Fang-tastic Fiction: Seanan McGuire: OCTOBER DAYE Series

Author: Seanan McGuire

Series: OCTOBER DAYE

Plot Type: UF

Ratings: V4-5; S1 in early books; S3 in later books; H2-3

Publisher and Titles: DAW

Rosemary and Rue (9/2009)

A Local Habitation (3/2010)

An Artificial Night (9/2010)

Late Eclipses (3/2011)

"Through This House" in Home Improvement, Undead Edition (8/2011)

One Salt Sea (9/2011)

"In Sea-Salt Tears" (free short story download about the Luidaeg)

Ashes of Honor (9/2012)

"Rat-Catcher" in A Fantasy Medley (Tybalt's origins, 11/2012)

The Chimes at Midnight (9/2013)

The Winter Long (9/2014)

The Red Rose Chain (9/2015)

Once Broken Faith (9/2016)

This blog post was revised and updated on 10/9/12 to include a review of the sixth book in this series, Ashes of Honor. That review appears first, followed by an overview of the world-building and reviews of the first five books:

BOOK 6: Ashes of Honor

As the story opens, Toby is still grieving over the loved ones she lost at the end of the previous book. Her friends are in despair because they believe that she is trying to end her own life by taking on dangerous assignments that will probably get her killed. In the scene that kicks off the main plot, Toby's frenemy Etienne, Sylvester's Seneschal, comes to her with a serious personal problem. Years ago, Etienne unknowingly fathered a child (Chelsea, who is now a teenager) with a human woman. He is unaware of the child's existence until his former lover rings him up and accuses him of kidnapping her daughter. Etienne begs Toby to find Chelsea before harm can befall her, knowing that when she is found she will have to make the difficult choice between living in the human world or living in Faery and that he will be punished for his human affair.

The plot follows Toby and her friends—mostly Quentin and Tybalt—as they begin to track Chelsea, only to find that the girl has apparently discovered her teleporting powers and has been jumping back and forth from place to place and—even worse—from realm to realm. Once again, Toby seeks assistance from the Luidaeg, the powerful sea witch who is the daughter of Oberon and Maeve as well as being Toby's aunt. The Luidaeg realizes that Chelsea is a rare changeling who has come into her powers without the built-in blocks to control them. As Chelsea teleports uncontrollably to other realms, she is tearing the fabric between the realms and endangering both the Faerie and mortal worlds.

As Toby and her allies search for Chelsea, they learn that someone else is after her as well—someone who wants Chelsea to open particular portals to gain access to forbidden realms. Soon, the good guys get dangerously involved with the beautiful, powerful, cruel, and very ambitious leader of the Faerie realm that lies next door to Tamed Lightning (which was the setting for book 2). Eventually all of the lead characters endure horrific injuries—particularly Toby and Tybalt, who save each other's lives several times and come closer and closer to admitting that they are in love with one another. A related subplot features Raj, Tybalt's nephew and heir to his throne, and Raj's villainous father, Samson. Samson is determined to force his son into power now rather than later, and his first step is to try to kill both Tybalt and Toby.

This is another great addition to the series, with a fast-paced, suspense-filled plot and a nice development in the relationship between Toby and Tybalt. I have always hoped that Toby would acknowledge her true feelings for Tybalt, and vice versa; Conner was a nice enough guy, but a bit too much of a wuss for such a powerful heroine as Toby, with her militant attitude and mad fighting skills. Tybalt is just as tough and passionate as Toby, so let's hope that their relationship lasts (and that McGuire lets him live!).

WORLD-BUILDING

October “Toby” Daye is a changeling—daughter of a fae mother and a human father. In this world, all of the old familiar fairy tales are basically true, but we got the details wrong. The land of Faerie has existed parallel to the mortal world since the dawn of time. Although it is frequently hidden, it is always present. Faerie is inhabited by many different types of creatures, including pixies, elves, gnomes, shape-shifting cats, sea witches, and plenty of Faerie royalty. Faerie society is ancient and complex, with many feuds, rivalries, and shifting alliances, all of which make Toby's life a constant challenge.

