Trail of Lightning
by Rebecca RoanhorseSeries: The Sixth World #1
Setting: Arizona
Published on June 26th 2018
Pages: 287
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.
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.)
