CITY IN MY HANDS

A warrior leads her people into dimension-hopping battle with a merciless foe in this YA fantasy series entry.

It’s been a year and a halfsince 19-year-old Sakima Tamanend fended off a monstrosity in a parallel universe that contains a place called New York City. Now her own island planet of Mannahatta and her Lenape tribe are safe, but their peace is short-lived. Two spaceships suddenly arrive, and, when locals don’t immediately bow to the aliens’ authority, the invaders launch a full-on assault. Thanks to Sakima’s courage and Mannahatta’s impressive technology, the enemy retreats, but not before the Lenape lose countless people. Because Sakima is royalty, she becomes the tribe’s acting leader and strategizes a counterattack against the invaders, who are lying low in the parallel Manhattan. Unfortunately, the villains have evidently aligned themselves with Mhuwe, a colossal and seemingly indestructible mythological beast that the Lenape know all too well. As the tribe’s warriors jump through a portal to the parallel universe to engage the enemy, Sakima finds help from an unlikely source: a spaceship that crashed on Mannahatta centuries ago. More’s sophomore installment, after City at My Feet(2023), further develops its capable and resilient series protagonist. Sakima is a skilled warrior and a compassionate leader, and she’s believably flawed, as not every decision she makes has a favorable result. Her family members are just as layered, including younger teenage brother Nimàt, who identifies as a Two Spirit, and their plucky kid sister, Tangetta, who’s affectionately called Tangerine. While Sakima endures assorted obstacles, as well as personal tragedy, she’s also surrounded by sketchily developed male characters who brazenly vocalize their bigotry and sexism. This hardly affects the exhilarating plot, though, which smoothly mingles SF and fantasy elements, including the nerve-racking, cannibalistic Mhuwe from real-life Lenape folklore. The novel ends on a smashing cliffhanger, and readers can take solace in knowing that more sequels are in the works.

A laudable hero headlines this swiftly paced, spacetime-defying adventure.