October "Toby" Daye, changeling knight in the service of Duke Sylvester Torquill, finds the delicate balance of her life shattered when she learns that an old friend is in dire trouble. Lily, Lady of the Tea Gardens, has been struck down by a mysterious, seemingly impossible illness, leaving her fiefdom undefended. Struggling to find a way to save Lily and her subjects, Toby must confront her own past as an enemy she thought was gone forever raises her head once more: Oleander de Merelands, one of the two people responsible for her fourteen-year exile.
Time is growing short and the stakes are getting higher, for the Queen of the Mists has her own agenda. With everything on the line, Toby will have to take the ultimate risk to save herself and the people she loves most—because if she can't find the missing pieces of the puzzle in time, Toby will be forced to make the one choice she never thought she'd have to face again...
From Goodreads:
The knowe known as "Goldengreen" has been locked and alone since the death of Evening Winterrose...which is why it's a bit of a problem when Toby and her allies are called upon to reopen the knowe. Knowes can have minds of their own, you see, and they don't take kindly to being disturbed. And since Toby would rather keep herself and her friends alive than actually succeed in her mission, it's entirely possible that things will not end the way that they were originally intended to.
Not that failure is an option. And not that trying to be careful is going to make any difference when the problem involves not just unreal real estate, but crumbling cliff faces, giant spiders, pixies, and smart-mouthed Fetches who insist on poking their noses in where they're not wanted. Oh, and did we mention that there's no coffee?
From Goodreads:
October "Toby" Daye is settling into her new role as Countess of Goldengreen. She's actually dating again, and she's taken on Quentin as her squire. So, of course, it's time for things to take a turn for the worse.
Someone has kidnapped the sons of the regent of the Undersea Duchy of Saltmist. To prevent a war between land and sea, Toby must find the missing boys and prove the Queen of the Mists was not behind their abduction. Toby's search will take her from the streets of San Francisco to the lands beneath the waves, and her deadline is firm: she must find the boys in three days' time, or all of the Mists will pay the price. But someone is determined to stop her-and whoever it is isn't playing by Oberon's Laws...
From Goodreads:
It was 1972, and a teenage girl named Elizabeth Ryan thought that her world was coming to an end. Elizabeth was the daughter of two Selkies, you see, and she had just been passed up for a skin. But then a mysterious cousin who calls herself Annie appears, and Elizabeth finds other things to think about...
It can be easy to forget that worlds don't wait for heroes before they begin. It can be easy to forget that things happened before the lights came up and the story started. This is one of those things that happened: this is one of those tales that slipped through the cracks. It is the story of a girl named Elizabeth, and a girl named Annie, and what they were to one another, in the sight and sounding of the sea.
Maybe it isn't fair. But fairy tales never really are.
From Goodreads:
It's been almost a year since October "Toby" Daye averted a war, gave up a county, and suffered personal losses that have left her wishing for a good day's sleep. She's tried to focus on her responsibilities--training Quentin, upholding her position as Sylvester's knight, and paying the bills--but she can't help feeling like her world is crumbling around her, and her increasingly reckless behavior is beginning to worry even her staunchest supporters.
To make matters worse, Toby's just been asked to find another missing child...only this time it's the changeling daughter of her fellow knight, Etienne, who didn't even know he was a father until the girl went missing. Her name is Chelsea. She's a teleporter, like her father. She's also the kind of changeling the old stories warn about, the ones with all the strength and none of the control. She's opening doors that were never meant to be opened, releasing dangers that were sealed away centuries before--and there's a good chance she could destroy Faerie if she isn't stopped.
Now Toby must find Chelsea before time runs out, racing against an unknown deadline and through unknown worlds as she and her allies try to avert disaster. But danger is also stirring in the Court of Cats, and Tybalt may need Toby's help with the biggest challenge he's ever faced.
Toby thought the last year was bad. She has no idea.
From Goodreads:
It may have taken them years to reach the point of admitting that there was a mutual attraction between them, but now that they have, it's time for October Daye and Tybalt to begin exploring their relationship, such as it is, and deciding what it is going to mean for them going forward. But when an old-fashioned pureblood and a modern changeling decide to court, what form can that courtship possibly take?
It's time for a first date, a first romantic encounter, and a first assassination attempt. Just the usual assortment of complications for a man, a woman, and the complicated world between them. And of course, it doesn't help that the man is a King of Cats, and has his own share of demons to bring to the table...
From Goodreads:
In the year 1666, a young Prince of Cats named Rand dwelt peacefully in Londontown with his beloved sisters, Jill and Colleen. He spent his nights at the theater, drinking in the works of Shakespeare, and had no interest in the day when he would be expected to rise up, challenge his father, and take his place as a King of Cats. For Rand, kittenhood was a wonderful dream, and one that he hoped would last forever.