Here, one character explains to Toby how the fae world is divided: "Humans inhabit just one level of the world: the land. They can travel through the air and sea, but being unable to fly or breathe water puts a damper on long-term habitation. The fae don't share their limitations. There are Kingdoms under the ocean and high in the clouds, thriving outside the range of mortal eyes...and most fae eyes, if we're being honest. Land fae rarely go to the trouble of visiting the Undersea, and the majority of the winged races are too weak to reach the Cloud Kingdoms. We may be everywhere, but that doesn't keep us from being divided by environment." (One Salt Sea, p. 22)

Toby has two love interests: Connor, the son and heir of the Duchy of Shadowed Hills, and Tybalt, the King of Dreaming Cats. Throughout most of the series, Connor is enmeshed in a marriage of convenience with an emotionally damaged woman who grows more and more psychotic and violent. Toby's relationship with Tybalt simmers with enigmatic glances and subtle sexual innuendo.

Here is how Toby view life: "In the end, there's never a sanctuary. You run until there's nowhere left to run to, and then you fight, and then you die, and then it's over. That's how the world works, and if there's a way to change that, I hope someone's eventually planning to let me know." (Late Eclipses, p. 203)

Although she lives in a very different milieu, Toby reminds me a lot of the heroine of Richelle Mead's GEORGINA KINCAID series. Both Toby and Georgina are forced to live their lives within the restraints of their dark supernatural genetics, and both are put in hopeless situations time and time again. Click HERE to read my review of the GEORGINA KINCAID series.

The titles of the books in this series all derived from Shakespearean plays:

> Rosemary and Rue: from A Winter's Tale

> A Local Habitation: from A Midsummer Night's Dream

> An Artificial Night: from Romeo and Juliet

> Late Eclipses: from King Lear

> One Salt Sea: from Henry V

> Ashes of Honor: from Henry VIII

> Chimes at Midnight: from Henry IV, Part II

> The Winter Long: from The Winter of Our Discontent

> The Red Rose Chain: from the poem, "Venus and Adonis"

> Once Broken Faith: from Henry VI, Part III

Here's what McGuire says about the titles on her web site: "While I'm careful to select plays for their content as much as for having cool-sounding quotes, the parallels may not always be the obvious ones. I'm trying not to repeat plays if I have any other choice, and have a file of potential names, just in case it becomes an issue." Click HERE to read FAQs about the series, including FAQs about Toby's world.

Click HERE to go to the page on McGuire's web site entitled "Fairy Tale Survival FAQ." This clever and humorous page invites you to imagine that you yourself are trapped in a fairy tale and provides answers to questions that will ensure that you survive your experience.

If you enjoy reading about love triangles among the fae, you might enjoy the UF series by Sandy Williams: SHADOW READER. Click HERE to read my review of the first book in that series.

BOOK 1: Rosemary and Rue

As the series opens, Toby is a knight-errant of the Duchy of Shadowed Hills, in San Francisco—the only changeling ever to be so honored. Her liege lord, Duke Sylvester Torquill, has commanded her to find his missing wife and daughter. By page 11, poor Toby has been put under a curse—turned into a fish for fourteen years—by the kidnapper.

When Toby finally breaks the curse and returns to human life, she finds that her fiancé and daughter believed that she walk out on them and don't want anything to do with her. Any semblance of her pre-cursed life is lost to her, so she exiles herself from the fairy community and tries to make it on her own. Book 1 takes Toby through her recovery period as she solves the murder of her longtime friend and adversary, Countess Evening Winterrose.

In this opening book, we meet most of the ongoing characters who will either support or oppose Toby in her next adventures.

