Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Rosemary and Rue: An October Daye Novel
    Rosemary and Rue: An October Daye Novel
    Rosemary and Rue: An October Daye Novel
    Audiobook11 hours

    Rosemary and Rue: An October Daye Novel

    Written by Seanan McGuire

    Narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The world of Faerie never disappeared: it merely went into hiding, continuing to exist parallel to our own. Secrecy is the key to Faerie’s survival—but no secret can be kept forever, and when the fae and mortal worlds collide, changelings are born. Half-human, half-fae, outsiders from birth, these second-class children of Faerie spend their lives fighting for the respect of their immortal relations. Or, in the case of October “Toby” Daye, rejecting it completely. After getting burned by both sides of her heritage, Toby has denied the fae world, retreating into a “normal” life. Unfortunately for her, Faerie has other ideas.

    The murder of Countess Evening Winterrose, one of the secret regents of the San Francisco Bay Area, pulls Toby back into the fae world. Unable to resist Evening’s dying curse, which binds her to investigate, Toby is forced to resume her old position as knight errant to the Duke of Shadowed Hills and begin renewing old alliances that may prove her only hope of solving the mystery…before the curse catches up with her.

    “[O]ne of the most successful blends of mystery and fantasy I’ve ever read—like Raymond Chandler by way of Pamela Dean. Toby Daye has become one of my favorite heroines, and I can’t wait to read more of her continuing adventures.” —T. A. Pratt, author of Dead Reign

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJun 8, 2010
    ISBN9781441861733
    Rosemary and Rue: An October Daye Novel
    Author

    Seanan McGuire

    SEANAN McGUIRE is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, Alex, and Locus Award–winning Wayward Children series, the October Daye series, the InCryptid series, and other works. She also writes darker fiction as Mira Grant. Seanan lives in Seattle with her cats, a vast collection of creepy dolls, horror movies, and sufficient books to qualify her as a fire hazard. She won the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and in 2013 became the first person to appear five times on the same Hugo ballot. In 2022 she managed the same feat, again!

    More audiobooks from Seanan Mc Guire

    Related to Rosemary and Rue

    Titles in the series (7)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Sirens

      Jul 27, 2020

      Sirens
      19 min read

    • Article

      Life In The past Lane

      Aug 27, 2021

      Life In The past Lane
      5 min read

    • Article

      Robin Ince Is On The Road

      Feb 26, 2024

      I am at Slapstick Festival. Between talking to Tim Vine about his feature film about a giant moth and Sylvester McCoy discussing his career – from weasels down his trousers to Middle-earth, I walk a couple of miles to the Montpelier of Bristol. It is

      2 min read

    • Article

      Murder Most Fowl

      Mar 12, 2023

      Murder Most Fowl
      2 min read

    • Article

      Who Was That Girl?

      Apr 21, 2021

      Who Was That Girl?
      7 min read

    • Article

      Hello, Grim Reaper

      Dec 15, 2021

      She was a babe. A fully paid-up, card-carrying babe. There was absolutely no doubt about it, and she was heading straight for me. She was almost sprinting towards me across the recently reimagined lobby of Claridge’s. She looked up, her scarlet-anoin

      3 min read

    • Article

      End of THE LINE

      Jan 13, 2021

      End of THE LINE
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Double Life

      Dec 7, 2020

      Sadie is in the kitchen, already dressed in school uniform, fastening the clips on the violin she chose for her most recent birthday, when Gabriela heads downstairs the following morning. Seven years old: how the hell did that happen? Briefly, she wo

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Man I Should Have Married

      Dec 29, 2019

      The Man I Should Have Married
      11 min read

    • Article

      Epithalamium

      Jun 1, 2023

      Epithalamium
      16 min read

    • Article

      That Particular Sunday

      Jul 6, 2023

      That Particular Sunday
      26 min read

    • Article

      ‘Lady in the Lake’: Featured Fiction from Laura Lippman

      Jul 23, 2019

      An excerpt from Lippman's latest, a sophisticated crime novel that captures the 1960s zeitgeist while painting a striking portrait of female ambition. The post ‘Lady in the Lake’: Featured Fiction from Laura Lippman appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Caught Out

      Oct 2, 2022

      Caught Out
      9 min read

    • Article

      Changing Our Narratives through ‘Days of Our Lives’

      Oct 17, 2018

      1. Just weeks before the presidential election, after the release of the recording in which Donald Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women as he headed to the set of Days of Our Lives, my mother called me. While most people talked about the wor

