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A Killing Frost
by
Seanan McGuire
urban fantasy in a Kindle edition on September 1, 2020 and has 362 pages.
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Other books by this author which I have reviewed include Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, Late Eclipses, One Salt Sea, Discount Armageddon, Home Improvement: Undead Edition, “Never Shines the Sun”, Chimes at Midnight, "In Sea-Salt Tears", Indexing, The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Half-Off Ragnarok, Midway Relics and Dying Breeds, Games Creatures Play, The Winter Long, Sparrow Hill Road, The InCryptid Prequels, Pocket Apocalypse, Black as Blood, Blocked, White as a Raven's Wing, The Ghosts of Bourbon Street, IM, "Good Girls Go to Heaven", A Red Rose Chain, "Full of Briars", Reflections, Once Broken Faith, "Dreams and Slumbers", Shadowed Souls, Chaos Choreography, Magic For Nothing, Indigo, Every Heart a Doorway, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, The Brightest Fell, "Of Things Unknown", Beneath the Sugar Sky, Night and Silence, "Suffer a Sea-change", The Girl in the Green Silk Gown, "The Recitation of the Most Holy and Harrowing Pilgrimage of Mindy and Also Mork", Tricks for Free, That Ain't Witchcraft, "The Measure of a Monster", The Unkindest Tide, "Hope is Swift", Come Tumbling Down, Imaginary Numbers, "Follow the Lady", In an Absent Dream, "The Fixed Stars", "Forbid the Sea", "No Sooner Met", Across the Green Grass Fields, "Shine in Pearl", When Sorrows Come, "And with Reveling", "Singing the Comic-Con Blues”, "Candles and Starlight", "Such Dangerous Seas", Sleep No More
Fourteenth in the October Daye urban fantasy series and revolving around Sir Daye, the Knight of Lost Words. It’s 11 October 2014 in San Francisco.
A Killing Frost was nominated for the BookNews Award for Best Traditionally Published Novel in 2020.
My Take
Things are complicated, and it doesn’t help when Patrick Lorden throws that law at Toby about Simon. When Etienne tosses his bit in, it gets sadder when Toby finds out how Etienne really feels about her.
It’s yet another quest for Toby. And I am surprised at Rayseline’s response? request? of Toby. I’m also surprised at the Oberon reveal. It just cropped up out of nowhere. Which I do not understand how it suddenly came out . . .?
We get a lot of back history via info dumps — Toby spends a lot of time thinking, talking, and feeling through first person protagonist point-of-view. Although I did enjoy hearing about the good Simon before Winterrose got her hooks into him. A friendship between Patrick and Simon that is so sweet. And all that back history on how Simon went bad. It was very illuminating.
McGuire’s characters are real, well, as much as fae and changelings can be real, lol. They’re complex with all sorts of positives and negatives, hatreds and loyalties with a wide range of relationship issues.
One theme that McGuire explores is bigotry in which the Firstborn are better than everyone, so much more superior. Then there are the fae who are so much better than changelings. Then there’s the revelation, that truth, about Sylvester and Simon’s backgrounds. What a load of hypocrites! And yet more at the end that makes all these bigoted fae such incredible hypocrites. I wanna smack ’em!
Toby’s reputation as a fair hero is unbelievable to most and points up the “superiority” of those danged fae.
Action-wise . . . oh, mama! There is a lot of action, and while I deplore some of the info dumps, other bits of it have been handy (and enlightening).
The overt plan is to get Simon back for the wedding so no one Toby loves is killed. Yet there’s a conflict over that wedding, and McGuire does her best to throw in obstacles. Toby sums up Simon’s life, and ya gotta feel sorry for him. That Aman . . .er, Almandine was a true nightmare. A psychopath?
I do wonder about Toby and what she really wants. Although I do sort of wish McGuire had been stronger in making us doubt Toby. There’s also an undercurrent of Toby coming to understand Tybalt’s obsession with her removing her humanity.
I get the fear and anger that comes when your child is endangered, but I do despise parents who refuse to see their own child’s wickedness.
