Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse ISBN: 9781982166182
Published by Simon and Schuster on November 15, 2022
Genres: Fantasy, Mystery
Pages: 208
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Celeste, a card sharp with a need for justice, takes on the role of advocatus diaboli, to defend her sister Mariel, accused of murdering a Virtue, a member of the ruling class of this mining town, in a new world of dark fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse.
The year is 1883 and the mining town of Goetia is booming as prospectors from near and far come to mine the powerful new element Divinity from the high mountains of Colorado with the help of the pariahs of society known as the Fallen. The Fallen are the descendants of demonkind living amongst the Virtues, the winners in an ancient war, with the descendants of both sides choosing to live alongside Abaddon’s mountain in this tale of the mythological West from the bestselling mastermind Rebecca Roanhorse.
Characters: 9, despite being jumped into the world kind of in media res, Celeste, Mariel, Zeke, Hypatia, and Abraxas all felt real and fleshed out. The world politics and personal drives and fears of the characters gave them distinct personalities and voices and I was pretty invested in all of them (except the Virtues).
Atmosphere: 9, it’s a sort of Victorian/Wild West mining company town, with a backbone of Christian mythology (angels and demons) and a cloak of human politics to excuse bad behavior. Very gritty and very easy to imagine, even though I don’t recall any actual physical description of the MC or….anyone? Mariel is described as beautiful, and Abraxas as ink-black skin with red eyes, but aside from that I couldn’t tell you what they were intended to look like. Still, I had images in my mind.
Writing: 10, Rebecca Roanhorse’s writing always flows like water downhill for me. Not too florid, not too spartan, a good balance between action and dialogue, and enough inner voice to keep me engaged without the secondhand cheats of characters having some sort of sixth sense about everything around them.
Plot: 9, consistently fast paced and high tension, it actually didn’t get quite as dark as I expected it to. I’m struggling to frame it as a standalone novella, because there was a large amount of (slyly done) world building as I’d have expected from an author setting up a new world in which they’re bringing out a series.
Intrigue: 9, I spent all of last Saturday reading this, with small breaks to exercise Leilani. I was pretty sure I knew who the killer was, and I turned out to be wrong, but there also wasn’t much of a red-herring misdirect.
Logic: 10, from the first page to the last, each of the characters acts in their own self-interest (even if that self-interest aligns with others’, or looks like charity). It makes for an undercurrent of tension throughout because you can’t trust any character, really, and even the MC struggles with trusting herself.
Enjoyment: 10, I put on The Book Roast’s Lightfall at Old Favour Pass ASMR video and read this and it was a delightful time.
*I received an ARC of this novella from a Goodreads giveaway. This is no way influenced my opinion of the book.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
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