      5 min read

    • Article

      Do Meet Your Heroes

      Feb 9, 2022

      It was flamboyant American producer Allan Carr who once wrote, ‘Never meet your heroes, lest you discover they have feet of clay.’ His remark came after an encounter with Paul Newman, an actor Carr had long worshipped from afar, but who by the time o

      3 min read

    • Article

      LeTteR Bocks

      Aug 4, 2022

      ◻PLEASE find attached this trademark from a box of eggs, which appears to show a chicken lifting its leg to crack off an eggy one. Susan Butcher, Australia ◻FORMER Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been criticised for meeting an ex-KGB agent without h

      13 min read

    • Article

      The Convict

      Jul 10, 2020

      The Convict
      5 min read

    • Article

      Maggie's Tip For First-time Buyers

      Jul 26, 2023

      Not long before her departure from the political scene, I was invited to a Christmas lunch at Lord McAlpine’s country house, where Mrs Thatcher and Denis were the main guests. We were 12 in all: an odd mix, including Terence Donovan, Mrs T’s favourit

      3 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Sep 4, 2020

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tom Cunliffe

      Sep 4, 2020

      Tom Cunliffe
      5 min read

    • Article

      Clandestine

      Jan 10, 2022

      It was 1980 and I was nineteen, barely into what my mother quaintly referred to as the Prime of My Life. From what I’d learned up to that questionable apogee, there will never be enough time before bony-fingered Decrepitude sinks her yellowed nails i

      12 min read

    • Article

      Tomorrows

      Mar 15, 2022

      The night, as most nights, was like a dream. At ten, once I’d fed the dog the last scraps off the stove. Once I’d cursed the cat for scratching up my mama’s antique furniture, then welcomed him back into my arms. Once I’d slicked my hair into a ponyt

      26 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Sep 1, 2022

      First prize 10 and under Tang Li, age 9 Palmetto Bay, FL My name is Anisa. I was in Hawaii on vacation. I enjoyed sipping refreshing drinks, overlooking the turquoise ocean, and dancing with others, before I overheard that the priceless Fire Ring wa

      10 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Rosemary and Rue

    4/5

    254 ratings52 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The plot: October Daye (Toby) is a changeling, half human and half fae. Changelings are too magical to live as a humans, but weak compared to pureblooded fairies - they're the second class citizens of the fairy world. Still, Toby had carved out a life for herself as a private investigator on the supernatural beat... until she was put on the trail of a villain who, one step ahead, got rid of the pesky PI by turning her into a fish. It took fourteen years for Toby to break that spell and regain her own body and mind; now, freshly released from her metamorphosis, she wants nothing to do with the fae. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a choice. An old friend and powerful pureblooded fairy, the Countess Evening Winterrose, is murdered and with her dying breath she curses October to find the killer and exact justice, or die trying.

      The good: The voice here is very strong - it's written from the first person and October is smart, world-weary, and straightforward. She's dipping back into a world she knows very well, so she makes an excellent guide, and as a reader I was pleased to be in her capable hands. The fairy underworld of San Francisco is brilliantly depicted, a strange and alien place that is tucked into the nooks and crannies of a familiar city. The fairies, and their customs, are both beautiful and monstrous. Details about October's past leak into the story at just the right pace. The world building is exhaustive, and it feels like there will be plenty to explore over the course of a long (I hope!) series.

      The bad: October does a lot of scuttling here and there looking for clues, and at some point all the ping ponging around started to feel like a saggy middle. Several times October decided to go somewhere to get information, made the trip, and then got badly injured in an assassination attempt right as she arrived. Realistic maybe, but after a few repeats I was really impatient for her to gather a clue or two in between beatings. I stopped getting excited when she embarked on an outing because I knew in a few pages, she'd be on the lookout for medical attention and I'd be reading another chapter or two about magical triage.

      I was also a little bit annoyed because Toby is set up with two potential love interests, both of whom are identified largely by how much Toby and the guy in question "hate" one another. Except this "hatred" is expressed, throughout the novel, in the form of...uh...trust and affection? At one point, Toby asks for help from this guy who "hates" her so much that he's been following her around for decades and doing nefarious things like, um, making a mean joke or two. She asks him to do something very important, and then explains that she's only trusting him because she doesn't trust him. We're supposed to buy this as fairy logic - and I'll give the author some leeway there - but mostly I thought the set-up was really transparent, unless, that is, adults are supposed to behave like 3rd graders with a schoolyard crush.

