I received a copy of this book as part of the 2017 Hugo Awards voter's packet and therefore won't be reviewing it on NetGalley.

Excellent books! I downloaded this for the Hugo Award voting, I wasn't able to finish reading it in time, but it did get my vote.

A found family, soaked in blood. Like, lots of blood. Like, Carrie's been put to shame. Like..... the elevator scene from the Shining. But with a found family and lots of snark. Pretty ideal, all in all.

I was given an advance review copy of this book by NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

For transparency, I should probably start by acknowledging that this is my favorite series, out of all of the series in the world. I generally enjoy Seanan McGuire's storytelling, her sense of humor, and her knack for very good foreshadowing, and I specifically love this world and these characters. The Luidaeg is my favorite character. So the fact that I enjoyed this book: not a surprise.

The rest of this review is not going to be a plot summary--Goodreads doesn't need yet another review that summarizes the plot--but it IS going to have opinions that people who want to avoid spoilers will probably want to avoid. Especially if you're not through books 11 and 12 yet. Seriously, stop here if you're behind.

What I did not expect, and I honestly can't tell if it was McGuire's intention, was how much I came out of this book loathing Gillian. The short story after the previous book did a fair bit to humanize her (yeah, OK, I was already not a fan), which makes me think maybe we're not supposed to feel this way? But she's just such a perfect foil for Quentin, who is brave and loving and generally a great person (due in no small part to Toby's influence). Toby loves Gillian with all of her heart, and Gillian seems entirely incapable of returning that love--maybe in part because Toby was trapped in a pond and then kept away during her development. (So, sure: maybe it's not her fault. She's still awful, though.)

I do appreciate that Toby's and Gillian's relationship is the inverse of Amandine's and Toby's, in a lot of ways; and Toby's the one who gets crapped on in both, which I take to be an underscoring of the point of the whole series: "found family is your truest family." We love the Luidaeg, Lily, Quentin, Tybalt, Maye, Jas, Raj, and Spike (and sometimes Sylvester), and we hate Amandine and Gillian and August and Janet.

Anyway.

I enjoyed the new Firstborn character. I'm puzzled by what Marcia's deal is. I am also enjoying watching Patrick and Dianda's children grow up.

And if the big thing that we've been building up to with the Selkies, for several books now, ended up feeling more like a side plot than the point of the book, I can honestly forgive that. Or I can decide it was deliberate misdirection. At any rate, I'm comfortable with it.

The October Daye series is currently ten books long. I'd never read any of the series before, but all ten were provided for free with the Hugo Sampler Packet, that was given for free to all Hugo voters (the download worked differently than other Hugo downloads and may have been a temporary download, I'm not sure, but it doesn't really matter). As such....well, I enjoyed them enough to tear through all ten books in about ten days. That said, the series takes about two books to get its footing, and while each book tries to include enough recap for a new reader to theoretically start there, none of the books really would work as a stand-alone so you can't just skip to Book 3 (You'll be VERY Confused).

-------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------

The General Plot Summary is this: Faerie is real and Fae live amongst us, in hiding. All Faeries descend from the same three parents - Oberon and his two Queens, Titania and Maeve, who locked away most of the Faerie Realms when they mysteriously disappeared. Now Fae live in either our own Earth or the nearest available realm, where they have their own feudal kingdoms.



October Daye is a changeling - a half human half fae - and as such is not thought of as equal to pureblood Fae (who, amongst other things, are immortal, unlike changelings). But through her efforts as a detective, she has managed to be knighted by a Fae Duke, and takes both human and Fae detective jobs. Until one day, one of those jobs gets her transformed into a fish for 14 years, costing her her marriage and her human daughter. She comes out of the experience bitter and wanting to stay away from Faerie....but it won't let her forever.



Instead, she soon learns that not only can she not really avoid Faerie, but her very destiny is intertwined with the lives of Fae throughout the local duchie, kingdom, and beyond. Soon she'll find herself in deep with powers incredibly powerful, working alongside a ragtag team of Fae Cats, Birds, Trolls, Seals, and more, as she attempts to solve various crises in her own life as well as throughout the local kingdom that overlaps with San Francisco. And since her specialty is blood magic, she finds herself covered in her own blood way more often than not.

