The Faerie PI Continued: Seanan McGuire – A Local Habitation

I have a strange relationship with Seanan McGuire’s books. Some of them I really hate, others I find okay, yet others show such amazing glimpses of potential that they make me want to read everything she’s ever written. I only started the October Daye series last year but that first book truly blew me away. So even though I’m about a decade behind, I picked up the second book and – while not as great as the first – was yet again entertained and positively surprised.

A LOCAL HABITATION
by Seanan McGuire

Published: DAW Books, 2010
Ebook: 400 pages
Series: October Daye #2
My rating: 7/10

Opening line: The last train out of San Francisco leaves at midnight; miss it and you’re stuck until morning.

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. 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. Toby soon discovers that someone has begun murdering people close to January, whose domain is a buffer between Sylvester’s realm and a scheming rival duchy. If Toby can’t find the killer soon, she may well become the next victim.

I’m not well-versed in the realm of Urban Fantasy but I thought this story was such a cool mash-up. You get Fae and changelings and all sorts of mythical creatures, but you also get a sort of locked room murder mystery. Toby and her new teenage assistant Quentin are sent to the County of Tamed Lightning to see if Sylvester’s niece is okay. She hasn’t been calling and that’s unusual. When they arrive at Countess January’s computer company, things immediately turn weird. Not only are there very few staff for a building this size but they also seem to be hiding something. And January tells Toby that she’s got things wrong. It’s Sylvester who hasn’t been answering Jan’s calls. Something is definitely rotten in the County of Tamed Lightning.

This second Toby Daye adventure had a much slower start than the pilot novel (I’m calling it that now, because this feels like a TV show and I wouldn’t mind an adaptation). But all that somewhat tedious set up is for a reason. Not only does McGuire introduce a bunch of new characters, she also uses the time to foreshadow things and to lead her readers astray. I thought I was so clever when I figured out one little twist pretty early on. And I was right about that twist. But I also thought I had everything else figured out. Something or someone is killing off the people working at January’s company and I was sure I knew who the murderer was from the beginning. I’m glad to say I was wrong and McGuire did manage to surprise me!

We don’t only follow Toby and Quentin along on their investigation, though. That alone would have been fun because the two of them develop a wonderful dynamic. Toby wants to teach Quentin, but she’s also fiercely protective of him. After all, spending any amount of time with her usually leads to mortal danger and she does not want Quentin to come to harm because of her. But there is also something very strange about the murders. Normally, when Fae die, the Night Haunts come to take away the bodies. Fae don’t rot, so even though they’re immortal, when they die, humans would eventually notice the bodies. But these murders? The Night Haunts seem uninterested in doing their job. What’s even stranger is that the victims’ blood is “empty” – Toby can’t get their memories out of them and so she’s tapping in the dark for a long time.

There were a few things that frustrated me while reading this book but most of them can be explained away by “it’s magic”. I did feel like the reader is supposed to know a bit more than Toby but knowing – or at least suspecting – what I did, it annoyed me so much that Toby didn’t get it as well. She’s smart, damn it, and she knows way more about Faerie than I do!
The other thing, and that’s the reason I don’t read much Urban Fantasy, is the narrative tone. I’m not a particular fan of the smart, somewhat self-deprecating, sassy heroine who nonetheless overcomes a dozen injuries and can still kick ass. And Toby is exactly that. But, and that’s why I want to follow her further adventures, she’s also kind and a little lost and she’s got a sense of humor.

As slow as the beginning may have been, the book ramps up the stakes and delivers more and more action scenes the further you get along. The ending was great, although I could have done without the emotional villain monologue, and I was so happy that things turned out differently than I expected. McGuire managed to write a fun, exciting second novel in this series and if the next one is as good, she may yet turn me into a proper fan. Go, Toby!

MY RATING: 7/10 – Very good!

My thoughts on The October Daye series: