While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters.
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—and best—hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much larger and more terrifying than anything she could imagine.
Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel to the rez to unravel clues from ancient legends, trade favors with tricksters, and battle dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology.
As Maggie discovers the truth behind the disappearances, she will have to confront her past—if she wants to survive.
Welcome to the Sixth World.
Published June 26, 2018 by Saga Press
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*Thank you Saga Press for an ARC of Trail of Lightning at BookExpo
My Thoughts
I forced myself to give it another chance, and I was honestly happy that I did. The story that Rebecca Roanhorse was very interesting and unlike anything that I had ever read. I've never seen an urban fantasy novel based off the Navajo reservations, so I decided I had to give it another try before marking it DNF. This debut novel is about a world that was unique and hard to come by, which is quite unusual for the young adult industry today.
Unfortunately, Rebecca laked in other areas. She wrote about this world of monsters and the main character Maggie, who is deemed the Monsterslayer. The beginning of the book focused on her trying to save a young girl from a monster, and that's kind of why I put it down in the beginning. As I continued to read, I realized that the monsters was what I missed. Maggie was known as the Monsterslayer, but it wasn't really a driving force for her. There were so many other things pulling the story along, that the scenes with the monsters were kind of toned down and other scenes were focused on much more.
This being said, I really did love Maggie as a character. I loved that she was reckless, she often referred to her guns as a solution, and she was torn up on the inside because of her lost family and mentor. She was a character that was easy to like, and it was interesting to see her character grow as she dealt with different things. As the ending came near, I found myself internally cheering Maggie on while also silently swearing at her for stupid decisions. When I do this, it means I really like a character because they're dynamic enough to get my mind going and eager to see what they're going to do next.
Kai was one character who I instantly liked. He was charming, but you could tell he still had a heart. I was curious about him the whole time, because I wanted to know his whole story. The author did a good job of piecing together his character as the story went on, and I liked how the partnership/relationship with Kai and Maggie progressed as well. It was natural, not rushed, and not the basis of the plot.
The one thing I didn't like was how there were so many secondary characters that were just brushed over. The only characters who received any sort of backstory and development were Maggie and Kai. There were plenty of other characters we met that deserved more conversations, memories, and stories for. The book was short, and it could have easily added another 50 pages and made us fall in love with the characters even more.
Like I said, this book was short. At 285 pages, it's defintely short for this type of story which paints a world that we're not all familiar with, where explanations are needed for many things. I really was hoping for another 50-100 pages of this book, especially towards the end. As I was getting down to the last 50 pages, I was really concerned with how the ending was going to come, because there weren't enough pages to wrap up everything that needed to be wrapped up – and I was right. The ending was rushed, and it lacked a lot of substance.
I'm not sure if I'll be picking up the sequel to this one or not. It was a fine read, but it never made me wanting more of the plot – maybe more of Maggie & Kai, but they could be in any situation and I would still love their banter.
Stars: 3 out of 5
What I Liked: Maggie & Kai
What I Disliked: insignificant secondary characters, the last third of the book
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