Book Review: Night And Silence by Seanan McGuire

How do you review a book that is the 12th in a sequential series? You can't spoil the previous 11 books, not to mention the multiple short stories set in the world. And this is a series where people die, so even mentioning any character that isn't the protagonist is a potential spoiler. What I'm going to do is split this into 3 parts:

1. Series overview.
2. How good is this entry.
3. Spoiler section for Toby fans.

Let's get into it!

The October Daye Series

October Daye is a changeling, half human and half fae, working as an investigator in San Francisco. Her life is utterly annihilated at the start of the series, when a fae she is following turns her into a fish and leaves her in a pond for 14 years. By the time she gets out, her human lover and her child have moved on with their lives. She's not welcome. She thinks she's out of Faerie. But then she's drawn back in with a mission and a curse: if she doesn't solve a murder, she will die.

Toby is a woman defined by determination. She's not the smartest (though she is smart) or the most powerful person around. But she keeps going. No matter the odds, no matter the stakes. Even if her enemies are monsters of legend. She keeps going. She's also defined by trauma. The 14 years spent in a pond may have been the worst of it, but her mom's kinda insane. And she was a runaway and a thief before she became a knight and a hero. She is deeply scarred by her past.

This is a series about trauma and getting over it through friendship and love as much as it is about finding lost things and people and righting wrongs.

How Good Is Night And Silences

This is one of the better entries in the series. The stakes are high, there's fresh trauma on top of the old wounds, and the members of Toby's family of choice are critical for her survival. It's not at the level of The Winter Long, which remains the series highpoint, but may be the best one since.

The Spoilers

To read the following, paste it over it at Base 64 and hit Decode.
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