      But enough criticism. ROSEMARY AND RUE was really one of the more promising urban fantasies I've read in a long time, and I will pick up the sequel.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Narrator was a bit irritating. But loved the book. Loved the characters. Maybe something I would be more inclined to read instead in future. Just because of the narrators voice
    • 4/5
      Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire, is the first of a series of books featuring the changeling character October "Toby" Daye. As the product of human and Faerie blood, changelings are not entirely welcome in either world, and although Toby once forged a place in Faerie as a knight for the Duke of Shadowed Hills, she has since repudiated all connections to that world. In fact, Toby apparently lived quite an event-filled life before the book even begins: she was engaged to and had a daughter with a human man before her "private investigator" status in Faerie landed her in a fourteen-year imprisonment in a koi pond. As the action begins, she works as a grocery clerk, is unable to speak to her daughter, and exists in a voluntary state of friendlessness. The setting may be fantastic but the action is a straight-up mystery, revolving around the death of one of Toby's old allies, Countess Evening Winterrose. The Countess has cursed Toby with discovering the truth of her murder with cold iron, and the task becomes a race against time as well as Toby's forceful reintroduction into the world of Faerie. Although there is a lot of (necessary) exposition and explanation of the laws of Faerie, etc., this is a solid series opener with some intriguing characters that left me hopeful that some of the many threads left hanging will be picked up in the next volume.
    • 2/5
      The voice over is atrocious. Character work needs work but the writing was ok. Story wise it's a great introduction of the main character. Going to try second book
    • 5/5
      Excellent story, great narration. Love the intertwining of the human world and the fae world, and the writing, as always, is gorgeous. Not entirely sure how I feel about the Tybalt and Devin voices, but the Toby voice was great!
    • 3/5
      I'm really disappointed in this book. I've heard nothing but great things about it, and, yes, the world is very interesting, and I'm highly curious as to October's history, but that's no substitute for things that happen in the present day.

      October spends the first half of the book wandering around, meeting old acquaintances, catching them up on the news and telling them that she's investigating the murder. Maybe an hour was spent truly investigating.

      Then she spends the next third of the book getting injured repeatedly with no real break in between. And finally,at the end, she just happens upon the right answer without trying. No real effort or intelligence was spent on the investigation at all.

