Fantasy Novella Review: Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse

 



 Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on November 15, 2022 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.


Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse

Tread of Angels is a new stand alone fantasy novella by author Rebecca Roanhorse, known for her Navajo inspired Sixth World fantasy series and her pre-Colombian inspired epic fantasy Between Earth and Sky (Black Sun) series.  Unlike those works however, Tread of Angels is a stand alone novella, featuring a noir-esque mystery in a world in which Demons and Angels are present on Earth to some extent, and their byblows - the Elect for Angels, the Fallen for Demons, and hybrids in between, - form the basis of this society in Colorado. 

The results is a story that starts out with some familiar beats - the Angel/Demons thing among us, with prejudice for those with Fallen blood is something I've read before, as is the Noir-ish story with the sister looking to save the accused of murder criminal by finding out a truth - but then shifts to something a bit more interesting and unique along the way.  And this winds up working really well, as the investigation reveals corruption and people being not what they seem, and a main character who makes choices you might not expect....to what turns out to be a pretty crushing ending.  If there's a fault here other than parts of this having been done before, it's that this is so short that some of the impact is blunted by not being together with characters long enough....and yet the shortness also allows this to form a pretty efficient complete story, so yeah this is a winner that's worth your time.  

Quick Plot Summary:  In this world of Angels and Demons, and their mortal descendants the Elect and Fallen, mixed-blood girl Celeste only cares for one thing: her sister Mariel.  Years ago, Celeste made a choice that she regrets that separated the two of them, and now that they are back together in the mining town of Goetia, Celeste - who can pass for being not of Fallen blood - wants more than anything to ensure her sister - whose Fallen blood can't be denied - is happy.  

So when Mariel is accused by the Virtue (the Angels) of murdering a Virtue, Celeste is determined to save her sister from their biased justice - even if it means playing a Virtue's rigged game by becoming her sister's advocatus diaboli.  But in this corrupt world, where Angels and Virtues deem Fallen guilty just by their very existence, Celeste soon finds that nothing is as it seems, and that her quest to save her sister may require her to go to lengths far beyond what she can imagine.....

Thoughts:  Tread of Angels begins from very well-trod ground in the fantasy/paranormal romance genres (this is firmly in the former btw) - a world with angels and demons, and people born of their blood and mixed heritages, with both being corrupt, not just the angels, and people of demon blood (the Fallen) discriminated against.  It also begins along a very well trod ground for a noir mystery - the detective character (Celeste) searching for answers about a crime supposedly committed by an innocent singer at a saloon, who woke up covered in blood....and who might not be as innocent a girl as she seems.  Some of these tropes are played pretty straight and you'll recognize them quite a bit: the authority figure with a hidden agenda, the fact that the alleged wrongly-accused is in fact not as innocent as her sister believed, the motives of possible other suspects and what the victim actually did....etc.  Then there's also the protagonist's demon ex, who wants to own her soul, and who she just can't quit in her heart even as she can't fully commit that....

And then Tread of Angels gets to its back half, where it starts to take those tropes and themes and feature Celeste taking actions as a result that take this to another level.  I'm not gonna claim they're wholly unique, and I'm sure they've been done in the noir genre before, but they're devastating here, ending this novella on a truly impactful level.  I don't want to spoil too much by saying further, only to say that the result is well worth your time.  Really the only flaw here is that as a novella, we don't get to see certain character developments more than a little bit, so certain betrayals don't register because we barely know the characters being betrayed.  But the story is so compact and strong that it hardly matters.