-------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------



There's nothing Must Read about the October Daye series - again if Urban fantasy isn't for you, this isn't going to change your mind. That said, once the series gets into a rhythm, it becomes very hard to put down. Every book in general is fast paced, with really fun dialogue and some very good characters. The books grow formulaic to a point (By Book 3, each book starts with a general catch up on October's life, then a crisis occurs, then October checks in with The Luidaeg for help approaching the problem, and then October follows the path from there), but the cast of regulars are absolutely fantastic and fun to follow.



If the books struggle, it's that they don't really work when the central plotline of a story has to do with a murder mystery, or really a mystery where the reveal is key to the conclusion (Books 1, 2 and 10, are like this) - the solutions to those mysteries are either incredibly predictable (Books 1 and 2) or complete shrugs (Book 10). But most of the books are more urban fantasy adventures/quests and the mystery elements aren't meant to be solved by the reader, and so they work really well.



Anyhow, if you enjoy Urban Fantasy and can get a hold of this series for cheap, STRONGLY RECOMMENDED.

Overall, the series is a good read. The first few books in the series were a pain to get through, but after the six or seven book, it got really good. I don't enjoy the fey myths, but I do enjoy a book with great characters, and Tobby Daye is one. The appeal of the books to me is learning about Tobby's life and not on the world she lives in.

I received this collection as part of the Hugo award packet. This was very generous of the author and I really appreciated getting the entire collection. Thank you!

I look forward to voting for more of her work in the future! :)

The e-book files for the Hugo Award omnibus refused to open, so I never got to read this in full. I do have the first two volumes in the series on my shelves, and as always, I enjoy Seanan McGuire's work, so I'm going to assume it was excellent with my star rewards (so as not to dim its ratings elsewhere on a technical glitch).

As with other works by Seanan McGuire, with in the first few pages I found myself deeply enveloped in and fascinated with the yet another world that McGuire has created. Very enjoyable and entertaining to read. Thank you!

While I definitely enjoyed my experience reading this book, there are some issues with pacing and character development in the middle that left me wanting just a bit more.

N.B. I received the entire series from Netgallery as part of the Hugo packet and read up to book 7 for Hugo award consideration. The following is my review on Goodreads after book 7.

I’ve tried really hard to love this series. It’s been praised by many people with good taste and Seanan McGuire has a strong reputation as a writer. But I just can’t warm to Toby and I think after 7 books, I probably need to move on. I’m not sure what it is about the series that bothers me, perhaps it’s that I read them one after the other, but there’s a flatness to the main characters that I can’t seem to get past. That goes for Tybalt too, unfortunately.

They run here and there-go see Sylvester, go see the Luidaeg, Toby gets bashed up, Danny drives her somewhere, Tybalt appears suddenly, everyone races to collect the plot coupons and by the end, I’m left with a sense of exhaustion. The world is explored but not in any real depth and you’d think there’d be a bit more introspection and world-weariness among immortal creatures than we actually see.

I’ll be returning the rest of series to the library feeling like at least I gave it a go and returning to Ilona Andrews, Patricia Briggs, Thea Harrison, Darynda Jones and Tanya Huff for my paranormal/urban fantasy fix. Sigh.

This omnibus was part of the Hugo Voter's Packet in 2017, which was a very generous move from the publisher. I haven't had the opportunity to read the series yet, and because it wasn't originally posted on NetGalley in order to receive reviews, I will not be doing so. Thank you very much to DAW Books!

This year’s Hugo ballot saw a brand new and somewhat experimental category: Best Series. Many were nominated, and the final tallies offered nominees from all corners of the science fiction and fantasy umbrella. One nominee in particular made my heart sing: the October Daye Books by Seanan McGuire.

If you aren’t familiar with the series, this is how McGuire herself describes the series on her blog:

The first in the series is Rosemary and Rue, an urban fantasy/murder mystery that's probably best described as "fairy tale noir." Think Fables meets Jim Butcher and you'll be in the right zip code, if not exactly the right neighborhood.

Fairy tale noir? thought 2010 me (which is when I first heard of the book). Sign me up!

Mostly mild spoilers, nothing that isn't ruined by reading the back of a book, however a key scene from the third book is described in detail. Read on with care.

I read the first and second volume back to back in the spring of that year, shortly after the second book in the series, A Local Habitation had been published. I loved Rosemary and Rue; I have mixed feelings about A Local Habitation. When volume three, An Artificial Night appeared in the fall of 2010, I decided to give it a try. It sucked me in entirely and I’ve been hooked ever since.

