Received as part of the 2019 Hugo packet for Best Series.

Fun urban fantasy originally read in paperback.

In "Late Eclipses", the fourth novel in the Hugo nominated October Daye series by Seanan McGuire, we follow the Toby as she grows and faces even more deadly threats. After having read the first three books, one falls into a false sense of complacency regarding Toby, her abilities, and the expected adventures. In this book, we learn more about who Toby is and there are unexpected yet satisfying plot twists in nearly every chapter. In retrospect, I was surprised that Toby didn't fixate on coffee a single time in the last quarter of the book! The plot twists prepare the series for a new level of excitement and adventure in future novels. Like all books by Seanan, this one was a page turner that is really quite hard to put down. I look forward to picking up the next book in the series right away!

Thank you so much for making this book available for Hugo voters. I will always vote for Seanan as she’s my favourite author.

I am planning a Seanan book binge in the new year. After I have read this book I will submit my review to NetGalley, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Angus & Robertson, and Booktopia.

At this point the series hits that wall found in just about all urban fantasy series; the point at which the story stops being an adventure and becomes about who gives orders to whom. Toby Daye has been all about the Fae hierarchy since the start, but in this instalment there's really very little else, and the same characters we're familiar with and settings we've visited. The folks are obsessed with family, dysfunctional for sure, and species.

To the author's credit, she doesn't hesitate to put some of the secondary characters in mortal danger, some even dying. During a Eurocon / Octocon a few years ago, the author told us she had heard a librarian in the next state had sadly died, leaving a collection of scholarly works about Faerie on her shelves. She had phoned to secure these books and driven to collect them right away. Later she met another fantasy author and said to him, "Did you hear Ms - passed away?" and he returned, "Yes, and some out of state b* came and bought all her books." She had to say "I'm the out of state b*!"
So I'm thinking this kind of novel is the result of all the research and not enough freewheeling invention. But that's just my view, and anyone who enjoys the dark fantasy series and seeing poor Toby get beaten up again, will want to read the latest.

I downloaded an ARC from the Hugo Awards packet. This is an unbiased review.

Toby learns new and terrible things about herself in this volume, while going through quite an ordeal.

I really enjoyed this installment in the Toby Daye universe. This one had some heartache, but Seanan McGuire knows how to balance that with hope. Read for Hugo2019 voting.

This is a series I've been hammering through and they only get better and better. Toby has a slow start here, but it isn't long before the usual chaos is erupting around her, only this time she isn't in the middle of things by choice. When her nearest and dearest come down with a mysterious and serious illness, Toby finds herself in the frame for poisoning. With a Queen that hates her, Toby has little chance of proving herself innocent unless she solves things... before more people die.

This is the first October Daye book that honestly made me tear up as well as laugh, giggle and snort. It's just as dark yet witty as I have come to expect, but the character development here is superb. I thought I cared about these characters before. I didn't. Not truly. There is a whole new level of caring. Perhaps because so few new characters are introduced, the existing characters are all further developed and it gives a huge extra depth to the novel. There is also the fact that you honestly don't know what McGuire is going to do; by now you have realised that even relatively key characters can and will be killed off. Usually for maximum emotional impact.

McGuire is also gradually solving the mysteries that have been building up throughout the series... and yet there is still enough of a sense of confusion and intrigue that nothing feels truly is resolved. Even if the books weren't so excellent, I would still want to keep reading. But when combined with a fast paced narrative, excellent writing and a strange combination of darkness and humour, it is a no brainer. I also appreciate that whilst there is a definite romantic element, it lingers in the background and never even attempts to take focal stage. I will continue to devour these books at a rate of knots.

October Daye series given by the author (/publishers/organizers) with the voters' packet for Hugo Nomination of Best Series in 2019. Reviews will be coming later, and likely posted first to GoodReads/Amazon/B & N as books are already released.

As this was part of the Hugo voting packet, I will not have time to read this and review before the archive date. I will try to update this review when I have read this book.

I downloaded this as part of my Hugo Voter packet. Fantastic! My top nominee for Best Series. Seanan McGuire is a treasure.

the fourth book in the series does not disappoint. I love this series as a non love triangle female protagonist urban fantasy. Toby is a fae changeling trying to stay one step ahead of someone targeting her friends for death and framing her for the killings. This one is not the one to start the series with since so much in the previous books is brought up or mentioned and it all is part of the book. Yes you get good information to get you all the backstory but you would be missing out on some great reading. Can't wait for the next one in the series.

For me, this is where the Toby Daye series really picks up. There's much less of the overt world building explanation, and plot moves along at a great clip. The cast of characters also gets much more filled out, and here is where some of my favorites come into the picture (seriously, how could anyone not love Walther?).

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 forced to spend 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 supposed to be Toby as a political envoy, and then; 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 really really not. It's an extended character study with a vague mystery to hang the character stuff on, which is fine when that's what I'm expecting (see also: Sunshine is great, fight me), but when I'm expecting a mystery it makes me really 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 Toby 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! 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 she's 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 more fool me – 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 love 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 really well written – there is a scene with the night haunts in A Local Habitation 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 should love these a lot more than I do, especially because I think everyone in my online social group adores 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 were 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 like 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.

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