Review: Trail of Lightning

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Trail of Lightning is the first book in the Sixth World series, set in a post-apocalyptic America (our America as we presently know it would be the Fifth World) in which a reformed Navajo nation, Dinétah, tries to forge a future. Resources, including fresh water, are scarce. Magic, gods, and monsters of legend thrive. Maggie Hoskie, the central character, is a monster hunter endowed with the magical abilities of her clan, K'aahanáanii, the Living Arrow, a kind of preternatural ability to kill things (and sometimes people), and the gift of Honágháahnii, or Walks-Around, meaning she's very fast. Maggie, or Magdalena (interesting choice of name both for biblical and urban slang reasons), is also a very troubled soul. As we see from the outset, she is burdened by the disappearance of the man that trained her, Neizghání, who abandoned her after training her to fight magical monsters. It's not giving much away to say that Maggie has some major emotional issues with Neizghání's departure. Maggie continues to fight monsters, safeguarding the communities inside the magical walls of Dinétah, until she encounters a witch-created creature she is puzzled by. Her friend and father figure, the medicine man Tah, connects Maggie with his grandson, handsome Kai Arviso, who has both medicine man powers of healing but also mysterious weather-ways. Tah thinks Kai will help Maggie stay safe as she pursues the witch that is responsible for creating the Navajo version of golems, who start showing up in scary numbers all through communities in Dinétah, stealing and killing people, including children, creating ghosts that Kai can see. Of course, if you know anything about the Navajo mythos, you know when there are witches that Coyote won't be far away.

This book draws on rich Navajo mythology, in particular, the dynamic between Coyote and Rabbit, two trickster characters, one bad and capricious, and the other known for his cleverness. You can get a feel for Coyote and Rabbit on the NavajoPeople.org website here. Coyote is a notorious trickster, never to be trusted because he just can't resist the opportunity to stir up trouble. (He's the Loki of the Navajo mythos.) Rabbit is the clever figure who manages to get away. Roanhorse has adapted the Diné Bahaneʼ (Navajo creation myth) in an interesting fashion in this book, and the reader floats in the Navajo world of Dinétah, the Sixth World, rarely seeing or hearing of anyone who is not Navajo. That immersion is one of the best aspects of this book. I loved how Roanhorse has adapted the mythos to her world.

Less satisfying in this book is some of the plot's structure and its pacing. Maggie is an unreliable narrator and we are left with Kai and some of the secondary characters trying to give us a fuller view of her, as they try to offer her their observations of her actions, worldview, and choices. Without revealing any spoilers, there are two major plot twists (at least one of which you can see coming a mile away) revealed toward the end of the book that then left me dissatisfied with Maggie's insights into her actions. Chief among the narratives I am troubled by is the fact that in the opening of the book, Maggie kills an injured child, based on faulty information she has absorbed from another character. Late in the book, when it is revealed this character has lied, manipulated and abused her emotionally, Maggie never looks back on what she did because of him. Her internal focus remains on what she herself lost as a child, due to yet another abusive character's machinations. I was dissatisfied with that lack of insight because it leaves me wondering whether she will continue to repeat her mistakes. Killing a child is a visceral moment that remains unresolved in its implications. In terms of its pacing, this book races along on a wild series of road trips with Maggie and Kai, and yet most of the revelatory action takes place in the last fifty pages and the novel ends on something of a cliffhanger, which I know is a problem for some of my readers.

In spite of some of my dissatisfaction with the plot, the pacing, etc. I would definitely pick up the next book in this series because the Sixth World that Roanhorse has given us is a fascinating world to read about. I'm looking forward to the sequel! This book should appeal to fans of Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series who have enjoyed the walker/Coyote dynamic. Roanhorse has upped the ante on Coyote's notorious mischief and, of course, she offers an authentic taste of the Navajo world.


I received a Digital Review Copy of this book from Saga Press in exchange for an honest review.

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