BOOKS 2 & 3: A Local Habitation & An Artificial Night

In A Local Habitation, Sylvester sends Toby to a nearby fiefdom—the county of Tamed Lightning—to determine why his niece, January, is not returning his calls, she sees her assignment as a simple baby-sitting job, but initial appearances can be deceiving. To add to the "baby-sitting" aspects of her assignment, she is accompanied by a young Pureblood squire, Quentin, who, at first, has some negative feelings about Toby's changeling heritage.

An Artificial Night takes Toby to the realm of Blind Michael, the savage leader of the Wild Hunt, where she must locate missing fae and mortal children while trying to avoid becoming the Blind Michael's prey. She is assisted by her nemesis, the Luidaeg, who gives her a magical candle to light her way home.

In both books, Toby’s adventures constantly engage her in physical battles, and she is usually covered in blood, bandages, and scars. Besides Sylvester, the ongoing male characters include Tybalt, the King of Dreaming Cats, with whom Toby has an ongoing, antagonistic relationship; Devin, Toby’s former lover, who is the Faginesque leader of a ragtag group of changeling runaways; Connor, Toby’s former (and, maybe, still) childhood sweetheart, a selkie noble who is in a political marriage with Sylvester’s nutty daughter, Rayseline, who hates Toby with a passion; and Quentin, a teenage fae courtier from Sylvester’s court who accompanies Toby in her adventures in book 2. Rayseline's insanity was caused by long-term abusive treatment during her kidnapping back at the beginning of the series.

BOOK 4: Late Eclipses

Just as the evil Queen of the Mists awards Toby a title and a land of her own, she is called to the Tea Garden, where she finds her friend Lily ill and on the verge of death. Soon after that, Sylvester's wife and queen, Luna, succumbs to a terrible illness. Rayseline goes to the queen and blames Toby for the two illnesses. As Toby tries to track down the reasons for the illnesses, she finds herself in a much closer relationship with Tybalt, who has somehow become her friend and ally (and possible love interest?). From the beginning, Toby suspects her old enemy Oleander of being the poisoner. When one of the queen's guards shoots Toby with elf shot, her long-lost mother appears to her in a dream, forcing her to make a choice that changes her life forever. The book ends well for the good guys, but it places Toby in a precarious situation with the two men in her life: Tybalt and Connor.

BOOK 5: One Salt Sea

As the story begins, Toby has had several rare weeks of peace weeks, so we (and she) are sure that something bad must be on the horizon—and we're both correct. Someone has kidnapped the young sons of the Duchess Dianda Lorden, regent of the Undersea Duchy of Saltmist. Dianda is sure that the Queen of the Mists is somehow involved, so she declares war on the land sidthe. The Luidaeg (aka Sea Witch), a frenemy of Toby's says that Toby is the only person who can find the boys and prevent the war.

The plot follows Toby as she makes a trip to the Undersea world (as a sea creature), attempts to identify the kidnapper, and tries to find the boys in the three days allotted to her. If she doesn't, an all-out war will begin. In this book, Rayseline resurfaces in all her psychotic glory, and an important person from Toby's past is brought unwillingly back into her life, with heartbreaking results. In the romance department, Toby and Connor finally get some bedroom action (but not too graphic), and Toby and Tybalt share a mind-shattering kiss. By the end of the story, Toby's life is once again filled with upheaval and sadness, but there's a faint trace of hope for the future.

I like this series very much. Sometimes the complexity of Fae society can be confusing, but the story lines are fairly straightforward, and the plots are not padded with repetitious graphic sexual scenes. Toby's life is very dark. She is a changeling, despised by most of the Pureblood fae and barely tolerated by the rest. She does have a core of true friends, but they keep dying. This is another strong book in an excellent series. McGuire's world-building continues to be highly developed and consistent as she takes Toby through another story that is filled, as always, with action, tragedy, and love. McGuire tells Toby's story through a first person point of view, and she does it beautifully. The narrative and the dialogue are natural, graceful, and realistic.