November is National Native American Heritage Month! In celebration, here are some new works of fiction from Native American authors. This list should have something for everyone–mystery, horror, romance, historical fiction, and more. You might also be interested in this list of nonfiction titles about Indigenous American history.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice. A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.
Big Chief
Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside Tribal President Mack Beck, his childhood friend, Mitch runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe's Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack's reelection, their tenuous grip on power is threatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack's estranged sister and Mitch's former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go--and what they will sacrifice--to win it all. But when an accident claims the life of Mitch's mentor, a power broker in the reservation's political scene, the election slides into chaos and pits Mitch against the only family he has. As relationships strain to their breaking points and a peaceful protest threatens to become an all-consuming riot, Mitch and Layla must work together to stop the reservation's descent into violence. Thrilling and timely, Big Chief is an unexpected, disturbingly funny (The New York Times) and unforgettable story about the search for belonging--to an ancestral and spiritual home, to a family, and to a sovereign people at a moment of great historical importance.
The Bone Thief
In the hours before dawn at a local summer camp, Bureau of Indian Affairs archaeologist Syd Walker receives an alarming call: newly discovered skeletal remains have been stolen. Not only have bones gone missing, but a Native teen girl has disappeared near the camp, and law enforcement dismisses her family's fears. As Syd investigates both crimes, she's drawn into a world of privileged campers and their wealthy parents--most of them members of the Founders Society, an exclusive club whose members trace their lineage to the first colonists and claim ancestral rights to the land, despite fierce objections from the local tribal community. And it's not the first time something--or someone--has gone missing from the camp. The deeper Syd digs, the more she realizes these aren't isolated incidents. A pattern of disappearances stretches back generations, all leading to the Founders Society's doorstep. But exposing the truth means confronting not just the town's most powerful families, but also a legacy of violence that refuses to stay buried.
Broken Fields
Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman and occasional sleuth, is back on the case after a man is found dead on a rural Minnesota farm in the next installment of the acclaimed Native crime series. Minnesota, 1970s: It's spring in the Red River Valley and Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman and sheriff's assistant investigator, is doing fieldwork for a local farmer--until she finds him dead on the kitchen floor of the property's rented farmhouse. The tenant, a Native field laborer, and his wife are nowhere to be found, but Cash discovers their young daughter, Shawnee, cowering under a bed. The girl, a possible witness to the killing, is too terrified to speak. In the wake of the murder, Cash can't deny her intuitive abilities: She is suspicious of the farmer's grieving widow, who offers to take Shawnee in temporarily. Cash scours the White Earth reservation for Shawnee's missing mother, desperate to find her before the girl is put into the foster system Cash knows so well. The threat escalates when another body turns up, and Cash races the clock to uncover the truth of what happened in the farmhouse. Broken Fields is a compelling, atmospheric read woven with details of American Indian life in northern Minnesota, abusive farm labor practices and women's liberation.
The Devil Is a Southpaw
Milton Muleborn has envied Matthew Echota, a talented Cherokee artist, ever since they were locked up together in a dangerous juvenile detention center in the late 1980s. Until Matthew escaped, that is.A novel within a novel, we read here Milton's dark, sometimes comic, and possibly unreliable account of the story of their childhood even as, years later, he remains jealous of Matthew's extraordinary abilities and unlikely success. Milton reveals secrets about their friendship, their families, and their nightmarish, surreal, experience of imprisonment. In revisiting the past, he explores the echoing traumas of incarceration and pride. Filled with Brandon Hobson's swirling yet visceral writing, and punctuated with original artwork, The Devil Is a Southpaw is an ambitious, elegant, and propulsive novel in the spirit of Vladimir Nabokov and Gabriel García Márquez.
The Haunting of Room 904
Olivia Becente was never supposed to have the gift. The ability to commune with the dead was the specialty of her sister, Naiche. But when Naiche dies unexpectedly and under strange circumstances, somehow Olivia suddenly can't stop seeing and hearing from spirits. A few years later, she's the most in-demand paranormal investigator in Denver. She's good at her job, but the loss of Naiche haunts her. That's when she hears from the Brown Palace, a landmark Denver hotel. The owner can't explain it, but every few years, a girl is found dead in room 904, no matter what room she checked into the night before. As Olivia tries to understand these disturbing deaths, the past and the present collide as Olivia's investigation forces her to confront a mysterious and possibly dangerous cult, a vindictive journalist, betrayal by her friends, and shocking revelations about her sister's secret life.
