much time thinking about. I liked Anna because of her vulnerability and dogged determination. She is trying to figure out who she is and is an outsider even though thoroughly enmeshed with family and tribe as she comes of age on the reservation. This suspenseful tale with tidbits of tribal lore moved the issue of MMIWG to the front of my mind. This was an entertainingly suspenseful read that broadened my understanding of the world.
Looking for Smoke
By K. A. Cobell
Heartdrum/ HarperCollins
$19.99
June 2024
Purchase
From the publisher: Since moving to the Blackfeet Reservation with her parents, Blackfeet teen Mara Racette has felt like an outsider. So, when local girl Loren includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet giveaway, Mara thinks she’ll finally make some friends. Instead, a girl from the giveaway, Samantha White Tail, is found murdered.
Because the four members of the giveaway group were the last to see Samantha alive, each becomes a person of interest in the investigation. And all of them—Mara, Loren, Brody, and Eli—have a complicated history with Samantha.
From Didi Herald, bookseller: I nearly missed a doctor’s appointment when reading this stunning debut novel. I was so immersed in the story I didn’t notice when my name was called in the waiting room. This mystery thriller, looking into the disappearance of a teenage girl and the murder of another after a giveaway ceremony to honor the missing girl, captivated me. The several possible suspects are so well developed and relatable one doesn’t want any of them to be involved. The family and community dynamics ring true as well as the stress and trauma of a family relocating to a very different environment. The details of the celebration and life on the Blackfeet Reservation adds a rich layer to the setting while the central mysteries give a face to those devastated by the loss of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
White Horse
By Erika T. Wurth
Macmillan
$27.99
October 2023
Purchase
From the publisher: Heavy metal, ripped jeans, Stephen King novels, and the occasional beer at the White Horse have defined urban Indian Kari James’s life so far. But when her cousin Debby finds an old family bracelet that once belonged to Kari’s mother, it inadvertently calls up both her mother’s ghost and a monstrous entity, and her willful ignorance about her past is no longer sustainable.
Haunted by visions of her mother and hunted by this mysterious creature, Kari must search for what happened to her mother all those years ago. Her father, permanently disabled from a car crash, can’t help her. Her Auntie Squeaker seems to know something but isn’t eager to give it all up at once. Debby’s anxious to help, but her controlling husband keeps getting in the way. Kari’s journey toward a truth long denied by both her family and law enforcement forces her to confront her dysfunctional relationships, thoughts about a friend she lost in childhood, and her desire for the one thing she’s always wanted but could never have.
From Marya Johnston, owner: I started reading this book with trepidation….as you may know by now, I read at night. Though it was eerie, it was a fast, unpredictable (especially the end!) dark ghost story. Idaho Springs born, now living in Denver, Kari is one of the strongest female characters I’ve read in a book in a long time and I was captivated by her foray into the “tradish” cultures on her quest for the truth of her mother’s death. Though she exudes a tough urban Indian persona (dresses in black, listens to Megadeth and reads Stephen King), the spirit world disrupts Kari’s status quo in a big way. I was equally captivated by Wurtz’s perceptions of urban vs. Rez Indians and the fact that most Indigenous people are not full blood. Colorado noir at its best (hello Denver in the 1980’s…references to famous dive bars, Lakeside’s roller coasters, Casa Bonita ), this page-turner will keep your eyes open long after you should have gone to sleep!
THIS WEEK’S BOOK RECS COME FROM:
Out West Books
533 Main St., Grand Junction
outwestbooks.co
As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. Read more.
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