Looking for Smoke by K.A. Cobell

e-Audio, 10:36:24
Narrated by: Julie Lumsden, Katie Anvil Rich, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, & Jordan Waunch 
Release Date: June 4, 2024
Published by: Heartdrum
Read from: June 3-4, 2024
Stand-alone
Source: Libro FM (I received a copy of this e-audio from the publisher’s via an audio app in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)
Content Warning: Addiction, Animal Death, Murder, Death, Violence, Blood, Abandonment, Drug Use, Drug Abuse
For Readers Interested In: Racial/Ethnic Diversity (Indigenous), Mystery, Bombshell Ending, YA, Realistic Fiction, Multiple Narrators, Multiple POVs 

      Since moving to the Blackfeet Reservation with her parents, Mara Racette has felt like an outsider, taunted by her tight-knit classmates for growing up far away. So, when a local girl includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet giveaway to honor her missing sister, Mara thinks she’ll finally make some friends.
     Instead, a girl from the giveaway, Samantha White Tail, is found murdered.
     Because the members of the giveaway group were the last to see Samantha alive, each becomes a person of interest in the investigation:
     New-girl Mara, who hated Samantha for being particularly cruel.
     Grief-stricken Loren Arnoux, who was Samantha’s best friend until her sister’s disappearance drove a wedge between them.
     Class-clown Brody Clark, whose unreciprocated crush on Samantha is an open secret.
     And tough-guy Eli First Kill, who has his own complicated history with Samantha.
     Despite deep mistrust, the four must now take matters into their own hands and clear their names. Even though one of them may be the murderer.
     In her powerful debut novel, Looking for Smoke, author K. A. Cobell (Blackfeet) weaves loss, betrayal, and complex characters into a mystery that will illuminate, surprise, and engage readers until the final word.

*MY THOUGHTS*

This isn’t exactly a book I would normally pick up. Books that feature addiction and drugs aren’t usually my cup of tea. But with this one, I decided to go through with it because it doesn’t actually show the addiction side. Just that there’s drugs involved. If that makes sense. And that tends to make the difference for me.

The mystery was just ok. No I didn’t guess the killer, but it made more sense the more I thought about it after I finished. I think it was all the different POVs. It got a bit confusing, but I really think that’s what the author intended. Like that was the biggest red herring in the book. But this was pitched as a thriller, but it was more so just a mystery. Yeah there’s something that happens, but they spend more time just trying to figure out who did it and not enough running or making my heart rate speed up, if that makes sense.

I DID enjoy the Indigenous rep. I do wish there was more SHOWING vs TELLING tho. Having never been on a reservation before, I wanted to know more about the difference in staying on one. I went and did some more research, like where the Blackfeet Reservation might be also because I didn’t remember it being in the book. I did learn a bit more about the powwows and the way they celebrate different situations like at the very beginning and the end. And I also loved that this was an own voices book. The author was able to give us real feelings on what it was like to be only half and not always feel accepted and ways that she felt she had to be to be accepted. And I loved that she admitted in the author’s note that she didn’t exactly feel like she could write this book and her dad said, “Write it.”

The plot twist tho?! I was not expecting that lol Needless to say I thought I guessed who it was and for the most part, I got a lot of it right. But that very last thing? I legit had to rewind that chapter lol I think I said out-loud “Ain’t no way she just said what I think she said.” lol And then it was just over. It was like a bombshell ending and I keep going back to think about it like wtf lol If you’ve read this and you survived the ending too, pleaseeeeee DM or email me so we can talk.

This book was a lot of fun to read, even if I did have to fast forward through a couple chapters to avoid some triggers. This was a well thought out mystery with some amazing Indigenous rep that deserves to be seen in this genre. I hope y’all have as much fun with this one as I did!

Overall, I give this