      I'd give the world a A- but the plot a D. If I happen across the next book sometime, I'll probably read it. Hopefully the lack of a well-done plot this time is just the result of the abundance of world-building. But I'm not going to go out of my way to read it and find out.
    • 4/5
      Faerie is around the corner in this well designed world . October Daye is one of the inhabitants of this world a half-faerie, who has constructed a life for herself with a husband and child and a job of detective when she is turned into a fish for several years. When she comes out the pond she finds herself displaced and wants as little as possible to do with her past life, it hurts to have missed so much.
    • 4/5
      I love a good fairy/faerie tale, I love Kelpies lurking on corners and Selkies in the sea and psychotic queens and endless deceipt and not saying thank you and changlings. Toby Daye delivers all of this.
    • 1/5
      Just too silly for me. Could not get into the fairy land theme ; could not finish the book.
    • 4/5
      There are a lot of noir detective stories out there. But lately it seems to be written tongue in cheek. There is a lot of urban fantasy out there. But most of it is gentle or even twee. Rosemary and Rue is not gentle. It is dark, dark, dark urban fantasy with all the contempt for humans and halflings that you would expect from immortal fairies. October Daye is a halfling who at the moment of Choice, chooses the Fae instead of a human life. Swept out of her human life as a preteen and into the wonder of Under the Hill, she is a third class citizen to the true born Fae. She has been making a living as private detective with a human lover and child. But while following Simon Torquill, the twin brother of her fairy liege lord, Torquill, Simon turns her into a fish. And she remains a fish for fourteen years. When the spell wears off, she has lost her human life and her life in fairy. She tries to hide her pointed ears and odd facial features with her meager glamor, but is pulled back forcefully into the fairy realm by the iron born death of Evelyn Winter, a powerful mage.What follows is an adventure with many of the dangerous and odd creatures of Fae that humans rarely see. October is shot twice and barely escapes death a dozen times over. It almost seems a bit too much for any heroine to bear, but ends in a satisfying denouement while allowing the room for at least two sequels.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this first installment in Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series. This book spent a lot of time introducing us to this world, the rules of the magic system, and the characters, while also teaching us a bit about October’s past. I did like this book quite a bit but think the next books have potential to be even better now that all of the above stuff is out of the way. I’m excited to see where October goes next!
    • 4/5
      Seanan McGuire has introduced me to another world I am eager to visit - fae both hidden, and seperate, from the mortal world. While there were a lot of details to absorb I think McGuire managed to weave the rules, inhabitants and information quite skilfully into the story.Suprisingly magic plays less of a role than I expected, but there was non stop action and while i did really enjoy it, I also think it overwhelmed the plot, particularly the mystery, a little too much. Poor Toby gets shot on 3 different occassions, beat up, nearly drowns, nearly suffocates etc all in a just a few days.Toby is an interesting character, more flawed than many heroines of the genre but still very likeable. I would have liked her to be a bit more proactive in her "quest" and take definate action instead, as Toby admits, simply reacting to the situations she finds herelf in. We are introduced to a raft of other characters - some vital to this story, while others seem to be set up for later books.I think there is a lot to like about this new series, enough that I've ordered the second
    • 5/5
      Fresh Fare for Fae FansOctober Daye, better known to her friends and enemies as "Toby", has seen better times. Having recently recovered from a spell that left her trapped in the form of a fish for fourteen years she's lost everything she valued. A Changeling--half-human, half-fae--by birth she doesn't truly belong in either world. She may owe some allegience to her fae leige but having lost the human she loved and the now teenaged daughter she adored have left a mark on her. With her old frenemy, Evening Winterrose, murdered it falls on Toby to find her killer or face the possibility of her own death. Dragged back into the world of Fae politics and secrets Toby must renew old ties and seek out the very persons she has been trying to avoid. There's no telling who she can trust amongst the Fae fiefdoms when enemies can be more straight-forward than one's own friends. October's series is off to a good start with Rosemary and Rue. These are the fae most faeriephiles are familiar with but with some twists. McGuire gives readers just enough detail and hints to keep them reading but leaves a lot open for disclosure in future installments. I found her Cait Sidhe particularly interesting because I'm a cat lover. The variety of changelings make for an curious lot as there are many different types of fae in this particular world building. Where the author will go with this is anyone's guess. As a heroine Toby is a little iffy. I liked her but felt like she wasn't telling us everything and some of her motivations seemed a little contrived. At times I felt like I had to guess at her motives and the lack of explanation of her relationships with her friends and enemies could have gone much deeper. There is a certain quality to her character that does make it hard not to want to continue getting to know her and wishing she was more forthcoming as the narrator of her story that will keep most readers entertained though. The wide variety of secondary characters were well done, strengthening the story even if (like Toby) I felt the surface was barely scratched with most of them. One issue I had here is that I frequently felt like I was told instead of shown how Toby related to the others. Overall the story wasn't flawless but I found it hard to put down. After a while certain mythologies can feel redundant and Rosemary and Rue does its best to steer clear of that. Anyone who likes urban fantasy with Fae should pick this one up and check it out. The heavy sexual overtones of some other faerie series aren't present in this first book but may pop up in future ones. I recommend this one for urban fantasy fans looking for something fresh and original.
    • 4/5
      This is the first book in the October Daye series.I enjoyed this book. The world-building is well done. I don't know San Francisco well, but I had the feeling that, if I did, the setting would have made perfect sense.The opening scene sets up a major conflict that isn't addressed in the rest of the book, which leaves room for things to build as the series progresses.The rest of the book is a fairly straighforward paranormal mystery, which is well-written and comes to a satisfactory conclusion.The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is that none of the characters really came alive to me. They aren't badly written, or cardboard, but just didn't breathe. However, I'll be checking out the rest of the series, so they may grow on me.