This series, which is ongoing, contains such a width and breadth of folkloric knowledge that it takes your breath away when you consider it. If you’ve ever read any of McGuire’s work as Mira Grant, you know that she does her research. This holds true for her fantasy fiction as well: she was a dual major in Folklore and Herpetology at UC Berkley. This made things a little disconcerting for me when I first began reading McGuire's work. Almost all previous encounters I had with the fae in fiction prior to this series were strictly focused on Irish mythology. McGuire, having studied folklore from all over the world, incorporated these vast and varied races and species into her fiction. It was a lot to take in at first, but it is something that I have come to really appreciate about the series. McGuire has mirrored reality in her fantasy fiction. Look, the work insists. It’s a big world, and there are a lot of different types of people in it. They all have their own fairy tales. Look at how different but how similar everyone is. It’s beautiful and it makes things relatable. This also gives McGuire such a big sandbox to play in. There are races and types of fae that we haven’t truly met yet, ten books in. In addition to the land fae, water, air, and fire realms all exist with their own accompanying people and fauna. We’ve encountered the water fae, but the air and fire realms are as yet unexplored within the series.


Diversity abounds here. In addition to the numerous races and species of fae people and creatures, gender and sexuality issues are casually addressed as well. It is nothing for the fae to have lovers of both genders throughout their immortal existence. McGuire addressed this in her blog back in March of 2012. She said

...in my Faerie, in Toby's Faerie, as far as I'm concerned, almost everyone immortal is also bisexual. People who are purely straight or purely gay are almost entirely changelings, and young changelings, at that. Out of the entire current cast, the only one I can point to and say "Yup, totally straight" is Toby, who was raised in the mortal 1950s, and never really considered girls as an option. Everyone else is bi. Yes, him. Yes, him, too. Yes, her. I'm not sure it counts in Lily's case, since she's a body of water that enjoys looking like a person, but she doesn't care about the gender of her meat-based lovers. So yes, even her.

The entire post is worth reading and addresses the urgent need for positive representation in fiction. By pulling from so many different traditions and creating such a vast, diverse cast, McGuire has made this series one that can truly be for everyone who wishes to tumble down this wonderful rabbit hole of a world.

I must highlight one of the other ways that McGuire’s folkloric knowledge comes into play within the series. The old fairy and folktales, in Toby’s Faerie, are mostly true. One scene that gave me actual chills happens in book three, An Artificial Night. Toby is kidnapped by Blind Michael, one of Faerie’s Firstborn. Blind Michael leads the Wild Hunt and is not shy about kidnapping children (both mortal and fae) to add to his followers. Blind Michael intends to make Toby his new wife. However, in a gorgeous scene that is straight out of the Scottish ballad, “Tam Lin”, Toby is pulled from her horse as the Hunt rides by. As her friends and loved ones endure the transformations that happen when one is attempting to rescue a person from the Hunt, another character (the Sea Witch who sets the stage for this entire rescue to take place) recites lines from the ballad for the benefit of those who may not know what’s coming. It's smoothly integrated and flows with the action perfectly. Following the ballad’s lines, Toby is transformed into a swan, a snake, a lion, and a flaming sword. She is, of course, rescued and survives the night. This isn’t the only appearance of such things. The story about Snow White, and how she died/was sleeping, and then came back to life was apparently based upon another figure in McGuire’s series (who I will not divulge for the sake of really big spoilers). The old stories wind their way through this series in both subtle and obvious ways. It’s delightful to find these references.

So what else makes it Hugo worthy?

A number of things! To begin with, October, our heroine, differs from the standard urban fantasy heroine in many ways. She’s not a sexy twenty-something who goes about in leather pants. Different experiences inform her life and the decisions that she makes. She’s a mother and a knight (and demands to be referred to as Sir Daye, rather than Lady, when such things become necessary) who has been declared a Hero of the Realm by the queen. Additionally, Toby has female friends that she talks to and maintains relationships with. This is something that isn’t seen nearly often enough. The fact that she has friends, period, not only gives her an advantage and makes her relatable, but shows the tremendous growth that Toby has experienced through her series. When we begin in Rosemary and Rue, Toby is in a kind of self-induced exile. She begrudgingly asks for assistance and things take off from there. Over the course of the next nine books (and the many short stories), we have watched Toby learn to trust and expand her network of allies. She has created a family of her own and she acknowledges that she is often not the biggest badass in the room.


