MAYA AND THE LORD OF SHADOWS

The evil Lord of Shadows makes his move and the godlings-in-training at Chicago’s Jackson Middle School rise up to help their orisha mentors save the universe in this follow-up to 2021’s Maya and the Return of the Godlings.

Being still in the early stages of learning to control their various powers, Maya Abeola and her classmates continue to be schooled at every turn by the Lord of Shadows and his darkbringer minions—particularly after the veil that keeps him from this world is finally torn open in the school library and the full scope of his fiendishly clever scheme is revealed. Even the powerful orishas like Maya’s Papa and Yemoja, protector of rivers and oceans, seem outmatched. Along with tricks and betrayals, Barron chucks ravening werehyenas; shape-shifting, blood-sucking fireflies called adze; and other monsters into the escalating brangle. But despite being regularly outthought and outfought, Maya never loses heart, and with help from her magical family, she finds a way at the last tick to send her nasty nemesis on a long, possibly permanent, vacation. Instant general healing and an overall lack of fatalities make the violence cartoonish rather than threatening, and a subplot involving a hunky darkbringer for Maya coupled with conciliatory rather than vengeful overtures from the orisha council adds buoyant notes to the tidy close.

Uncomplicated world-saving heroics bring this West African–infused series to a satisfying end.