Laurie L. Dove

Mask of the Deer Woman / Laurie L. Dove

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment 
Mask of the Deer Woman
By: Laurie L. Dove, Isabella Star Lablanc (Narrator)
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Number of Pages: 336
Published: January 21, 2025
Publisher: Berkley
Dates Read: July 15, 2025 - July 26, 2025
Format: Library Book / Audiobook

After her daughter’s murder, ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr has nowhere to go but where she started. Starr’s father didn’t talk much about the reservation he grew up on, but they needed a new marshal and Starr needed a new place to call home.

Many girls and women have either died or disappeared from the rez over the years. Now, Chenoa Cloud is missing and while Starr investigates, memories of her daughter’s murder come to surface. When she begins to see glimpses of a figure from her dad’s stories – a woman with the antlers of a deer, Starr believes she’s being followed by her. She doesn’t know though, if the Deer Woman is there to help and guide her or seek vengeance for the lost daughters of the rez.

I had a little bit of a hard time with this one, mostly because I had a hard time liking Starr because how she handles certain things slows down the novel in what could have been a fast pace thriller. I mean, yes, it did get faster in the later bit of the novel, but throughout a lot of it, I wanted her to deal with a lot of her personal demons (therapy would help so much).

I did just realize writing this review that it now says Carrie Starr #1 so I am curious to see Starr being flushed out a lot more in the upcoming novel(s).

This novel does an excellent, yet sad, job at tackling the lack of assistance Native and Indigenous Persons get when it comes to their lost and missing women and daughters. And also the corruption that happens on the Rez with outside entities as well.

Overall, I think anyone who likes a good mystery/thriller will enjoy this, especially for a debut Indigenous author.

*Thank you Berkley and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

My Week Late, Stoked For This: January 2025

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment

I know I’m a week (and a day) late in this, and there will be loads of books already out – but that means there’s loads more books already out (Trying to be a bit more positive this year)! I tried to get this done yesterday, but stuff happened and I couldn’t get back to this.

I’m also going to try something new with my formatting of this series. Let me know what you think! Do you like the new way? Prefer the old way? Have no comments or concerns?

January 7, 2025

Amber arrives home one spring afternoon on her bike. As soon as her mother sees her, she screams. Why? Because Amber’s been dead seven years – hit by a car on the very bike she pulled up to the house in.

After Life

By: Gayle Forman

Bletchley Park. London. 1923. Dragons soar through the skies, but Vivian Featherswallow isn’t worried, she’s going to study the dragon language and make sure her little sister doesn’t have to grow up in Third Class. But by midnight, civil war has started. Viv is recruited for a codebreaker job to save her family – but the more she learns, the harder it is for her to distinguish what what war she’s actually fighting.

A Language of Dragons

By: S.F. Williamson

A dystopian, water covered world where a family tries to save the history of humans while creating a settlement on top of New York City’s National History Museum.

All the Water in the World

By: Eiren Caffall

A sapphic YA debut novel that follows two girls has they fall in love, fighting for survival in an abandoned bookstore.

The Last Bookstore on Earth

By: Lily Braun-Arnold

January 14, 2025

Written in prose and verse, this YA novel following sixteen-year-old Carmela as she’s finally able to help in her mother’s apothecary in the Campo Marzio neighborhood of Rome. But the workroom is no simple place, for every simple ingredient, there is else even less pleasant, and Carmela begins to find out the secrets she never bargained for.

Everything Is Poison

By: Joy McCullough

What would you do if you found a magical bookstore that transports you back through time to be face-to-face with your teenage self?

The In-Between Bookstore

By: Edward Underhill

A multi-level, page turning murder novel about pyramid schemes.

Death in the Downline

By: Maria Abrams

January 21, 2025

Ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr is now at the reservation where her father grew up: they need a new tribal marshal to help with the women who have disappeared from the rez. Now, local college student is missing and Starr begins drown in memories of her own daughter’s murder. As she works on the cases, Starr can’t shake the feeling of a fearsome spirit watching her, one of a woman with antlers of a deer.

Mask of the Deer Woman

By: Laurie L. Dove