Trail of Lightning came onto my TBR list via Rich in Color's review. In general, it was getting a lot of favorable press, and I saw it on other suggested reading lists, though I don't have those at hand.

It is important to note that after reading such favorable press, I also became aware of people within the Native community who had some concerns about Trail of Lightning. Anybody who is going to read this book should also read about these concerns. As a conscientious reader, it is important to keep this in mind.

It could be because I was aware of both super favorable reviews and press as well as people in the author's and subject's community have concerns, but the book had a bit of a slow start for me. There was a bunch of world-building that is well done, but also not masked quite well enough. For a debut novel, it's an excellent effort. About 60% into the book is when it picked up to the point where I didn't want to put the book down.

I also had some issues enjoying the character of Coyote because I've been reading the Mercy Thompson books for over a decade. Coyote is essentially the same character in both novels because they are based on the same folklore and neither character is presented far from that folklore. At least, until they aren't the same anymore, which is pretty far into Trail of Lightning. Of course, this says more about the way I was reading than the presentation of the character.

The last drawback of this novel that keeps it from being 5 stars is that silly main characters bother me. Unfortunately, Maggie's behavior is silly and a caricature sometimes, rather than believable for me. Roanhorse tried very hard to describe Maggie's demons without getting too specific. Once you get too specific, people can dismiss it as "not being bad enough." However there were a couple scenes where Maggie's trust issues are unfounded and she goes off on a wild tangent that is not held up by previous behavior and presented demons in the book. There's also the bit of an "unlikable" main character. This seems to be a fairly recent trend in stories - possibly the same trend as many people didn't find Katniss likable from the Hunger Games. I had a hard time liking Maggie, and maybe I wasn't meant to. But I also don't know how I'm supposed to understand her actions at both the beginning of the book and the very end of the book if I don't like her.

However, even with those drawbacks, this is a really good book that deserved all the accolades it received. It was sold to me as YA, but a friend who rated it her best book of 2018 said she wouldn't necessarily place it as YA. I agree, it is solidly in the urban fantasy genre.

I look forward to reading the next book in this series.