Unfortunately I just couldn't love this one as much as I wanted to. I was kept semi-interested with the back stories of the characters and how, if it all, it relates to the kidnapping of a character, but overall I just felt that the story was going around in circles and it was hard to stay focused. I also felt that the main character was very 1 dimensional and it made it hard to connect in any way

Blood Will Tell is the tale of two sisters and how far one will go to protect the other. Frankie is Izzy’s older sister and has felt more like her mother than sister at times especially after that night 5 years ago. Now, Frankie suspects that her sister is involved in recent events that relate back to that fatal night but how guilty is she. Frankie wants to protect her sister but also wants the truth but will it finally cost her her relationship with Izzy?

Blood Will Tell is a slower moving and more suspenseful than @iamhrchavez ‘s first novel No Bad Deed and both are well written detailed novels. You need to pay attention to the little clues because they are big hints to the several twists throughout and the final twist at the very end. All of the secondary characters are unreliable and even Frankie at times makes you question her motives. Solid, suspenseful thriller.


Thank you @williammorrowbooks , @iamhrchavez , and @netgalley for this eARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

BLOOD WILL TELL is a gripping thriller from start to finish. Chavez magisterially walks the line between relentless pacing and a simmering slow-burn. Short chapters and brisk sentences propel the reader forward relentlessly-- I finished it in one sitting! The book's real strength is the complex, codependent relationship between the two sisters at the story's center. You will feel for them both even as they both make mistakes borne of fear, desperation, and the desire to protect the other. Don't miss this one!

There's a huge cast of characters, and storylines, and many felt unnecessary. This made it hard for me to stay engaged. Relationships felt one dimensional, and Frankie's actions were quite over the top on many occasions. This was "meh" overall, and I'm unlikely to remember it now that the last page is turned.

Frankie has always taken up for her younger sister Izzy. This time may be too much though.
Izzy’s risky behavior has been increasing, leading Frankie to wonder if she should stop protecting her. This time, an AMBER alert leads the police to Frankie and her truck. But Izzy is the only other person who could have been driving it. Who abducted the girl at the center of the alert?
Fast paced, a lot of characters, great storyline!

⭐️⭐️💫

Blood Will Tell by Heather Chavez

I want to preface my review by reiterating that just because this book wasn’t for me, doesn’t mean others won’t love it!!!

Blood Will Tell follows Frankie and her sister Izzy as they try to piece together events from one fateful night 5 years ago.

I think this one had a lot of potential, but I had a few major issues. Overall, I think the plot was just too complicated and started not to make sense (to me, anyway). Also, the ending was just…so strange. Like…of all the possible outcomes, I wasn’t expecting that one. It seemed very illogical.

However, this one does have very strong themes of family and love, which I appreciated. I predicted the minor twist at the very, very end and think it was fitting.

Huge thanks to @netgalley and @williammorrowbooks for the #gifted copy!

Never have I been so frustrated with a main character in a suspense thriller. I was so frustrated with the FMC in this book (Frankie), that I called my own little sister to check my attitude toward the plot and the way Frankie handles her relationship with her own little sister, Izzy. After discussing the basics of the plot and how absolutely maddening Frankie made me feel, my little sister was in absolute agreement with me that she thought Frankie was absolutely out of her mind and in over her head as well. So I felt much saner about how I was approaching the book after that conversation, knowing I wasn’t the only one thinking Frankie needed a huge reality check.

Now that my frustrations toward Frankie in addition to her relationship with Izzy are out of the way, I can move on with my review of the rest of the book.

The plot was really interesting, even if it did reek a little bit of a CW drama mixed with a 1990s teen horror flick. I found that aspect much more interesting than the part of the story that focused on Frankie and Izzy, even if it came across as immature and not as well-developed as it could have been. Unfortunately, it also gave up a few of the turns that would be key later in the book too soon.

Overall, I just felt the book had good writing, nice plot structure (even if the plot itself wasn’t the best), nice sentence structure and dialogue, and well-developed characterizations (even if I didn’t like them much). Heather Chavez has a ton of promise as a writer, if she can get better editors that can rein her pacing and tendency to oversell in.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for early access to this title in both eARC and physical ARC form in exchange for a fair and honest review. Per personal policy this review will not appear on social media or bookseller websites due to the 3 star or lower review.

