Book Review: Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

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Trail of Lightning (The Sixth World #1)
Publisher: Gallery/Saga Press
Pub Date: 26 June 2018
Genre: Dystopian Fantasy

Panda Rating:

(4.5 pandas)

📖 SYNOPSIS

While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, DinĂŠtah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters.

Maggie Hoskie is a DinĂŠtah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last best hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much more terrifying than anything she could imagine.

Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel the rez, unraveling clues from ancient legends, trading favors with tricksters, and battling dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology.

As Maggie discovers the truth behind the killings, she will have to confront her past if she wants to survive.

Welcome to the Sixth World.

⚠️ CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS

Dismemberment, gore, blood, extreme violence, substance abuse, racism

TL;DR: This was a reread for me but I read it back before I wrote reviews so despite giving it 4 stars I didn’t remember what I loved and didn’t love about it. I’m blown away by how much I enjoyed this especially because there are horror aspects in this that fall outside my usual reading comfort zone. Despite the stomach-turning moments and the fact that these pages are filled with a fairly depressing post-apocalyptic setting and dark mythology, I found myself being unable to turn away and I often didn’t want to stop reading even when adulting responsibilities called me back to reality. This review is a bit all over the place but that tends to happen with a book I’ve thoroughly enjoyed! 😂 

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Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [233]

Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

We’re back with another Sundays in Bed With… meme! This meme dares to ask you what book has been in your bed this morning and is hosted by Midnight Book Girl. Come share what book you’ve spent your time reading in bed or wish you had time to read today!

I’m spending my Sunday in bed with The Only One Left by Riley Sager. I started this yesterday and as I always find with Sager’s books, even though you’re quickly hooked and feel the need to know what happened, his stories aren’t necessarily fast-paced. I just got to the twist and I saw it right before the reveal and I’m having fun!

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April 2024 Community Posts!

Dini @ dinipandareads4 Comments

Hello, friends! I hope everyone is having a good weekend. 🌻 After close to two weeks of unbearably hot and muggy weather, it finally rained heavily this afternoon and it’s the perfect moment to sit down and curl up with a good read. 🌧️ So I thought it’d be the perfect time to post my favourite part of each monthly wrap-up and I share some reads from around our wonderful book blogging community. Happy reading! 📖

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#FirstLinesFriday: 10 May 2024

Dini @ dinipandareads5 Comments

Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines? Here are the rules:

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First lines:

“The first time I killed a man with a pie, it was an accident.
But only the first.”

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ARC Review: Last of the Talons by Sophie Kim

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Special thanks to Entangled: Teen for providing a digital ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Last of the Talons (Talon #1)
Publisher: Entangled: Teen
Publication Date: 27 September 2022
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Panda Rating:

(3.5 pandas)

📖 SYNOPSIS

After the destruction of her entire Talon gang, eighteen-year-old Shin Lina—the Reaper of Sunpo—is forced to become a living, breathing weapon for the kingdom’s most-feared crime lord. All that keeps her from turning on her ruthless master is the life of her beloved little sister hanging in the balance. But the order to steal a priceless tapestry from a Dokkaebi temple incites not only the wrath of a legendary immortal, but the beginning of an unwinnable game…

Suddenly Lina finds herself in the dreamlike realm of the Dokkaebi, her fate in the hands of its cruel and captivating emperor. But she can win her life—if she kills him first.

Now a terrible game of life and death has begun, and even Lina’s swift, precise blade is no match for the magnetic Haneul Rui. Lina will have to use every weapon in her arsenal if she wants to outplay this cunning king and save her sister…all before the final grain of sand leaks out of the hourglass.

Because one way or another, she’ll take Rui’s heart.

Even if it means giving up her own.

⚠️ CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS

Violence, blood, traumatic deaths of loved ones

TL;DR: Despite my first attempt at reading this being unsuccessful, I’m glad to say that the second time’s the charm and I found myself enjoying this more than I expected to. Kim offers a lot in this upper YA fantasy debut—plenty of stabby action, deaths, found family moments, rebellion, deception, and a forbidden enemies-to-lovers romance. That said, much of the characters, relationships and world-building was kept on a surface level and at over 400 pages long, I think we could’ve got a lot more development! Overall though, this wasn’t a bad debut and I’m curious to see how Kim evolves as an author throughout the series and what happens next with Lina and her thirst for vengeance!

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#TopTenTuesday: May Flowers

Dini @ dinipandareads27 Comments

We’re back with another Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s topic is May Flowers — Pick your own title for this one to reflect the direction you choose to go with this prompt (books with flowers on the cover, flower names in the title, characters whose names are flower names, stories involving flowers/gardeners)

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Monthly Wrap-Up: April 2024

Dini @ dinipandareads17 Comments

April was… a month, I guess? I honestly have no idea what to say about this month other than it has been a rough mental health month but my soul was fed by the new double album TS released mid-month. To say I’m mildly obsessed with all 31 songs would be… Accurate, if not an understatement, lol. 😝 In other news, there really isn’t much and I don’t want to get into the anxiety, increased sleepless nights and work stress so… I’ll leave it there! I just hope that May will be a better month. I’m also going to start job hunting in May and we all know how tough that always is.

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Sundays in Bed With… #MyWeeklyWrapUp [232]

Dini @ dinipandareads17 Comments

We’re back with another Sundays in Bed With… meme! This meme dares to ask you what book has been in your bed this morning and is hosted by Midnight Book Girl. Come share what book you’ve spent your time reading in bed or wish you had time to read today!

I’m spending my Sunday in bed with The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. I can’t believe I’m finally reading this book and yeah, it’s proving to have high potential to emotionally devastate me. I can feel it… 😮‍💨 I’m reading it with Chris & Julie and I’ve been spamming them with thoughts, theories and emotions, haha (sorry y’all)!

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#FirstLinesFriday: 3 May 2024

Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines? Here are the rules:

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First lines:

“There are at least three dead bodies in there.
Tess Harrow stood in front of the log cabin, mentally calculating where each of the corpses would be found.”

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