The Inheritance of Blood: A Forensic Genealogy Mystery. The Bloodline Files Trilogy, #1

When a historic drought exposes human remains at the bottom of an Appalachian reservoir, forensic genealogist Ashley Burns is called in to do what no one else can-give the dead back their names. The victim is quickly identified as Dana Combs, a sixteen-year-old girl who vanished twenty-five years earlier. Everyone believed she had run away. Everyone was wrong. As Ashley painstakingly rebuilds Dana's family tree through DNA, forgotten records, and generations of buried secrets, she uncovers evidence that someone rewrote the truth long before the murder.
Birth records don't match old memories. Respected families have carefully guarded lies. And the deeper Ashley digs into the county's past, the more dangerous the present becomes. Working alongside cold-case investigator Jared Miller, Ashley discovers that Dana's disappearance was only the beginning. Hidden beneath decades of silence is a conspiracy rooted in blood, betrayal, and the kind of family loyalties that survive long after the truth has been buried.
But every answer Ashley uncovers forces her to confront a mystery of her own. Adopted as an infant and never knowing her biological family, Ashley has spent her career uncovering the identities of strangers while refusing to investigate her own past. As Dana's case begins to mirror unanswered questions about her own origins, the line between professional investigation and personal obsession begins to disappear.
Some family trees are built from love. Others are built from lies. The Inheritance of Blood is the gripping first novel in the Ashley Burns Trilogy-a richly layered mystery filled with forensic genealogy, long-buried secrets, unforgettable characters, and twists that continue long after the final page.