“Growing up doesn’t mean getting over everything that happened to us as children. It just means calcifying it and never letting go.”
The Faerie law about divorce is interesting and certainly would make inheritance much easier. However, the rules about a wedding and who must be invited negate any of those advantages!
This obsession Stacy has about her kids dating is weird. Where did it come from?
It’s been two years and Arden is slowly getting the hang of being queen. She has some useful thoughts for Toby to consider.
I love how the Luidaeg is evolving for us. The constraints of her curse have made her a very interesting character. Ooh, and McGuire takes advantage of the antagonist from The Little Mermaid . . . eek! As for Eira . . . oy, I have absolutely NO sympathy for her.
It sounds like McGuire is setting us up for the next big issue as she ponders Evening’s plans in shaping and reshaping the Mists.
It’s a line from Tam Lin that gets Toby thinking, but how it translates into the reveal leaves me hanging.
The Story
A spanner’s been thrown in the spokes of Toby and Tybalt’s wedding. Simon, as her legal father, must be invited or there could be war!
Only, Simon gave up his road home in order to find August . . .
The Characters
Sir October “Toby” Daye, a.k.a. Aunt Birdie, is a recognized Hero of the Realm, a private investigator, a changeling, a Dóchas Sidhe whose magic is tied to blood and can smell magic, and daughter of Amandine and the human Cliff. Toby is also engaged to Tybalt, the Cait Sidhe King of Cats in the San Francisco Court of Dreaming Cats. Cagney and Lacey are Toby’s ancient Siamese cats. Spike is Toby’s cat-like rose goblin. Quentin is Toby’s squire in a blind fosterage. She and a crowd of others live in the house that Duke Sylvester gave her. May Daye is Toby’s Fetch, a former night haunt (Dare), who came to life (An Artificial Night, 3). Jazz, a Raven-maid (a skinshifter) and May’s live-in girlfriend who runs an antique shop in Berkeley. Raj is Tybalt’s nephew and heir.
The County of Goldengreen is . . .
. . . a vassal county of Windermere in the Mists and is ruled by Dean Lorden (One Salt Sea, 5), Quentin’s boyfriend and son to Dianda and Patrick. Marcia is Dean’s seneschal.
The Court of Shadowed Hills is . . .
. . . the home of Toby’s liege lord, Duke Sylvester Torquill, and his duchess, Luna, who now hates Toby with a passion. Luna is a Blodynbryd (her mother is Acacia, Mother of Trees, a dryad who married Blind Michael) and tied to the Rose Roads. Rayseline is their evil daughter, lying Snow White-like in her glass coffin. September had been Sylvester and Simon’s sister. January, half-Tylwyth Teg and September’s daughter, had been the countess of Tamed Lightning (A Local Habitation, 2). Glynis Torquill had been Sylvester, Simons, and January’s “mother”; Celaeno Torquill is the mortal woman who actually bore them. Sir Etienne, Sylvester’s seneschal, has found his love, Professor Bridget Ames, who had a daughter Etienne didn’t know about, the teleporting Chelsea (Ashes of Honor, 6).
Windermere in the Mists
Arden Windermere is the Queen in the Mists (Chimes at Midnight, 7). Walther Davies, a trans Tylwyth Teg and former member of the royal family of the Kingdom of Silences (A Red Rose Chain, 9), is a powerful alchemist and chemistry professor teaching at UC Berkeley. Nette, a Hob, is the new housekeeper who doesn’t like paper towels. The previous king of the Mists had been Gilad, Arden’s father. Lowri is with the Queen’s Guard.
Stacy Brown is one of Toby’s changeling friends from days of yore. She and her husband, Mitch, have five children. Cassandra, their eldest who can read the future in the movement of air and is dating Walther and working for Arden as her chatelaine; Karen, who can see the future in her dreams (An Artificial Night); Andy/Tony??; Jessie; and, Katie. I think Melly and Ormond are Stacy’s bigoted grandparents.
Gillian is Toby’s own daughter who became lost to her (One Salt Sea).
The Duchy of Saltmist is . . .