    • 3/5
      I feel like this book had greatness potential... Then fell short.
    • 4/5
      October (Toby) Daye is a half-fairy PI with a young daughter and a loving fiance—until an investigation gone wrong turns her into a fish for over a decade. When she’s freed, she has nothing left and just wants Fairy to leave her alone. Of course it won’t, forcing her to go back to the corrupt lover she left, the court whose knighthood she wants to forget, and obligations enforced by magic. And also, her sovereign’s son-in-law is flirting with her, except that his wife is crazy, possibly because Toby screwed up that investigation all those years ago. It’s a good debut, giving information at the right pace and creating an engaging urban fantasy world. I’ve seen criticism that Toby isn’t much of an active force—things basically just happen to her at a pace she can barely survive—and that’s true, but given the plot, just being able to hang on is a virtue. Plus, she starts out with a pretty damn good reason to be depressed, reactive and angry. Try it out for the worldbuilding, and maybe Toby will take more control of her destiny in later books.
    • 5/5
      Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire/Sept 1, 2009Rosemary and Rue is the quintessential Dark Fantasy novel and a must read for anyone looking to add to their new favorite authors. If you are a fan of Laurell K Hamilton’s “Merry Gentry” series and Jim Butcher’s “Harry Dresden” series, you will find this the perfect book to read while waiting for the next Merry or Harry novel. This book is completely character and action driven, and written in the first person point of view. This is a gem of a book and I’m already encouraging my readers and members to put this on their “to be purchased” lists.This new series by debut author Seanan McGuire seems to blend the best of the worlds of the Laurell’s fey (Fairies) with the bumbling antics of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden character. This book will have you so immersed from page one that you’ll be forgetting to eat while you’re reading it. And I swear you will also be worrying about every little creak and noise you hear in your house, and you’ll be wondering just exactly what is under that little hill in your neighborhood park. We get to meet October Daye (a Changeling or half Fey) during a stake out; her liege lord has asked that she try to find his wife and daughter. As she is following her lead she is caught and sent out of her present life and into another one. (Sorry for the ambiguity but I don’t want to spoil anything for you.) Now move ahead 14 years and we find that Toby (October) has regained her life and for reasons that come clear in the novel, has moved ahead without the people from her old life. She is now a cashier for a supermarket chain and has left her private eye work in the past. That is until a fateful series of messages show up on her answering machine one day and forces her into investigating the murder of one of the full fey. Now she has to find a murderer or her own life will be forfeit. Rosemary and Rue is the perfect “set up” novel. One that introduces us to the world where the fey have found ways to live amongst us and blend in, yet still manage to remain apart from us. We are learning about October Daye’s history amongst the full blooded, her past and what it’s like to be a changeling. We also learn that the heroine is not always a kick butt “MaryJane” type who can do it all (and thank God for that!). The fact that October spends more time bloody and unconscious or as a Koi will certainly attest to the fact that she is not omnipotent and has a lot to learn in the coming books. (The Koi part is revealed in the prologue which is fabulous).I am by no means a “professional reviewer” and as you can see by my previous reviews my tastes for books run anywhere from historical romances to chick lit, comedic romance to mystery/suspense. But for some reason, lately the Dark Urban Fantasy has given me some of the most pleasurable reading I’ve ever had. It takes me from my mundane world and sends me into realms that I never dreamed possible. I have been lucky enough to be chosen as a Vine Voice and to be allowed to read books that haven’t hit the market yet. Okay, with that said let me tell you in the last few months I have immersed myself in my Dark Urban Fantasy world and have been happy enough with the pickings coming down the pike. Until I got this book…this book is just what the doctor ordered and so far from the norm in this genre that I can’t stop raving about it.I for one am very jealous of anyone who has already had the pleasure of reading the next two novels in this series which will be published in 2010.
    • 4/5
      A welcome return to the roots of urban fantasy, which originally meant Faerie intruding in a modern urban setting, in this case San Francisco. October Daye is a changeling, half human, half fae. She is a private investigator and in the service of a powerful faerie duke. As the story begins, she is trying to track down the duke's abducted wife and daughter, but things go horribly wrong. After fourteen years out of circulation, Toby is trying to pick her life back up again, working as a late-night supermarket cashier and avoiding the fae as much as possible. But when her former mentor/patron is murdered, Toby is sucked back in.The plot of this is classic murder mystery, private investigator subtype. But the real charm is the interaction between our world and the world of Faerie. Toby is an appealing character, strong but flawed and damaged by life.There are two sequels in the works; I am eagerly looking forward to them.
    • 4/5
      I admit that I wanted to like this book a little more than I did. Seanan McGuire is the true face of pseudonym Mira Grant, writer of the Newsflesh trilogy. Mira Grant wrote two of my favorite books (Feed and Deadline), and I figured starting her urban fantasy series would be a good way to pass the time until Blackout releases May 8. While I generally liked Rosemary and Rue, I feel that it didn’t quite live up to the admittedly very high expectations I had in mind.Don’t get me wrong — Rosemary and Rue is a good book. My favorite thing about the novel is the rich mythology it brings to the table. Instead of choosing, like some authors, to only go with a select few types of fae, or to not explain the differences between them, McGuire sets up a world chock full of different varieties of faeries, hailing from many different backgrounds. Each type of faeries in this world has their own inner circle, their own abilities, their own temperaments. Add in the differences between the changlelings and the purebloods, and you’ve got another layer of complexity. These delineations, along with the complex societal mores of the faeries living in (or not quite in, as it were) San Francisco, makes for complex, detailed world-building. I salute McGuire for the research she must have done to pull this off, and for tailoring the myths together in a way that just works.I also liked the protagonist and the characters around her. October tries to be tough, but life keeps handing her the short end of the stick. I think she does well considering the situations she is thrown into. I also appreciate her witty narrative touches. Tybalt was one of my other favorite characters, but perhaps I’m biased, me being a cat person and him being Cait Sidhe. I liked trying to figure the other characters out. For the majority of the story, October has been out of the faerie scene for quite a while, so it is realistic that we don’t know everything about the characters or their current motives. The mystery and thrilling elements of the story are generally well set up and effective. I guessed the identity of the person behind the murder before our heroine, but I didn’t really mind it.So why didn’t I love the book? That’s a hard question to answer. To put it simply, I felt that Rosemary and Rue just lacked that special something, that oomph factor that made me fall in love with the Newsflesh novels. I would still recommend it to fans of urban fantasy, particularly those with an interest in faerie mythology and mysteries. I think my high expectations kept me from liking the novel as much as I would otherwise. I will very likely check out the next novel in the series, to see if the series picks up for me.
