THE SPIRIT BARES ITS TEETH by Andrew Joseph White

The Spirit Bares its Teeth reminds me of a book I read earlier this year where young people fight back against those working to oppress them. Only this book is set in a Victorian paranormal setting, and the fighting back is not in secret and much more gruesome. It is important to read the Letter from the Author at the beginning of the book to know the trigger warnings. But I kept reading and enjoyed this story of friendship, betrayal, found family, and revenge. The main character, Silas, is Trans and Autistic, both which play an important part in the story. The Spirit Bares its Teeth is an intense fantasy horror story that portrays only a minimal amount of the real cruelties if human nature. It's the second book by Andrew Joseph White that I've read, and I will definitely read more!

BLOOD SISTERS by Vanessa Lillie

Blood Sisters is an intense read, both in terms of suspense and the Indigenous issues it tackles head on. Syd is a BIA officer who is sent back home to help with a case, leaving behind her pregnant wife. She hasn't been there for a couple years, and her contact with her family has been fleeting at that. But when she returns to Picher, Oklahoma, she can no longer avoid them. And her priority changes from the case she's supposed to help with to finding her missing sister. 

Syd's assumptions about her sister and her stubbornness that has her doing everything alone instead of waiting for help, get her into a lot of trouble and prevent her from finding the clues she needs to find her sister. Once she begins to let others into her investigation, she learns the connections between her sister, her own traumatic past, and the case she was sent there for.

In Blood Sisters, Vanessa Lillie wrote a very suspenseful novel that kept me reading from beginning to end. And it also weaves in many Indigenous issues that need to be learned in both Canada and the US, including government land grabs, broken treaties, and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People.

I highly recommend Blood Sisters as both a suspense novel, as well as one  to learn more about important Indigenous issues.
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He’s forced to make an impossible choice—and the deadline is deadly.

Dr. Cornelius O'Brien brought his new girlfriend, psychotherapist Neve Keane, to his home country of Ireland for a romantic getaway. There’s just one thing they need to do first: a personal favor for the President of the United States.

It was supposed to be simple: check on the president’s goddaughter, who is struggling with a strange medical problem while studying abroad in Cork City. But with every step, Neve and Cornelius find themselves first slipping, then plummeting toward a terrifying, clandestine world at the abyss of human suffering.

Trapped by malicious forces he can't escape, Cornelius must make a terrible choice: violate the Hippocratic oath or put Neve in imminent danger. Left in the dark, Neve faces her own perilous dilemma: honor her promise to Cornelius or act quickly to keep an innocent young woman out of the hands of vicious murderers.

With no good options, they are forced to act. Meanwhile, the patient is prepped...and the clock is ticking.