Storm of Locusts, Rebecca Roanhorse

After the events of Trail of Lightning, Kai’s back, but he hasn’t been to see Maggie. Maggie hasn’t entirely been idle, helping out the Thirsty Boys, and it’s when she’s with them helping out that she finds herself saddled with a new charge… and almost immediately afterwards, with the news that Kai’s been kidnapped. The two incidents turn out to be linked, of course, and it’s off on another journey to figure out what’s going on, maybe save Kai, and kick some ass along the way.

My feelings about this book are much the same as the first: I really appreciate the setting, and the fact that the background mythology is somewhat out of the ordinary. It’s certainly a quick read, and short of feeling that sometimes the plot requires Maggie to be hit with an idiot stick, I enjoy it. It doesn’t stand out for me from the urban fantasy crowd, though; in the sense of the tone and style and overall plot arc, it feels fairly typical. Maggie and Kate Daniels are not a world apart by any means.

I’m not uninterested in future books in this world, but I’m not dying to get my hands on them right now, either. (I mean, good, because there are no other published books in the series, but you know what I mean.) I enjoy them, but it doesn’t feel as fresh as I’d like. It doesn’t have to — I’m not saying Roanhorse has to come up with something amazingly new and fresh in terms of plot, just because she’s using something off the beaten path for the setting; it’s perfectly fun as it is! But for me, I’d have liked to go a bit further afield.

Rating: 3/5