. . . of the Undersea and Dean’s childhood home where his mother, Dianda Lorden, is the duchess and a Merrow, and her husband, Patrick, rule. Peter is Dean’s older brother.
Danny McReady, a Bridge Troll, is a San Francisco taxi driver and the owner of a Barghest rescue. Clover is Danny’s Gremlin mechanic. Cat in the Rafters is a restaurant run by Jason Thomas, a Cait Sidhe changeling.
The Firstborn
The Luidaeg, a.k.a. the sea witch and Antigone, is the cursed eldest daughter of Maeve, one of Oberon’s two wives. She’s Toby’s aunt and sister to Amandine, Eira, Amphitrite, and the monstrous Blind Michael (An Artificial Night, 3). Cailleach Skerry had been the Luidaeg’s own at some time. Poppy had been a pixie from the colony Simon had saved for Patrick and who, in turn, sacrificed to save Simon (The Brightest Fell, 11). The Nortons, formerly Selkies and now Roane, live in Half Moon Bay. Liz Norton is their leader and had been the Luidaeg’s lover; Diva is her daughter. Elsa and Nathan are part of the clan.
Titania is Oberon’s other wife, the Summer Queen. Eira Rosynhwyr, a.k.a. Evening Winterrose, is the Daoine Sidhe Firstborn, the former countess and, a really bad summer fae (Rosemary and Rue, 1). Amphitrite, “Captain Pete”, another sister, is the First among the Merrow who rules the Duchy of Ships in The Unkindest Tide, 13, where the Roane returned to life.
Toby’s mother, Amandine the Liar, is a self-focused Firstborn daughter of Oberon, the absent Lord of Faerie, and his human lover, Janet “Jenny”, who broke Maeve’s Ride. Amandine had also been a childhood playmate of Sylvester and Simon’s and her real name had been Almandine! August is Toby’s older sister, finally found. Simon Torquill, Sylvester’s twin brother, is August’s father, and Toby’s stepfather, although Faerie laws declare her his daughter. (All the change he’d made is gone after events in The Brightest Fell, 11.) Oleander de Merelands had been a fae assassin and Simon’s partner (Late Eclipses, 4).
The High Kingdom of the Westlands is what we know as North America and is where Quentin’s parents — King Aethlin Sollys and High Queen Maida, a former changeling — rule. Rhys had been the usurper king in A Red Rose Chain, 9. Shade is the Queen of Cats in Berkeley (Ashes of Honor, 6). Zinnia and Rose are pixies in Berkeley. Connor O’Dell had been a Norton Selkie, Toby’s old boyfriend, and Rayseline’s husband. Lily in Rosemary and Rue had been the Undine who took a young Toby in. Devin had been an Artful Dodger type, a changeling crime lord, in Rosemary and Rue. Kerry is another friend from the old days.
The Shadow Roads are only safe for cats and Cait Sidhe. The Changeling’s Choice is when a changeling must choose to be fully human or fully fae. Elf shot is an evil weapon that kills changelings and puts fae to sleep for one hundred years. Annwn and Emain Ablach are other realities for the fae. A “knowe” is a little piece hewn out of the Summerlands, a faerie realm, carved to fit fae needs and desires . . . reflecting the personalities of their keepers. SFPD Officer Thornton encountered Duchess Treasa Riordan in Ashes of Honor, 6. Merrows are mermaids. The Selkies are mostly gone. The only skinshifters left are the Ravens and Swanmays.
The Cover and Title
The cover is dimmed with its foggy background in gray stone ruins: a wall, a low fence, and a path. The black-haired Toby with her pale face and pointed ears is dressed in a white T-shirt, a black flannel shirt, jeans, and a black leather jacket. She’s carrying a dagger in her right hand while her left is propped against a wall. At the very top is a deep teal info blurb with the author’s name in a grayed turquoise below it. Below that, to the left of Toby is the series info in the same teal. Below that is a grayed-turquoise round badge with its info in white. The title begins inside Toby’s right wrist and at her waist in a distressed white font.
I suspect the title refers to the chilly Eira Rosynhwyr, who does her best to be A Killing Frost .