Dreams end.
All stories have to begin somewhere, and this is where the story of Tybalt, King of Dreaming Cats, began: with a boy, and his sisters, and the city that he loved and never planned to leave. When duty calls, can he make the choice that will keep them all safe, without giving up everything that he has ever wanted from his life?
From Goodreads:
Things are starting to look up for October "Toby" Daye. She's training her squire, doing her job, and has finally allowed herself to grow closer to the local King of Cats. It seems like her life may finally be settling down...at least until dead changelings start appearing in the alleys of San Francisco, killed by an overdose of goblin fruit.
Toby's efforts to take the problem to the Queen of the Mists are met with harsh reprisals, leaving her under sentence of exile from her home and everyone she loves. Now Toby must find a way to reverse the Queens decree, get the goblin fruit off the streets--and, oh, yes, save her own life, since more than a few of her problems have once again followed her home. And then there's the question of the Queen herself, who seems increasingly unlikely to have a valid claim to the throne....
To find the answers, October and her friends will have to travel from the legendary Library of Stars into the hidden depths of the Kingdom of the Mists--and they'll have to do it fast, because time is running out. In faerie, some fates are worse than death.
October Daye is about to find out what they are.
From Goodreads:
In 1959, Faerie came for a little changeling girl named October Daye and presented her with the Choice that her mother had been struggling to prevent her from ever needing to make. But how did Faerie find her? Where did the channel of October's destiny diverge? To know the answer, you must look to the water, and to the woman who many refer to as "the sea witch."
It can be hard to deal with betrayal. Betrayal by family is so very much worse.
From Goodreads:
For ten years, the young King of Cats known throughout the Kingdom of Londinium as Tybalt—once known to family and friends as "Rand," a gentle Prince who had never aspired to the throne—had ruled his Kingdom alone, refusing to let any other of his kind enter the city while it is in his care. But even a King can get lonely...
When Tybalt meets a Selkie stranger named Dylan, it seems almost inevitable that they should become entangled with each other—the lonely King and the man without friends or family in London were virtually designed to be together. But sadly, designs can only hold for as long as they are left alone, and when the Undersea inevitably arrives looking for their missing son, Tybalt will have to choose. His Kingdom, or Dylan?
Either way, he loses.
From Goodreads:
Toby thought she understood her own past; she thought she knew the score.
She was wrong.
It's time to learn the truth.
For once, it seems like the Kingdom of the Mists has reached a point of, if not perfection, at least relative peace. Queen Arden Windermere is getting settled on her family's throne; no one's going to war with anyone else; it's almost like everything is going to be okay. Even October "Toby" Daye is starting to relax her constant vigilance, allowing herself to think about the future, and what it might entail.
And then Simon Torquill comes back, and everything begins to fall apart. In Faerie, nothing stays buried forever. No matter how much you might want it to.
From Goodreads:
Baron Patrick Twycross was an unlanded, comfortably unambitious man. He knew that one day he might inherit his family's estate, but as that day was hundreds of years and most of a continent away, he was content to spend his time fiddling in his workshop and trying to keep his friend Simon from doing something foolish enough to get himself killed. He was happy; he had no aspirations. So how did he wind up married to a mermaid?
When King Gilad holds a ball in honor of the abdicating Duke of Saltmist and his daughter, the Duchess-in-waiting, there's no real way for the nobles of the Mists to avoid attending. All Patrick is hoping to do is survive the night without utterly embarrassing either himself or Simon, or attracting the wrath of Simon's wife. Alas for him, things are going to get a lot more interesting than he's counting on...
From Goodreads:
Long, long ago, when the worlds of Faerie and Man had not yet fully separated, a battle was fought to determine the shapes those two worlds would take. Firstborn against merlin; strongest against least. And between those two stood Antigone of Albany, who would later be known as the Luidaeg, and whose loyalty would inevitably sway the fortunes of war...
There was a time when things were different. This is the story of the battlefield where it all began to change.
From Goodreads:
Things are looking up.
For the first time in what feels like years, October "Toby: Daye has been able to pause long enough to take a breath and look at her life—and she likes what she sees. She has friends. She has allies. She has a squire to train and a King of Cats to love, and maybe, just maybe, she can let her guard down for a change.
Or not. When Queen Windermere's seneschal is elf-shot and thrown into an enchanted sleep by agents from the neighboring Kingdom of Silences, Toby finds herself in a role she never expected to play: that of a diplomat. She must travel to Portland, Oregon, to convince King Rhys of Silences not to go to war against the Mists. But nothing is that simple, and what October finds in Silences is worse than she would ever have imagined.
