Blood Will Tell by Heather Chavez is a story that is about a missing girl, among other things, but at its core it is about the bond between sisters. Frankie Barrera is a single mom and school teacher who tends to also be slightly overprotective towards her younger sister, Izzy. One day she ends up getting pulled in by the local police because her truck, including the license plate, matches the description of the vehicle involved in the case of a missing teenage girl. Confused about the occurrence, Frankie soon discovers that Izzy might have borrowed the truck without telling her and now Frankie has to deal with the idea that her younger sister might be involved with the abduction. However, the more Frankie investigates the more confused she ends up being when she learns the missing girl is the younger sister of another girl who went missing, five years previously after a night of drinking with her friends one of whom was Izzy. Desperate to find the truth of what happened and also desperate to figure out what their own roles were in everything Frankie ends up having to face up to their shared past and the consequences of both their actions, now and from five years ago.
If you want a thriller that is a roller coaster of a ride but also deeply entrenched in the intricacies of the bond between sisters then you really might want to consider this one. I picked it up because I was already somewhat familiar with the author but let me tell you that in no way prepared me for this book. What I can say is that this book provides a deep look into both the positives and negatives of the sisterly bond and how that can play out in the worst of circumstances. Mind you it also looks at so many other things as well but that is definitely the heavy focus of the novel. Something else it looks at is the idea of trusting your own memory and how hindsight can affect your interpretation of things. As a part of that it dives into the idea of trying desperately to convince yourself that things didn’t happen the way that you think that they did as an act of self-preservation. Let’s just say that this story is going to make you doubt just about everything about just about everybody before you actually get to the end of the story and even then you will probably be surprised by how it all played out. This one was definitely a fast read, almost too fast at times, that will definitely keep you wondering the whole time. It gets four out of five stars from me.
This is a pretty good example of a thriller and it would hold the most appeal to adult readers who tend to prefer that genre. I highly doubt that it would appeal to readers who don’t enjoy that genre. There is some potentially pretty sensitive content scattered throughout the story but it is mostly references and not necessarily graphic. That being said I would still suggest readers be careful before diving into this one and that younger readers should probably not read this. At best no one younger than about sixteen should read this one. It is good though and worth considering if none of that would be an issue. If you do decide to try it out, consider sharing your thoughts in the comments.