Reading Diary: Sheine Lende by Darcie Little Badger

Here is a synopsis from the publisher's website:

Shane works with her mother and their ghost dogs, tracking down missing persons even when their families can’t afford to pay. Their own family was displaced from their traditional home years ago following a devastating flood – and the loss of Shane’s father and her grandparents. They don’t think they’ll ever get their home back.

Then Shane’s mother and a local boy go missing, after a strange interaction with a fairy ring. Shane, her brother, her friends, and her lone, surviving grandparent – who isn’t to be trusted – set off on the road to find them. But they may not be anywhere in this world – or this place in time.

Nevertheless, Shane is going to find them.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and gulped it down in two days. It's a prequel to Little Badger's first novel Elatsoe. Little Badger's works are built on Lipan Apache history and knowledge and set in a world where magic is real, including the European-style fairy magic, which drives part of the plot of this novel. However, the real focus is Lipan magic and the world Below and dealing with ghosts and monsters.

Little Badger is fast becoming one of those authors who I want to follow and read all their works -- with the possible exception of spooky stories. Despite having ghosts, neither Elatsoe nor Sheine Lende are particularly spooky, although she said on Bluesky (I think, it's been awhile) that she's working on a middle grade horror novel. I think that's super. I think middle grade and YA readers need horror in their level. Alas, I an a TOTAL wimp and still have nightmares about ghost stories I read in elementary school. I did like Little Badger's short story Those Hitchhiking Kids, which is a ghost story and a little spooky (to me), but it's mostly bittersweet.

Anyway, I highly recommend Little Badger's novels. Sheine Lende is a technically a prequel to Elatsoe, but I'd read it second so you get acquainted with the world she's built. Her novel A Snake Falls to Earth is also an amazing book. It's a standalone novel but it's steeped in the Lipan storytelling world as well.