Twelve-year-old Maya thinks her father's an architectural engineer who's away from home a lot, traveling the world making sure its superstructures (bridges, skycrapers, etc.) stay safe and sound for the people who use them.
Ye-aah.
Then a rip forms in the ceiling of her classroom and something slithers in, sucking the colors from everything. To find answers, she and her friends sneak out at night and are chased by werehyenas, and the Lord of Shadows appears in her dreams and threatens to find her.
She figures out Dad's a structural engineer, alright. He's a God, and she's a godling, and he maintains a structure called the Veil, which is designed to keep the otherworldly realm, the Dark, and all the predatory things that live there, out of our world.
Except rips and tears are appearing with alarming frequency, more now than ever before, and while her father's away repairing them, Maya and her friends (also godlings) are in danger. They've got orisha guards, to help keep them safe, but they also learn they've got powers of their own.
Maya doesn't think she has powers, and then her Dad gives her his staff, with its mystical glyphs, and goes on a trip and he doesn't come home. When he goes missing, and she learns the Lord of Shadows is holding him hostage, she vows to find him and bring him home, Lord of Shadows be darned. And the portal to the Dark? Her Dad told her where it was -- at a Comicon, no less.
I won't spoil the rest of the story. It features all sorts of creatures from African myth, like orishas and werehyenas and more, and is a fun, fantasy read!