    • 4/5
      McGuire gets an A+ for world-building. I loved the unique combination of murder mystery, gritty urban fantasy, and Medieval courtliness of the Faerie world. Although the movement of the plot gets bogged down by description and details, the creativity of the setting and interesting characters pull the reader along. Shakespeare fans will enjoy the numerous references and parallels to his plays. Overall, it was entertaining and intriguing enough for me to definitely want to read the second book in the series.
    • 1/5
      This book has everything I hate and nothing I love about urban fantasy: a tough-talking and ultimately useless heroine with an irrelevant Tragic Past, a why-are-you-trying-to-write-this-character-as-sexy (and failing so hard!) abusive bad boy ex-boyfriend, inaccurate whining about San Francisco, a terrible excuse for a mystery, European fairies in America with no mention of anyone or anything indigenous, and especially, a serious case of whiteness.Everyone in this book is white. Thousands-year-old fairy queen of Northern California? White. Kitsune lady? White. Half-human half-fairy? All white all the time! Half-fairy with an "inner city Spanish accent?" Flowing golden locks! The only person who could be read as non-white (described with black hair) is Lily, the undine who runs the Japanese Tea Gardens. With sexy robes, passivity, and controlling tendencies.Beyond that, October Daye is not an interesting heroine. She has a chronic case of stupid. She has no drive. Her banter sucks. McGuire tries to show us that she's not a Mary Sue by having someone beat her up every five pages, but unfortunately, she's not Jim Butcher, and Toby is no Harry Dresden. And while urban fantasy is definitely a character-driven genre, it would be nice if the plot made a little sense. Most of the action is Toby getting beaten up and realizing that omg, someone wants to kill her! (Yes, we maybe have picked up on that by now!) None of it moves the plot forward.We've been discussing a "staff unrecommends" at the bookstore where I work. This one definitely goes there.
    • 5/5
      I read this a few weeks ago, but wasn't sure how I would write a review that would do this justice. I honestly still don't think I will do the book justice, but I want to write the review before the new year. This is one of my favorite books of the year. This is an amazing, intelligent, action packed story that I could not put down once I started it. Well, I had to put it down to sleep at some point, but I didn't want to. Toby gets sucked back into the fae world and she really is just trying to fit in where she can in the human world. She's half of both worlds and wanted by neither. There is a changeling world that she can belong, but she'd rather not. The whole book exhausted me and I can't imagine how Toby kept going after each ass kicking she got and gave. She has friends where she least expects them and enemies everywhere. I loved seeing the ways of the Faerie world, scary as it had a tendency to be. I really look forward to the rest of the series as it comes out and anything else Seanan McGuire writes. It looks like she has a whole bunch of books out in the new year. YAY! Five fantabulous changeling beans.....
    • 1/5
      The female protagonist was really weak the whole book and the author spent the whole book trying to undo this character flaw. It wasn't very enjoyable as a stand alone book. October (the main character) complains a lot.
    • 2/5
      October (Toby) Daye was an up-and-coming private investigator with a husband and young daughter at home counting on her to come back in one piece. And things were going well enough until she ran into a bad guy that put her out of commission for 14 years. Finally back on her own two feet, Toby's left with a new reality where her husband and daughter want nothing to do with her. Disillusioned with her old life, Toby's turned her back on the P.I. business and is barely making a go of it as an overnight cashier at the local convenience store. That is until Evelyn Winters, an old friend, is brutally murdered and it's up to Toby to find out who's responsible.This sort of sounds like any other tough lady detective story, but Rosemary and Rue offers up a twist. Toby isn't just any other P.I., she's a changeling. Her mother was a pureblood fairy who decided to play housewife with a mortal man. The baddie that knocked her out of the loop for so long wasn't a standard villain, he was a pureblood who thought it would be amusing to turn Toby into a fish. She spent those 14 years in a koi pond with no recollection of who or what she truly was. Evelyn Winters was thousands of years old and, knowing her murder was coming soon, placed a curse on Toby. Toby is now compelled to solve this murder or she will be joining Ms. Winters in the great beyond.This was a fun little urban fantasy, but parts of it left me a bit cold. In one scene Toby battles with a doppelgänger in her living room, a gun is hidden behind the curtain only a few feet away. Toby knows the gun is there, but rather than grab it she runs to her bedroom where there's no escape. If she's as smart and sassy as she's written, she would have made a dive for the gun. It made no sense. She also has a confusing love/hate relationship with a weirdo who runs a flop house where she used to live. It's made clear that the guy is a creep, requiring sex as payment for favors from most of his young wards. He's just slimy. And still our headstrong heroine is stealing kisses from him even as she's promising one of his new victims that she'll help her escape. I was baffled. It was a quick read and had won a Hugo, so I stuck through to the end. I don't regret that I read it but I doubt I'll be finishing the series.
    • 2/5
      I was pretty disappointed by this book because I absolutely adore Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series. The writing in this book is just so radically different and, honestly, kind of bad. If I didn’t know this was the same author, I probably wouldn’t believe it. The writing in Wayward Children is whimsical and sweet (I don’t know how else to describe it) and this writing is….. lame (even for urban fantasy standards - I audibly said “ugh” to a lot of the dialogue).