Blood Will Tell is the sophomore effort from author Heather Chavez. Her 2020-debut, No Bad Deed, entertained me from the very start. I really enjoyed it! Because of this, I was definitely looking forward to this new release. Could she keep up her stellar, fast-paced writing and over-the-top level of intrigue?

YES!!!

In Blood Will Tell our focus is on sisters, Frankie and Izzy. Frankie has always been very protective of her little sister, Izzy, and both girls acknowledge that Frankie practically raised her. Their father has a chronic illness and with their parents often focused on that, the girls sort of circled in their own little orbit. They would keep secrets from their parents, as they didn't want to trouble them, or worry them. In fact, even as adults, they're still doing that.

Over the years, Izzy's choices have been continuously reckless. Her drug and alcohol use certainly hasn't helped matters. Their most troubling night involved events that happened five-year ago, when Izzy and some friends partied in the woods just outside of town. Six of them arrived, but only five left. One of the girls there that night, Rachel, has been missing ever since.

Izzy drunk and disoriented ended up getting in a minor accident that night in their mother's car. As always, she called Frankie for help. After Frankie managed to arrive for a rescue, Izzy was a mess and couldn't recall exactly what had happened. Based on some troubling evidence that Frankie found, and a bit of Izzy's rantings, Frankie had a sinking suspicion she knew what happened.

Now when an Amber alert goes out and Frankie's vehicle matches a description given by witnesses, she fears the worst. She knows she didn't just kidnap the teen girl, Marina, but it is possible that Izzy could be involved. She's the only other person with access to Frankie's truck. With fear in her heart, Frankie sets about investigating what happened to Marina.

Alternating between this present case, and the events of the infamous party night, 5-years earlier, the truth behind Rachel's and Marina's disappearances is revealed. We also gain a full understanding of the sisterly relationship; how intertwined they are with one another.

There's something about Chavez's writing that feels so addictive. She gives you just enough in each chapter to keep you vigorously turning pages. The drama is always high and this sisterly relationship was giving me all the twisted family dynamics I crave.

I really felt for Frankie. Izzy was a lot and Frankie's dedication to her felt like it was extreme at times, but when I sat and thought about it, it really wasn't. The lengths I would go to for one of my siblings knows no bounds; blood runs thick. I found their relationship, overall, to be quite believable. There were other aspects of this that were more far-fetched than the sisters loyalty.

At the end of the day, I don't mind over-the-top plots. In fact, that's generally what I'm here for. I read to escape and this was a great one for me! Thank you so much to the publisher, William Morrow & Company, for providing me a copy to read and review. I had a lot of fun with this and look forward to seeing what Chavez comes up with next!!

4 Stars!

This was a great character driven novel that was well written. I’m holding back a star because I didn’t feel like the storyline was 5-star-strong. It starts off great. A group of teens goes out drinking and one of them never makes it back. Izzy thinks she hit the girl with her car. Izzy called her sister Frankie to clean up her mess but Frankie cannot locate Rachel. Fast forward five years and a girl goes missing and Frankie’s truck’s license plate and description are on the AMBER alert. Rut roh!

I loved the relationship of the sisters and I liked how the timeline hopped back and forth. I feel like the unraveling of the mystery could have happened sooner. I felt like it was a bit rushed on the ending. Overall a great read!

A special thank you to NetGalley, William Morrow & Company, and Heather Chavez for providing me with an ARC.

"For fans of Lisa Gardner" - She's one of my favorite, so I had very high hopes for Blood Will Tell. I could not put this book down! A big part of me wishes it was told more in present tense rather than in flashbacks. However, it kept me engaged the entire time, and I was glad that I read it.

When a young teen goes missing, things point to Izzy, but is she involved and is her disappearance somehow connected to the trouble five years ago? Frankie immediately gets involved to protect her sister, but as she digs deeper, she’s not really sure about anything that happened on that night fateful night. Thank you to HarperCollins and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow Books for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Blood Will Tell is such a suspenseful, thrilling read! I really enjoyed this one! I loved the pacing of this book..it had me anxiously waiting to see what was going to happen between Frankie and Izzy. Is their bond strong enough to handle what Izzy has done this time? Will she protect her sister again? Loved the family interaction and drama. And definitely loved the twist at the end!

Highly recommend --- thriller lovers you don't want to miss out on this one!

I was very excited for this book, but the duel timelines for this story did nothing for me. The respective personal problems of the main characters and the underlying mystery really took a long time to seem relevant. The first part of the book just seemed rather disjointed to me and failed to reel me in. This is not a bad book, but I just did not love it. It’s a quick read, but not one that had my Sherlock Holmes juices following. 3 stars. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advanced copy for review.

Frankie has always taken care of her younger sister Izzy. Helping to raise her, she’s protected her when needed and tried to fix things that sometimes would have been better if she’d let her reap the consequences. Five years ago, Izzy was in trouble and called Frankie for help, Frankie insisted on covering things up, but that night has haunted both of them ever since. When a young teen goes missing, things point to Izzy, but is she involved and is her disappearance somehow connected to the trouble five years ago? Frankie immediately gets involved to protect her sister, but as she digs deeper, she’s not really sure about anything that happened on that night five years ago.

“For several months after the accident, I awoke with the same two questions: What would go wrong that day? And would my sister Izzy be the cause of it?” That’s all it took for me to be hooked on Blood Will Tell. The very first line. That’s how much I love Heather Chavez’s writing style.

I did a read/listen combo for this one, and the audio is stellar! Narrated by Andi Arendt and Sophie Amoss, they nailed the nuances of the characters and added even more depth to a already thoroughly engaging story. Grab a copy of Blood Will Tell (any version!) and enjoy the ride.

Thank you for the opportunity to review!

Link to 4/26/2022 Instagram post:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc0Lxy1rOuR/

While attempting to shield her younger sister from the consequences of abducting a teenage girl, a woman discovers links to a girl who vanished five years earlier--a disappearance in which both sisters may have played a role.

This mystery/thriller is suspenseful and masterfully paced--slow-moving enough to be torturous (in a good way) but with so many shady characters and tantalizing details to make it impossible to stop reading. I was genuinely unsure who the culprit was until the very end because so much groundwork had been laid for any of several suspects. This novel will make a wonderful addition to any mystery/thriller collection and a heart-stopping read for fans of the genre.

I read this book in a day, a pretty good sign that I liked it!
As the story opens, single mom Frankie Barrera's day starts like any other: she drops her 4 year old son off at daycare and heads out to run errands. But next thing she knows, she is being questioned about an Amber alert involving her truck, and the only other person with access to it is her rebellious younger sister, Izzy. Frankie finds herself lying to the police to protect her sister, but is determined to get to the bottom of things herself, to try to find the missing girl and figure out Izzy's role. As events unfold, it seems this incident may be connected to something Izzy was involved in 5 years ago that Frankie helped her cover up. Frankie has to decide whether she can believe in her sister and, if not, whether she can or should keep protecting her. The story combines "flashbacks" of what happened 5 years ago with Frankie's viewpoint in current time. Frankie is a strong, smart, independent and likeable protagonist, and I thought the author's timing in providing the reader with bits of information was excellent. I guessed at part of the conclusion but "whodunnit" was a surprise.

I liked this story a lot. I enjoyed the main character Frankie and think the way Chavez outlined her thought process worked very well. Izzy the sister was frustratingly closed off but it showed a contrast between the sisters that added an extra layer to their story.

I also liked the two timelines we follow to solve the murder. The fact that we follow two major events kept the story interesting. I think if there was just one mystery to investigate, it would have been way too slow for a 400 page book, but since there’s multiple moving parts I didn’t mind how long the book was.

The only thing I wasn’t really crazy about was the twist. It was definitely interesting, but seemed like it didn’t fit somehow. I was more surprised by the last 5 pages than I was by the actual twist!

4/5 stars.

What would you do and how far would you go to protect your sister? That’s the premise of this author’s new thriller. Well written with a shocking, even disturbing, ending.

Thank you Netgalley, William Morrow and Custom House as well as the author for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

It's been a while since I've read a mystery, but Blood Will Tell began with immediate intrigue. The mystery was obsessive. Combined with quick chapters and flashbacks to five years ago, the suspense easily built up. With a mystery, of course you have to have that compulsively readable quality. But I think my favorite element had to be the sister relationship between Frankie and Izzy. Secrets always have a way of coming out. And in Blood Will Tell, I loved how Chavez explores this idea of family.

The title has so many different interpretations. Is the blood evidence which will expose the killer? Will our blood, our family, turns us in? Or will the familial ties we have unlock the mystery? In Blood Will Tell, we aren't sure what's real and what's not. This line of reliability is as fallible as our own memories combined with the memory loss of time and alcohol. What will we do for our family? Chavez examines these sacrifices in a variety of different characters and situations.