Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World, #1)

by Rebecca Roanhorse

[Heather]

I've been excitedly waiting for this debut novel ever since I read Rebecca Roanhorse's story, Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience.

The book did not disappoint.

When most of the world flooded, the elders raised a magical wall around Diné land.  The gods and mythological beings are back.  Some people are manifesting clan powers.  Maggie's clan powers make her a powerful monster killer.  She was taken in and trained by a mythological warrior after a tragedy until he left her a year ago.  Now she is a deeply emotionally damaged monster hunter for hire.

Now she is on the trail of monsters that she has never seen before.  They are wiping out whole towns.

This book reminds me a lot of the early seasons of the TV show Supernatural, if the lead was a no-nonsense Diné woman driving a 1972 pickup.  There are different groups of monster hunters.  There is even a safe house/bar/weapons depot/first aid station run by a older black woman and her children.

I loved a scene in a nightclub where Maggie is able to see the patrons as embodiments of their clan powers.  That is the type of imagination that I love to see in books.

The ending is magnificent and just a little bit of a cliffhanger.  I'm looking forward to the next book in 2019.

(There is a lot of graphic violence depicted including violence against children so if that bothers you a lot you might want to skip this one.)This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story