Trail of Lightning // Book Review // #wyrdandwonder

 Book:Trail of Lightning (Sixth World 1) by Rebecca Roanhorse
Release Date: June 26th 2018
Tags: Dystopia / Urban Fantasy / Post-apocalyptic / Gods / Monsters / Clans / Clan Powers / Former Navajo Reservation / Diversity / POC / Navajo / Native American
Trigger Warnings:  Emotional Abuse / Gore / Graphic Deaths / Gun Violence

 

Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last best hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much more terrifying than anything she could imagine.
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Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel the rez, unraveling clues from ancient legends, trading favors with tricksters, and battling dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology.
As Maggie discovers the truth behind the killings, she will have to confront her past if she wants to survive.
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Welcome to the Sixth World.

Trail of Lightning was on my radar since last year but I hadn’t gone out and purchased it until I came across it as an ebook in the month wyrd and wonder had it as their readalong book. And here we are.

I initially struggled with the start of the book. It is written in present tense and that really threw me off center as I was reading it for a while. Present tense is such a difficult thing to get right in writing but I don’t try and judge it right away. I like to see how the author uses it. There is a certain fast paced and action vibe that is in this book that the present tense works really well with. Our main character is also more in the spur of the moment kind of a girl and it ended up really working well with her too. So I got used to it.

The world is a dystopian fantasy where Gods and monsters are real. The world got flooded but Dinetah (the former Navajo reservation) managed to get up huge walls to keep the flood from reaching them. It survived. That is where we meet Maggie. I kind of love everything about this idea. ‘Hah, you thought we were fools for putting these walls up and now look at you. Fools.’  There is so much to discover here. It took me a while to get my bearing on this new world but once I did I really enjoyed it. It is also a bit free for all because there doesn’t seem to a real government.  The tie in to clans and the clan powers was a great thing and I hope that we will learn more about it.

Another thing that took me a while to get is our main character Maggie. Because she is such an in the moment character, as she’d rather not look to introspective at herself, I had a hard time getting to know her initially. We only get her first person point of view. It isn’t until the half  way point that I really warmed up to her.  But once I did I really did start liking her. Kai is her new ‘partner’ in this book and he just charms your pants right off. But even so I realized what he was pretty quickly. How his dreams tied in to it though was interesting.

The ending pushes us up to some big revelations, some hurt, some smooching and some long awaited encounters. It all fitted in so well with the whole vibe of the book and I was breathlessly pushing the button on my ereaders next, until hey, there was no more.

And really Rebecca Roanhorse, why did you end it there? Do you enjoy my pain?