A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuire
Jun. 21st, 2012 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
October ‘Toby’ Daye is a changeling, the daughter of Amandine of the fae and a mortal man. Like her mother, she is gifted in blood magic, able to read what has happened to a person through a mere taste of blood.
Half-human, half-fae, outsiders from birth, most changelings are second-class children of Faerie spending their lives fighting for the respect of their immortal relations. Toby is the only changeling who has earned knighthood, and she re-earns that position every day, undertaking assignments for her liege, Sylvester, the Duke of the Shadowed Hills.
Now Sylvester has asked her to go to the County of Tamed Lightning – otherwise known as Fremont, CA – to make sure that all is well with his niece, Countess January O’Leary, whom he has not been able to contact. It seems like a simple enough assignment – but when dealing with the realm of Faerie nothing is ever as simple as it seems. January runs a company that produces computer fantasy games, and her domain is a buffer between Sylvester’s realm and a rival duchy whose ruler is looking for an opportunity to seize control. And that is the least of January’s problems. For Tamed Lightning has somehow been cut off from the other domains, and now someone has begun to murder January’s key people. If Toby can’t find and stop the killer soon, she may well become the next victim …
It’s 6 months after ROSEMARY AND RUE. Toby’s settled into life in San Francisco, combining her duties for Duke Sylvester with work as a private investigator. When Sylvester asks her to check on his niece, January O’Leary because he hasn’t heard from her, she thinks it will be easy an easy job. But nothing is ever easy in the world of Faerie. In Tamed Lightning she discovers that January’s court is being plagued by a series of mysterious murders, murders that leave bodies not even the Night Haunts will take. When the court becomes cut off from the outside world, Toby and Quentin find themselves in a race against time to find and stop the killer before they’re next …
The second in Seanan McGuire’s October Daye Series contains some great ideas but this can’t overcome a disappointing central mystery plot that lacks tension.
The mystery riffs on the idea of the remote country house where the guests are being murdered one by one. Unfortunately Toby’s a lousy detective, running from one corpse to the next without ever asking key questions. The blurb is actually misleading because the purpose of January’s company is central to the mystery but Toby never asks her what the company does despite January actually offering at one point. It really irritated me, not least because when she realises that there’s a problem with the phones, she never just sends someone to go and get help in person. I found the murderer really easy to guess and their motive never convinced me.
It’s a shame because there are some great ideas here, particularly the idea of a techno-dryad fused into the computer servers and a scene with the Night Haunts is chilling. McGuire also does well at weaving in more traditional faerie myth and Quentin’s a fun foil. Toby remains a fascinating character, and while I was disappointed that there’s nothing in this book about her human family, I enjoyed the way McGuire teases out information about Toby’s faerie heritage. Tybalt’s developing as a potential love interest in a triangle with Connor (who’s rather under-developed), but it’s very much in the background at the moment.
All in all, the book didn’t work for me because the plot didn’t draw me in, but I’ve bought the next couple of books in the hope that this is a blip in the series.
The Verdict:
The second in Seanan McGuire’s October Daye Series contains some great ideas but this can’t overcome a disappointing central mystery plot that lacks tension. Because the plot didn’t draw me in, the book ultimately didn’t work for me. Despite this, because I really enjoyed ROSEMARY AND RUE, I’ve bought the next two books in the series in the hope that this is a one-off blip.
October ‘Toby’ Daye is a changeling, the daughter of Amandine of the fae and a mortal man. Like her mother, she is gifted in blood magic, able to read what has happened to a person through a mere taste of blood.
Half-human, half-fae, outsiders from birth, most changelings are second-class children of Faerie spending their lives fighting for the respect of their immortal relations. Toby is the only changeling who has earned knighthood, and she re-earns that position every day, undertaking assignments for her liege, Sylvester, the Duke of the Shadowed Hills.
Now Sylvester has asked her to go to the County of Tamed Lightning – otherwise known as Fremont, CA – to make sure that all is well with his niece, Countess January O’Leary, whom he has not been able to contact. It seems like a simple enough assignment – but when dealing with the realm of Faerie nothing is ever as simple as it seems. January runs a company that produces computer fantasy games, and her domain is a buffer between Sylvester’s realm and a rival duchy whose ruler is looking for an opportunity to seize control. And that is the least of January’s problems. For Tamed Lightning has somehow been cut off from the other domains, and now someone has begun to murder January’s key people. If Toby can’t find and stop the killer soon, she may well become the next victim …
It’s 6 months after ROSEMARY AND RUE. Toby’s settled into life in San Francisco, combining her duties for Duke Sylvester with work as a private investigator. When Sylvester asks her to check on his niece, January O’Leary because he hasn’t heard from her, she thinks it will be easy an easy job. But nothing is ever easy in the world of Faerie. In Tamed Lightning she discovers that January’s court is being plagued by a series of mysterious murders, murders that leave bodies not even the Night Haunts will take. When the court becomes cut off from the outside world, Toby and Quentin find themselves in a race against time to find and stop the killer before they’re next …
The second in Seanan McGuire’s October Daye Series contains some great ideas but this can’t overcome a disappointing central mystery plot that lacks tension.
The mystery riffs on the idea of the remote country house where the guests are being murdered one by one. Unfortunately Toby’s a lousy detective, running from one corpse to the next without ever asking key questions. The blurb is actually misleading because the purpose of January’s company is central to the mystery but Toby never asks her what the company does despite January actually offering at one point. It really irritated me, not least because when she realises that there’s a problem with the phones, she never just sends someone to go and get help in person. I found the murderer really easy to guess and their motive never convinced me.
It’s a shame because there are some great ideas here, particularly the idea of a techno-dryad fused into the computer servers and a scene with the Night Haunts is chilling. McGuire also does well at weaving in more traditional faerie myth and Quentin’s a fun foil. Toby remains a fascinating character, and while I was disappointed that there’s nothing in this book about her human family, I enjoyed the way McGuire teases out information about Toby’s faerie heritage. Tybalt’s developing as a potential love interest in a triangle with Connor (who’s rather under-developed), but it’s very much in the background at the moment.
All in all, the book didn’t work for me because the plot didn’t draw me in, but I’ve bought the next couple of books in the hope that this is a blip in the series.
The Verdict:
The second in Seanan McGuire’s October Daye Series contains some great ideas but this can’t overcome a disappointing central mystery plot that lacks tension. Because the plot didn’t draw me in, the book ultimately didn’t work for me. Despite this, because I really enjoyed ROSEMARY AND RUE, I’ve bought the next two books in the series in the hope that this is a one-off blip.