      The world building is sloppy and very hard to follow. I don’t expect a whole fantasy world to get built in one chapter, but the rules of this fae world are neverending and incredibly difficult to follow. Not to mention the number of species of fae that are introduced (I honestly couldn’t tell you a single one at this point because there are just too many). I think the problem is that the world building just never lets up. The story is told in first person by the main character and the narrative is constantly being inundated with new facts and rules. I just started the second book in an attempt to give this series another chance and there’s still *more* world building being added. It’s just not done very subtly. I prefer world building to ebb and flow and to not be so overstated. I like it to feel like I just learn the world organically without having to be told every single thing (I do accept that stating the world rules outright via a sassy female protagonist is common in UF, but I’ve seen it done much better in other books).

      The plot itself didn’t save the book, either. To be honest not much happens. October runs around getting shot at and making bad decisions before she finally uses her powers to find out who's behind the murder (tbh I don’t know why we had to wait so long for her to do this???). Every time she’s confronted with an enemy, she flails around before even making an attempt to fight back. There were so many times she had a gun and didn’t shoot it, usually causing someone else to get hurt or die. Also, I could not get behind Devin, who is supposed to be October’s great first love. He’s extremely abusive and while October doesn’t necessarily condone this, she also doesn’t outright state how bad he is until much later in the book.