Badass or not, Toby is a Hero, with all of the burdens that this entails. Once Toby fully returns to Faerie, after attempting to ignore it in the aftermath of a disastrous spell that took her away from her life for years, she serves as a knight in the service of the Duke of Shadowed Hills, Sylvester Torquill. Even before the queen draws Toby into service for her entire kingdom, Toby has followed the hero’s journey several times. I would suggest that each book is another trip for our heroine as she leaves the familiar and plunges herself into the strangeness that is Faerie (and sometimes the human world as well). She is accompanied by helpers and has mentors who assist her along the way. The abyss inserts itself into her life on multiple occasions and in various forms. At the end of each journey, she returns home, sometimes transformed, and sometimes with newly gifted abilities and talents. She pays for these gifts, often with her own blood.

Another aspect that delights me: things CHANGE in this universe. People evolve and grow, or devolve and become harsh, just as in life. Old friends part ways or become enemies, new friends become close allies or lovers. Not everyone that we meet in the beginning remains in the same role in Toby’s life. Not everyone lives. McGuire isn’t afraid to kill off characters. Fortunately, she’s also happy to introduce new players to the cast. Each new book gives some sort of change, positive or otherwise, to Toby and her world.

The most recent offering in the series, Once Broken Faith, is a great representation of the series as a whole. Faith

Politics have never been October “Toby” Daye’s strong suit. When she traveled to the Kingdom of Silences to prevent them from going to war with her home, the Kingdom of the Mists, she wasn’t expecting to return with a cure for elf-shot and a whole new set of political headaches.

Now the events she unwittingly set in motion could change the balance of modern Faerie forever, and she has been ordered to appear before a historic convocation of monarchs, hosted by Queen Windermere in the Mists and overseen by the High King and Queen themselves.

Naturally, things have barely gotten underway when the first dead body shows up. As the only changeling in attendance, Toby is already the target of suspicion and hostility. Now she needs to find a killer before they can strike again—and with the doors locked to keep the guilty from escaping, no one is safe.

As danger draws ever closer to her allies and the people she loves best, Toby will have to race against time to prevent the total political destabilization of the West Coast and to get the convocation back on track…and if she fails, the cure for elf-shot may be buried forever, along with the victims she was too slow to save.

Because there are worse fates than sleeping for a hundred years.

This particular entry doesn’t stand out from the others in any special way. It’s indicative of the series as a whole in the relationships that are represented, the complicated political dance that Toby must adhere to, and in Toby’s signature rule-breaking style of fixing the problem. This is not to say that the book isn’t well written and a great read, because it is both of those things. As with previous issues such as the one faced in this story, huge ramifications will come from the events that take place in Once Broken Faith. If the cure for elf-shot is approved, dozens of sleeping characters will be revived. Unfortunately, not all of them are people that Toby can call friend or even ally. Actions have consequences, even if the readers don’t see these consequences for two or more books down the line.

Whether or not you agree with me, I hope that you will consider giving this series a chance. Stick with it, even if you get bogged down early on. By the third volume, the story has found its voice and direction, and I’ve loved every installment since. You have a dragon’s hoard of wonders waiting for you. Look past your bias towards something that gets filed under “urban fantasy” and consider the universal themes at work here. You will not be disappointed.

Should It Win?

I believe it should. It's a fun, innovative, highly readable series. This is not at all intended to discount the other nominees. As I mentioned before, these books truly have something for everyone. McGuire has deftly produced a hugely plotted series with plenty of action and amazing characters. She has also managed to juggle each self-contained story while keeping the bigger, overarching plot firmly in sight. Too many long series become either bogged down with the big, long dramatic plotline or transforming into a monster-of-the-week special. This series does neither at any point. The intricacies that weave this tale together are incredible, and I wish I could say more without spoilers. Voting may have ended, but I hope you'll join me in rooting for McGuire and Toby to take home the Hugo at this year's ceremony in Helsinki.

I really want to like Seanan McGuire, but for some reason, her books just haven't clicked for me yet.

This series was made available for the 2017 Hugos. I had read six of the books separately before, and I was happy to read the rest of them.

October Daye is an engaging character and Tybalt and the rest of her cohort of friends and associates make a nice ensemble cast. The series itself though doesn't seem to be coming to a conclusion any time soon and especially early on it takes several side tracks.

