Friday, July 6, 2018

Trail Of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse



4.5 Stars

The Sixth World - Book 1


Much to my surprise, I really enjoyed this book. Way more than I expected to, if I'm honest. :) Why? Because I'm not such a huge fan of contemporary, urban-ish (I say ish because it doesn't really take place in an urban environment) fantasy. But this book kept popping up in some of the oddest places on my Twitter timeline and recommended by a few folks whose taste I trust and since the price was right (I did a price-matching thing on Kobo - it was $2+ cheaper at Amazon) I went ahead and picked it up.


So what we've got is a post-apocalyptic (after the Big Water) world where a reformed Navajo nation, Dinétah, is the setting for a Mad Max Fury Road - esque tale. The Diné mythology is thick and fascinating. And is a nice change from all the fairy and elf urban fantasy. I admit to only knowing wee bits and pieces of this mythology and I think some of I know is coloured by what I know about our Canadian First Nations, so I found myself doing a few google searches to clarify things for me. And that's good! I was learning stuff! Never too old for that.

The main character is a young woman, Maggie Hoskie, with a well-earned but not well-respected reputation as a Monsterslayer. Life's not been easy for her when we first meet her and it's about to get even tougher as she deals with monsters, gods, clan magics, secrets and betrayals. I liked her. And I liked the characters around her too.

I liked the pacing of book too. It read well, kept me turning pages (virtually, 'cause I was using my Kobo) and I did the just one more chapter thing more than once.

So all in all, this was, for me, a really fabulous read! I highly recommend it.

No comments:

Post a Comment