How far will Toby go when lives are on the line, and when allies both old and new are threatened by a force she had never expected to face again? How much is October willing to give up, and how much is she willing to change? In Faerie, what's past is never really gone.
It's just waiting for an opportunity to pounce.
From Goodreads:
Meet Quentin Sollys. Squire. Hockey fan. Canadian. And Crown Prince to the entire continent of North America, known as "the Westlands" to the fae, currently ruled by his parents, High King Aethlin and High Queen Maida. Not that most people know that, since he's a blind foster squired to a changeling—not exactly something that screams "hidden royalty."
But with a new Queen on the throne in the Mists, his parents have finally come to town to see how he's doing…and to take him home with them. That's going to be a problem, since Quentin doesn't particularly want to leave, and his knight, Sir October Daye, doesn’t particularly want to let him go.
From Goodreads:
The newest fantasy adventure in the New York Times bestselling Toby Daye novels.
The cure for elf-shot has been discovered. The sleepers of Faerie can finally be awoken…if the Kings and Queens of Faerie will approve it. With vast changes on the horizon, High King Aethlin Sollys of the Westlands has called a grand convocation where the monarchs of his demesne will discuss the cure. Naturally, Toby has been ordered to attend. And naturally, once she shows up, people start dying—beginning with King Anthony Robinson of Angels, the Kingdom to the South, and a known political dissenter.
To secure both her own future and the distribution of the elf-shot cure, Toby must solve the murder, clear her own name, and figure out who would use a convocation of royals for their own ends...
From Goodreads:
Follows Arden as she attempts to awaken her brother, Nolan, from his elf-shot sleep.
My Review:
Uh, yeah. I devoured this series! It was so freaking fantastic and enjoyable! And I read Once Broken Faith, and Dreams and Slumbers, before they were published, so yeah, that was pretty awesome, though it came very close!
So much happens in this book! From questions about her history, new knowledge of her mom, and the world-the elf shot cure, that the Queen actually wasn't the heir, and yeah, a whole bunch of other things happened in these books! So fantastic!
Toby has a lot of ups and downs over the course of these books. Some things are personal, like her banishment, or the situation with her daughter, and her lover, and some start out as a job, but that Toby puts her life on the line, like the potential war. And oh, the journey that her relationships with Luna and Sylvester change over these books! How could Luna say that Toby wasn't a parent, just because it was so short a time? Gah, that hurt! But yeah, loved seeing these various facets of her!
The world is changed in these books. Of the access to parts of Faerie that have been sealed for 500 years, even briefly, the cure to elf shot. And of course, the fact that Toby, and maybe a few others, are a new race of Fae. Yeah.
There's so much that's left up in the air. Like where her mom is. And where her sister is. And who the other members of her race are, that it was mentioned. And what the purpose of her race is, that the Luidaeg wants Toby to be free from distractions to do. That has been missing for a while, apparently. I want to see how it's all going to play out! And I know I've forgotten a few other things-there was just so much! But I know it'll be dealt with as Seanan McGuire wants, because to create this series, she has to have a wonder woman memory!
Loved reading these books, so, so, so much, and I can't wait for the next book!
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: October Daye #4, 4.5, 5, 5.1, 6, 6.1, 6.2, 7, 7.1, 7.2, 8, 8.1, 8.5, 9, 9.3, 10, 10.1
Read: September 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 4th, 4th, 4th, 4th, 4th, 4th, 5th, 5th, 5th, 5th, 5th, 5th, 2016
Source: Ebook.bike, NetGalley
Reason Why: This series sounded fantastic, and they're Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2016 Books!
Publisher: Daw, Seanan McGuire
Published: March 1st 2011, August 2nd 2011, September 6th 2011, August 23rd 2012, September 4th 2012, January 7th 2015, March 2016, September 3rd 2013, September 3rd 2013, September 18th 2013, September 2nd 2014, January 5th 2016, November 5th 2014, September 1st 2015, August 2nd 2016, September 6th 2016, September 6th 2016
Late Eclipses:
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Through This House:
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One Salt Sea:
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In Sea-Salt Tears:
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Ashes of Honor:
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No Sooner Met:
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Rat-Catcher:
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Chimes at Midnight:
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Never Shines the Sun:
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Forbid the Sea:
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The Winter Long:
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Heaps of Pearl:
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The Fixed Stars:
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A Red-Rose Chain:
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Full of Briars:
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Once Broken Faith:
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Dreams and Slumbers:
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