Downloaded for Hugo Awards voting. Will not be reviewing on NetGalley. Thank you to DAW Books for the review copy.

I am very glad a big October Daye fan told me this is the worst book in the whole series by a large margin or I'd stop right here.

This book was painfully slow. The number of times a character had information for Toby but refused to tell her until 12 to 24 hours had gone by was unacceptable. It felt like the story needed to reach a certain page count so information was purposefully drip fed us to drag things out. It didn't help that it feels like every male character in this series wants to get into Toby's pants. I have been assured that this issue dials itself waaaay back after this book and focuses a lot more on found family dynamics, and I am praying that's true.

For being a private investigator, Toby does not have two brain cells to rub together. It's not until the halfway mark that Toby puts together something that was very clear many, many pages earlier. She tends to ask a lot of dumb, obvious questions or simply not be able to add 2 + 2 in a way that made me feel like Seanan didn't trust the audience to make an inference. This feels especially bad in a murder mystery novel.

The antagonist didn't really make a lot of sense to me, and considering how many time the words "crazy", "mad", "psycho", and "insane" were tossed about, I'm not sure if it was supposed to be logical. I now understand why I've heard Seanan throughout the years apologize so many times for ableist language in this series, wow.

It's a minor nitpick, but almost dying from blood loss is VERY SERIOUS and watching multiple characters sort of shrug off exsanguination with a round of unconsciousness/sleep was frustrating, especially with a lack of medical care.

I will be reading the next book, because I've been promised it gets better and because I wanted to try reading the first three books of every series up for a Hugo nominee right now.

Unfortunately I liked this less than the first book. It is incredibly sad--not that the first one was joyful, exactly, what with the literal years lost to being a fish and also losing her daughter/family--but this was particularly depressing as well. I felt like Toby's lack of agency was really frustrating in this, as well as her passively suicidal nature. I kept wanting to just SHAKE a number of the characters here. The only bright spot was the small bit of Tybalt that I saw, as I do, in fact, love Tybalt.

Thanks to Seanan McGuire, DAW, and NetGalley for access to an Advanced Reader Copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
This book is the second of the October Daye series that was up for a Hugo award for best series in 2023.

Seanan has created a new world right under our noses in the bay area that teems with interesting characters and worlds. I find it fun that fairy worlds exist in places where I’ve been.

I’ve read three books in the series now and I enjoy following the growth and adventures of the various characters. The writing is rock solid, characters and pacing are great, and there is a detective story in the land of the Fae. Recommended as a book and series to those who like fantasy and to those who, like me, would not have fantasy as a first choice for their reading.

Linking of reviews directly is not working for me. Here is the link:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6356253934

Love the Torquills, love Toby. Love Quentin. Such a good story, I love the worldbuilding that continues growing. Oh, and LOVE TYBALT!