First review for a novel that is on both the Hugos and Nebula lists is here!

TRAIL OF LIGHTNING by Rebecca Roanhorse is everything anyone could want from a fantastic, dystopian world. Add in the indigenous culture and characters and you have a knockout premise that revives and refreshes old tropes and makes new ones.

Maggie Hoskie is endowed with supernatural clan powers and a killer instincts to match. She is a monster hunter for hire in Dinétah, what is left of the Navajo reservation after the Big Water. When asked to find a missing girl taken by monsters, what she finds on that mountain instead is a conspiracy that permeates her entire identity.

Filled with monsters, more than a little magic, and plenty of blood & bullets, this adventure does not let up. Maggie is a bad ass woman to follow and root for. The plot only thickens when she is partnered up with Kai Arviso, a medicine man in training and who may have many more secrets than he lets on.

Roanhorse has been on my watch list, ever since I read her short story almost a year ago. After hearing about the premise for TRAIL OF LIGHTNING, I knew I had to give this book a read. There are more than a few twists and plenty of action that keep the reader on their toes and never bored, even during long conversations that somehow retain an urgency to them. The world building is done perfectly, never spoon fed to the reader, but instead rises up out of the prose organically.

Maggie & Kai are the best. I want to say that I want a duo like them in every book I read, but I also don’t, because it would take away from their lovely specificity. Yet, the way both of them compliment and resist one another through their different approaches to problems in the plot, it really places the reader into the thick of their relationship. Roanhorse has a clear skill with managing interpersonal relationships and a deep understanding of human nature that is such a nice touch to this story.

If you enjoy post-apocalyptic fiction with a fantastic edge, then you won’t go wrong here.

If you enjoy urban fantasy, then you also shouldn’t miss out on this distinct work.

Don’t sleep on the Sixth World!

You can bet I’ll be reading Storm of Locusts, that just came out last month!