Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars rounded up**
🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤❤️🖤
Trail of Lightning is the 1st-book of the Sixth World series by Rebecca Roanhorse. While I believe this was originally slated to be a 4-book series, only 2-books were ever published.
After finishing this one, that makes me so sad.
In this story we follow Maggie Hoskie, who is imbued with clan powers that allow her to have superhuman speed and the ability to expertly kill her enemies. Maggie uses these powers in her job as a monster-hunter.
At the start of the story, she is called to a small village to help them search for a missing girl, who was allegedly stolen by a monster.
When Maggie comes across the monster, she’s surprised by its size, strength and taste for human flesh. It’s unusual.
Keeping its head, she takes it to a medicine man, Tah, she’s close to in a neighboring settlement. He comes up with a theory on the monster that sets Maggie on a new quest.
Tah also suggest that Maggie take his nephew, Kai, along with her. He’s training to be a medicine man, and Tah insists he is powerful. Begrudgingly, Maggie agrees.
We follow them as they traverse the reservation, uncovering clues and battling dark forces. Their relationship grows and shifts over the course of the mission, which is to be expected when you need to rely on one another for survival, and also you’re both hot as hell.
I enjoyed this one quite a bit. I liked learning about both Kai and Maggie. Both of them had very compelling backstories, and I had fun watching their relationship develop. I also enjoyed the initial mystery of it all, and the Indigenous Folklore elements woven throughout.
Where it fell a little short for me was in the execution of the overall mission, as well as the pace. It had ups and downs in intensity, whereas I would have enjoyed a more steady building throughout. Also, the theory that Tah had, what set these two out on their mission, for big chunks, it felt like that just faded into the background.
In that way it sort of lost its lane, as far as the monster-hunting went, but nevertheless, it was never boring.
The setting was well done. I felt I could visualize everything perfectly. The post-apocalyptic nature of it poured through the pages. It had a desperate feel that I really liked. Almost everything was a challenge for these characters, which makes sense due to the state of their world.
I would love to continue on with this series, and already own the next book. However, I know it’s going to break my heart when I get to the end of that one and there’s nothing more.
Either way though, I am really happy that I finally made time for this one. I think Rebecca Roanhorse is such a creative storyteller. I always have fun reading her work.