Read for the inaugural Hugo Best Series Award in 2017; I hadn't read any of the books before but this quickly became one of my favourite ongoing series, and by far the best urban fantasy I've read. Each book provides a neat, compelling storyline while building into the wider mythology of the world, and there are plenty of multi-book mysteries which give amazing payoff when we find out what happens. Characters are great, with a balance of romance, friendships, rivalries and more than a few complicated (and occasionally very tragic) antagonists. Highly, highly recommended.

October Daye used to be a private eye who worked for the fae in San Francisco, because being a changeling made that a natural choice – right until she got spent nineteen years as a fish after an investigation went wrong. Once the curse was broken, she tried to go back to a normal life, only to get dragged back into murders and mysteries. Rosemary and Rue is a murder mystery with curses; A Local Habitation is <em>supposed</em> to be Toby as a political envoy, <em>and then</em>; and An Artificial Night is a missing persons case with shades of Tam Lin.

I think my problem with this series is that I was sold on it as a mystery series with fae, and it's <em>really really not.</em> It's an extended character study with a vague mystery to hang the character stuff on, which is <em>fine</em> when that's what I'm expecting (see also: <a href="">Sunshine</a> is great, fight me), but when I'm expecting a mystery it makes me <em>really</em> salty. Especially because the foreshadowing is a bit too obvious for me and tends to reveal the plot about a third of the book before <em>Toby</em> realises what the plot is – it's been suggested that this might be because I have a lot of genre savvy for mysteries, and that other people didn't have this problem so absolutely judge that for yourselves! (This is why I'm so hit-and-miss on Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant's work; I quit out of Symbiote three chapters in because of this.) It makes Toby look absolutely oblivious though, which is frustrating for me as a reader.

As a character study though, they're not bad! Toby is a mess who flings herself into all of her problems like they're the last thing ever going to do (I think because in most of these they literally are), and her problem solving skills are inventive. I love her friendship group as well though; she doesn't treat them well – which I thought she'd learned by the end of the first book but <em>more fool me</em> – but I enjoy reading about them and how much she is loved, and how she absolutely cannot process it. The voice the story is written in is really great, especially for how Toby explains the weird politics and magic of the fae. I <em>love</em> how her magic works, because the reliance on nursery rhymes to help her shape it really makes me happy. And the scenes that are meant to be horrifying are <em>really</em> well written – there is a scene with the night haunts that is delightfully creepy! I just... Hit a point in book four where I couldn't deal with how unrelentingly terrible everything is for Toby and the people around her anymore?

I feel like I <em>should</em> love these a lot more than I do, especially because I think everyone in my online social group adore them. It might just be a combination of trying to read a lot of them in quick succession before the Hugos, which meant that I burnt out on them, and that my expectations of what they <em>were</em> were mismanaged. If I'd come to it as an urban fantasy series where sometimes there are mysteries and sometimes there is going to other planes to fight a creature from nightmares, maybe I would have been okay and I would love it as much as everyone else does! Especially because, as it's been pointed out, I really <em>like</em> Human Disaster heroes, so this might be internalised misogyny showing up to steal my wallet. As it is, I am taking a break from the series until I feel brave enough to try again.

[<em>This review is based off the omnibus provided by the publisher in the Hugo packet.</em>]

Excellent series. Finished second on my Hugo ballot. Will be watching out for this series and more from the author.

"October Daye." It sounds kinda silly doesn't it . Thats what I thought too. But this Omnibus of the first 10 (!) books series hooked me from the first few pages. October ("Toby" to her friends) is funny, feisty, stubborn and sometimes just plain lucky. She feels real. The worldbuilding is awesome and I find myself wanting to know more about the Divided Courts of the Fae. Sometimes to such an extent that the plot gets in the way. Sometimes I want more backstory and less quest solving and crimefighting. But that is a luxury problem. The series is just plain great, and speaking as a non-fan of "urban fantasy" this is an eye opener.

This is an omnibus of the first ten novels of the "October Daye" series, made available to members of the 2017 World Science Fiction Convention for consideration for the "Best Series" Hugo Award. As such, it's not available to the general public for purchase. The generosity of the author and publisher in making this compendium available should certainly be acknowledged!

A review is linked below; I've summed up my impressions of the series as "exciting, entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable" - it's certainly a worthy contender in this new Hugo category.