The Sixth World

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

Publication Date: June 26, 2018

Summary from Goodreads:

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.

Confession:

How cool is this Cover?!  What you can’t tell from this picture though is that the lightning strikes kind of glow and move with the light.  I think this might be my favorite cover of the year!

Thank goodness the story within that cover is just as good.  Although this story takes place in the future when the most of the world has been covered by water, the foundation is based on the old Navajo stories of witchcraft, gods and monsters.

Maggie is an awesome main character.  She is seriously flawed and has many doubts about herself, but she can kick serious butt when it is needed. 

“But I’m no hero.  I’m more of a last resort, a scorched-earth policy.  I’m the person you hire when the heroes have already come home in body bags.”

That pretty much is Maggie in a nutshell.  Her powers to kill monsters can sometimes take over and that is what causes much of her anger and heartache throughout the story.  

Kai is also a great character with many sides to his personality.  Like Maggie, I doubted their partnership would work and I didn’t always trust him.  But he could be charming and I think deep down he wanted to help Maggie.

Coyote is included in this story, and as usual is up to his old tricks.  I don’t know much about Native American legends, but I do know that Coyote is always up to something and should not be trusted.  Up until the end I though maybe he really did want to help Maggie, but there was always something I didn’t trust about him.

The pacing of the story could have been a little faster in some places, but it was still a riveting story.   I kept finding myself looking forward to getting home from work so that I could get back to it.  There are a few spots where I was confused, I think mainly because my background in NA legends is sketchy, which made some things hard to follow.  If you are looking for an own voices Native American fantasy that is exciting with a kick-ass main character, you might want to take a look at this one. 

This is a series that has jumped to the head of my must read now list!