4 ⭐ CW: Death, blood, oppression 

Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse is a novella inspired by Christian mythology set in an Old Western mining town. I've been enjoying this type of mythology lately. I've recently started watching Lucifer and enjoy the different take on angels and demons. Like with a lot of novella's I wish there had been more! I would have liked to learn more about this town and the structure of oppression of the Fallen. 

We follow Celeste, a Fallen woman who is determined to prove her sister Mariel is innocent of murder. In this world, the battle between the seraphim of Heaven and the demons of Hell ended when Abbadon fell, and his body was left to rot in the mountains creating a new element called Divinity that is being mined. The only people with the ability to see Divinity are the descendents of those demons, called the Fallen. The Fallen are second class citizens, and must put up with discrimination and oppression, and are considered a necessary evil. 

Celeste is a Fallen that can "pass" for an Elect, a non-Fallen person, while her sister cannot. Celeste has spent her whole life looking after Mariel, denying herself the things she wants, and fooling herself about the kind of person her sister really is. This was a great take on the "tragic mulatto" trope, and you can see the comparisons to what life was like for mixed raced people who could "pass" for white versus those who could not, and the struggle and difficulties it posed to both sets of people. 

I just wish we got to see more from Abraxas and the other Fallen. I wanted more descriptions and a bit more world-building, but such is the nature of novellas. It was still a great story with a good twist, and morally gray characters. I love the trope of the angels not necessarily being the good guys.