Late Eclipses (October Daye, Book 4) Seanan McGuire

 

Late Eclipses is the fourth October Daye book, and this series just gets better and better. I loved the first book, didn't care so much for the second book, the third book blew me away, and the fourth book is even better than the third.

Here's the blurb:

With Blind Michael and his Hunt safely behind her, October "Toby" Daye is doing her best to settle back into a normal routine—or as normal of a routine as she can manage, with her personal Fetch now paying half the rent. Still, things seem to be mostly under control...until the events of a single night send everything reeling. Now, with the Queen of the Mists watching her back and the Lady of the Tea Gardens deathly ill, Toby has no choice but to get involved, no matter how much she wants to avoid it.

The trials ahead will be some of the worst faced by Toby and her strange band of allies, and not even Tybalt will be able to escape totally unscathed. What's worse, the Luidaeg is unavailable to help them. This time, they're on their own. And people keep making Toby wear dresses, which is just adding insult to dangerous injury...

Late Eclipses answers a lot of questions, which in turn creates even more questions. We begin to learn a little more about what happened before Toby was born, and some of what happened while she was a fish. It's going to be very hard to talk much about the book without giving spoilers, so I'm not going to be able to discuss what I liked and what I loved as much as I'd like. There are some very tough issues in this book though, we've seen in the past that Seanan McGuire isn't afraid to kill off important characters... as much as I wish it were otherwise.

Tybalt has hinted at something Toby must discover about herself, and we begin to understand what Tybalt has been getting at. He's right. It's big. And I believe we only know a portion of it, which means it's likely to just get bigger.

As for the writing elements:

• The plot this time is a continuation of previous story arcs and is very well done with a few twists thrown in to keep it interesting. The story arcs aren't finished, but it was a good place to stop the action. There are still lots of unanswered questions, but no cliffhanger. 
• The pacing was hectic and frantic with just a few slowdowns. It worked.
• Prose and dialogue are once again beautifully done. Faerie comes to life in all it's glory and disgust. We are shown the beautiful and the ugly, the happy and the sad.... with enough humor thrown in for some laugh out loud moments.
• Character development continues to be exceptionally well done for many of the characters.
• World-building is beautiful, detailed, and amazing. This world ties in with our world over and over again, making it believable and bringing it to life in sometimes spooky ways.

I can easily give Late Eclipses a 10 of 10, and I'll be keeping the series at a 10 of 10 as well.

• Book Rating: Late Eclipses: 10 of 10
• Series Rating: 10 of 10

The next book in the series, One Salt Sea, is due out in September, so we've only got to wait six months to see what happens next, and hopefully get some more answers.






1. Rosemary and Rue
2. A Local Habitation
3. An Artificial Night
4. Late Eclipses
5. One Salt Sea (September 6, 2011)