Sisters in the WindReview posted September 3, 2025.
Henry Holt, 2025. 367 pages.
Review written September 2, 2025, from an advance reader copy signed by the author that I got at ALA Annual Conference.
Starred Review
I was happy to actually get an advance reader copy read before the publication date - and then I'm writing this review on the publication date, so it was just barely before. However, today I purchased a copy of the eaudiobook for the library, and I put it on hold to listen to, even though I just read it. It's that good.
Sisters in the Wind takes place in between the author's two other books, Firekeeper's Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed. There's no plot overlap between them, so you can read them in any order, but you'll find out a lot that goes on in Firekeeper's Daughter, so I think it's better to read that one before this one. (If you missed that one, absolutely go read it as soon as possible!)
I read this book on a weekend I'd meant to do a 48-Hour Book Challenge that kind of got stymied - but getting this one book read made the whole thing a win. Sisters in the Wind features Lucy, an 18-year-old part-Native girl who's been in the foster care system for three years, since her father died.
As the book opens, she meets a man who turns out to be Jamie from Firekeeper's Daughter. He's now a lawyer trying to help Native kids who have been in the foster care system against the protections of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Lucy asks him why he's been following her since New Year's Eve, but that wasn't him.
Lucy acts like she's going to follow up, but she knows it's time to run. She packs her backpack and goes to work one last time - but then a pipe bomb at the deli where she works puts her in the hospital.
Jamie and Daunis show up to take care of Lucy as she recovers. It turns out that she's the half-sister of Daunis's best friend Lily, who was killed in Firekeeper's Daughter. (Not a spoiler, it happens fairly early. But there are other spoilers in the book.) The rest of the book takes two threads - one of her time in a hotel with Jamie and Daunis watching over her as her broken leg heals, and the other thread the story of how she wound up in foster care and why she's certain that someone's angry enough with her to plant a bomb.
Along the way, as with Angeline Boulley's other books, we learn in a natural way about a current issue involving Native Americans. In this book it's about how the Indian Child Welfare Act was established to try to stop Native kids from being exploited. However, being established is one thing and being enforced is another.
Angeline Boulley always tells a good story. As in the others, we get characters we love and a situation that builds to life-and-death danger.
At first, when I read Firekeeper's Daughter and learned she'd been working on the story for over a decade, I thought no wonder it's so good! But now she's published two follow-ups that are just as wonderful that she didn't spend even close to a decade writing. Nope, that's not it - she's simply a crazy-talented author.