Hole in the Sky
Heliopause is a real place-the very outer edge of our solar system where the sun's solar winds are no longer strong enough to keep debris and intrusions from bombarding our system. It is the farthest edge of our protected boundary (it was recently crossed by Voyager), and the line beyond which space experts look for extraterrestrial presences. This is where Daniel Wilson's fascinating novel begins. Weaving together the story of Jim, a down-on-his-luck absentee father in the Osage territory of Oklahoma, and his daughter, Tawny, with those of a NASA engineer, a misfit anonymous genius who lives in military isolation analyzing a secret incoming Pattern, and a CIA investigator tasked with tracking unexplained encounters, Hole in the Sky explores a Native American first contact that pulls all five characters into something never before seen or imagined.
If the Dead Belong Here
When a young girl goes missing, the ghosts of the past collide with her family's secrets in a mesmerizing Native American Southern Gothic.
Love Is a War Song
Pop singer Avery Fox has become a national joke after posing scantily clad on the cover of Rolling Stone in a feather war bonnet. What was meant to be a statement of her success as a Native American singer has turned her into a social pariah and dubbed her a fake. With threats coming from every direction and her career at a standstill, she escapes to her estranged grandmother Lottie's ranch in Oklahoma. Living on the rez is new to Avery: not only does she have to work in the blazing summer heat to earn her keep, but the man who runs Lottie's horse ranch despises her and wants her gone.
Old School Indian
Abe Jacobs is Kanien'kehá ka from Ahkwesáhsneor, as white people say, a Mohawk Indian from the Saint Regis Tribe. At eighteen, Abe left the reservation where he was raised and never looked back. He met the love of his life, started writing poetry, and began an open marriage. Now at forty-three, Abe is suffering from a rare diseaseone his doctors in Miami believe will kill him. Running from his diagnosis and a marriage teetering on collapse, Abe returns to the Rez, where he's persuaded to undergo a healing at the hands of his Great Uncle Budge. But Budgea wry, recovered alcoholic prone to wearing punk T-shirtsisn't all that convincing. And Abe's time off the Rez has made him a thorough skeptic. To heal, Abe will undertake a revelatory journey, confronting the parts of himself he's hidden ever since he left home and wrestling with the imprint left by his once-passionate marriage. Delivered with crackling wit and heart-wrenching tenderness, Old School Indian is a striking exploration of the power and secrets of family, the capacity for healing and intimacy, and the ripple effects of history and culture.
Small Ceremonies
A poignant and heart-wrenching coming-of-age story that follows the friendships, hopes, fears, and struggles of a group of Native high school students from Winnipeg, Manitoba's North End, illuminating what it's like to grow up in the heart of an Indigenous city.
Terror at the Gates
Estranged from her powerful family, Lilith Leviathan finds refuge in Nineveh, a district in the city of Eden devoted to sin. There, she uses her magic to steal for a living, attracting the attention of the five governing families as well as the church, which expects women to remain pious and silent. When Lilith comes into possession of a beautiful blade, she thinks all her worries are over...until her usual buyer dies while inspecting it. Frantic, Lilith turns to the only man who can help her: Zahariev, head of the Zareth family and ruler of Nineveh. His currency is information, and his power is extortion, though he's always had a soft spot for Lilith. But when the dagger appears, he isn't sure he can protect her from what's to come. Together, they embark on a mission to discover the true power running their world. As their lives intertwine, Lilith realizes Zahariev is more than just a friend, but their devotion to each other is a threat--to the truth, to the church, and to those who want to tear it all down.
To the Moon and Back
Steph Harper is on the run. When she was five, her mother fled an abusive husband with Steph and her younger sister in tow to Cherokee Nation, where she hoped they might finally belong. In response, Steph sets her sights as far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon.
Waiting for the Long Night Moon: Stories
In her debut collection of short fiction, Amanda Peters describes the Indigenous experience from [a] ... wide spectrum in time and place--from contact with the first European settlers, to the forced removal of Indigenous children, to the present-day fight for the right to clean water.
The Wayfinder
A grand historical novel about a girl from a remote Polynesian island who goes on an epic journey to the heart of the Tongan Empire, from the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author.
The Whistler
For fear of summoning evil spirits, Native superstition says you should never, ever whistle at night. Henry Hotard was on the verge of fame, gaining a following and traction with his eerie ghost-hunting videos. Then his dreams came to a screeching halt. Now, he's learning to navigate a new life in a wheelchair, back on the reservation where he grew up, relying on his grandparents' care while he recovers. And he's being haunted. His girlfriend, Jade, insists he just needs time to adjust to his new reality as a quadriplegic, that it's his traumatized mind playing tricks on him, but Henry knows better. As the specter haunting him creeps closer each night, Henry battles to find a way to endure, to rid himself of the horror stalking him. Worried that this dread might plague him forever, he realizes the only way to exile his phantom is by confronting his troubled past and going back to the events that led to his injury. It all started when he whistled at night...