      Also, I do not recommend listening to this on audio. The narrator is kind of terrible. She often attempts accents for some of the characters and they might be some of the worst accents I’ve ever heard.
    • 5/5
      October Daye is a changeling, a half-human, half-fae who is stuck between two worlds. After being cursed for fourteen years to live as a fish in the Japanese Tea Gardens in San Francisco, October is thrown back into a new life where her fiancee and daughter have moved on without her. After a close fae friend, and Queen, dies mysteriously, October searches for the woman's killer and returns to the world she would rather leave behind.I'm not sure where to start with this book. I loved practically everything about it. The writing was vivid, rich and seemed to flow effortlessly between sentences and scenes. The dialog was fun, realistic and made the characters jump off the page. The characters were fabulous. Each one was unique, and I could feel their emotions living inside the book. Particularly October, even though she tends to seem a little pathetic and somewhat emo at points, felt like a truly multi-faceted characters with realistic (well, as realistic as you can get with an urban fantasy) problems. I was especially happy that October seemed to have viable motivations for her actions, rather than just doing something purely for the purposes of advancing the plot.McGuire's world-building is phenomenal. It's one of the best I've read this year. McGuire has the amazing ability to build the world and explain its mechanics to the reader while still moving the plot forward and not dumping pages of information onto the reader at once. McGuire seamlessly integrates her own mythology, based off traditional Celtic lore, into the real city of San Francisco, and blends the two together into a unique world for the universe of October Daye.Fans of paranormal romance beware. There is some romance in this novel, but it is not a major part of the plot at all. October does not have a love interest (just an ex). I found this very refreshing for an urban fantasy/mystery novel, but readers who are looking for romance shouldn't expect it here.The only tiny issue I had with this book is that it felt like October spent much of her time in the middle of the book running between different faery locations for no other reason than for McGuire to introduce more of her world. There were plot reasons, but they seemed a tiny bit thin...but that's being really picky.But in summary: loved this book. Can't wait for the sequel!
    • 1/5
      October "Toby" Daye is a half-human, half-faerie changeling living in modern day San Francisco with her human (and faerie-oblivious) boyfriend and their mostly-human kid. The novel begins with a prologue: in 1995, Toby is trying to solve the mysterious kidnapping of a faerie Duke's wife and daughter. She bumbles into a trap set by the perps, and ends up cursed to live as a fish in a koi pond in Golden Gate Park. For fourteen years. Sounds like a good beginning, right? Magic, mystery, intrigue... We are re-introduced to Toby about 6 months after her de-enchantment. She's itching to get revenge on the people who put the carp in her diem, solve the 14-year-old kidnapping mystery, and reunite with her family.Except, no. She's not itching to do any of that. She's working the night shift in a convenience store and avoiding everything to do with her former life. She ends up investigating a murder mystery which has no apparent connection to any of the events in the prologue. (And by the way, I don't know how she ever got her private investigator's license, because most of her investigative techniques seem to involve little more than getting knocked unconscious.) Even here, in the urgent pursuit of a killer, there are buckets and buckets of backstory mucking up the plot rather than contributing to it. Overall, the balance between backstory and this-story felt lopsided to me. Too much tell, not enough show. Recommended only for people who prefer to spell fairy as faerie.
    • 2/5
      Not a series I will be continuing. I didn't care for the writing or the mostly cheesy wit at the oddest moments. For example, if there is a horrible creature about to kill you, its not likely you would engage in inane conversation such as Beast: "Guess what I'm going to do to you" Heroine: "Oh, I don't know, leave me alone?" Beast: "Are you stupid?" Heroine"Oh a lot of people would say I am stupid" Without this type of dialog, I would have enjoyed the story a lot more, even with the extremely slow moving plot. I really wanted to like this book. I usually love reading about the fae, but one of my pet peeves is cheesy dialog and this book had an over abundance of it. I'm giving it 2 stars because it would have been an interesting enough story if it had been written differently.
    • 4/5
      It is a testament to how incredibly good they are that whenever I read myself to a stopping place in the series (i.e. the last published book - so that I have to wait for McGuire's writing to catch up with my reading), the world becomes a sadder place. Patience is never my strong suit. I began reading the October Daye series largely because I love the Newsflesh series so much (first book is Feed, by Mira Grant, McGuire's pseudonym). I am now hooked into this one as well, though to a lesser extent. Toby Daye's world is reminiscint of Charles De Lint's, with more of an emphasis on Celtic folklore and more believable, multi-dimensional characters. Toby is a faery knight cum private investigator, and she never runs out of crimes to solve, thanks to the faery-world's Macchiavellian royal court system and abundance of shady characters. There is a lot of backstory that is revealed in tantalizing little bits - and even more, the further you get into the series. McGuire has said on occasion, on her blog, or in interviews, that she admires Stephen King, and I can see it. As a would-be writer myself, I admire her, because she's learned a lot of King's tricks without copying him in any way. She is very much her own voice. This is a smart fantasy book series, and I think you all should read it.
    • 5/5
      Fun read. Even more fun if you know the San Francisco Bay Area and the SCA.