Providence author Vanessa Lillie's thriller pulls from tribal life, Oklahoma and RI

PROVIDENCE – When author Vanessa Lillie was a student at Miami High School, in what once was Indian Territory of northeast Oklahoma, two young women disappeared from a neighboring town.

“I watched that family search since 1999. They never were found,” she says.

Years later, when stories about missing and murdered Indigenous women began proliferating on social media, “they connected me back to that incident in high school.” Lillie, now of Providence, decided it was time to write about it.

“Blood Sisters,” her fictional account of similar disappearances, came out last week under the Berkley imprint of Penguin Random House with a plethora of praise from writers, including New York Times bestselling author Caroline Kepnes, who wrote for the book jacket, “a propulsive story of familial fault lines with as much to say about the dark side of people as the potential for redemption.”

Vanessa Lillie hailed as 'remarkable and courageous storyteller ...'

“A tale with all the twisting fury of a tornado…. Vanessa Lillie is a remarkable and courageous storyteller and an important Native voice,” added fellow bestselling author William Kent Krueger.

Lillie’s genre is suspenseful thrillers, and “Blood Sisters” mixes mystery and heart-pounding incidents with the frustrations of botched investigations and of families’ fears not being believed.

The backdrop is the historical theft of tribal lands by European settlers, with complicity by the federal government and it agencies, such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs. If that sounds like director Martin Scorsese’s latest film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Lillie welcomes any medium that draws attention to the issue.

“It’s very parallel to my book, [which is] a more contemporary view of tribes and government.”

Lillie researched facts for her book but also brings personal knowledge as an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. She can trace ancestors back to the Trail of Tears, the U.S. government’s forced displacement in the mid-1800s of people of the “Five Civilized Tribes,” which sent members of the Cherokee Nation to present-day Oklahoma.

Her novel, however, is first and foremost a thriller, right from the first page. Three childhood friends are watching television when two pistol-bearing men in white plastic masks storm in, looking for drug money. A narrator describes the scene, a disturbing mix of mundane sounds from the television and immediate fear – but not the aftermath.

RI enters the story in archeological dig

That’s for the rest of the book. The story picks up 15 years later in Exeter, Rhode Island, where one of the three girls, Syd Walker, now lives and works as an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She is unearthing human remains discovered on Narragansett lands when she gets an assignment from Oklahoma: a skull has been discovered and needs investigating.

Syd hasn’t been back to Oklahoma in years, but she learns her sister recently went missing and knows she has to revisit her home – and her past.

“It’s so twisty and fast-paced, with reveals you never see coming,” says Lisa Valentino, owner of Ink Fish Books in Warren, where the “Blood Sisters” book tour launched Oct. 30.

Lillie's interest in environmental issues adds a layer

Having grown up in Oklahoma and being a Rhode Islander since 2011, when she and her husband moved here for his work, Lillie includes specifics about both places. She is particularly attuned to environmental issues, which adds yet another layer to the storytelling.

With two previous novels and an Audible Original work to her credit, how did “Blood Sisters” come about?

“I was thinking about this when I was writing ‘For the Best,” her second novel. “I knew I wanted a Cherokee protagonist. My brain is like a Crockpot. Things have to be in there for a little bit.” Recalling the incident from high school turned up the heat.

Lillie says writers often are told to “write what you read,” and says, “I read thrillers. I think they deal with the most scary and intense moments in a character’s life. They also lead to examining social structures around us; there usually are cops present and there is a social-justice piece.

“It’s a thriller, but I think it’s important to be as accurate as possible,” adds the writer, who studied political science, public administration and journalism in college and graduate school. In “Blood Sisters,” accuracy ranges from historical facts to a tornado that adds urgency to a dramatic situation – and actually did tear through northeastern Oklahoma in 2008, when her saga takes place.

Lillie wrote a pandemic column in The Providence Journal

“I write about what’s pressing for me emotionally,” she adds. Her 2019 novel, “Little Voices,” deals with a new mother who feels compelled to investigate a friend’s murder. At the time, Lillie was herself a new mother. (She wrote about being at home with her husband and young son during the pandemic in a weekly column for The Providence Journal, “Home but Not Alone: A Coronavirus Diary.”)

“For the Best,” published in 2020, touches on white privilege in a story about a woman with an alcohol problem who becomes the prime suspect in a murder she can’t remember.

“Young Rich Widows,” the Audible Original, broke the pattern in that she wrote it with three other thriller/suspense authors as a fun, campy tale with “an over-the-top 1980s vibe,” she explains. “There is a lot of Providence in there: Caserta Pizzeria, the Turk’s Head Building, Hemenway’s Restaurant.”

There will be more Rhode Island in the sequel, set in Newport, which will debut next spring; it’s titled, “Desperate Deadly Widows,” she says, already laughing.

Now, however, she is in “book-tour-promo mode,” with travels to Arizona, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Boston, as well as local sites including Barrington Books and Charter Books in Newport. Moreover, “Blood Sisters” has been chosen by the Good Morning America Book Club and is the November pick for Target’s Book Club.

And after that, Lillie has another Syd Walker book under contract. This one will take place on Narragansett lands, she teases; expect Rhode Island to play a role.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Providence author Vanessa Lillie has a new thriller, 'Blood Sisters'