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When Sorrows Come
by
Seanan McGuire
It is part of the October Daye #15 series and is a urban fantasy in a Kindle edition on September 14, 2021 and has 384 pages.
Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon
Other books in this series include [books_series]
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, A Killing Frost, "Shine in Pearl", "And with Reveling", "Singing the Comic-Con Blues”, "Candles and Starlight", "Such Dangerous Seas", Sleep No More
Fifteenth in the October Daye urban fantasy series and revolving around Toby Daye, a hero of the realm. This story may start out in Northern California but it soon arrives in Toronto.
My Take
A good bit of the start includes a recap of what characters have been doing, getting us caught up.
There is no gainsaying the High King and Queen who insist that Toby get married in their court, and the planning on how to get there without ticking off a number of kingdoms is tremendously complicated. The Kings and Queens of Cats are even more territorial than the fae.
Then there are the ambushes, doppelgangers, evil plots, a hesitant guard, traps, more spilling about what Oberon might be up to, Toby criticizing the High King’s guards AND the High King — to his face, kingly sour grapes, Quentin’s fully justified blow-up!, then Tybalt blows, lol, Stacy reads Toby the riot act . . .
Oh, yeah, there is plenty of reaming out of kings.
”Family means never having to say, ‘I forgive you’.”
It’s not just humans who hate, Faerie hates most everyone as well on similar jumped-up excuses. We learn about yet another group in Faerie who’s despised. Oy. And highly susceptible to promises.
Okay, yeah, it’s natural that the story revolves around Toby, she is the main protagonist — and McGuire does use first person protagonist point-of-view from Toby’s perspective. It’s due to Toby’s influence that the Faerie of the San Francisco-Bay Area is changing for the better. It’s a long slog, but slowly, step by step, it is getting better.
Poor Stacy who had had all those dreams of a grand wedding, and now Toby is getting it — and appreciating it not at all. It is not helped by Chelsea pulling out the movie theater-style bucket of popcorn when “Cillian” gets pissed at the High King, lol.
Hmm, we get a reason why Oberon continues to hide himself.
One subplot McGuire keeps pushing is that Toby won’t actually get around to marrying Tybalt. Of course, Toby has made it easy for her friends to “torture” her, since she abdicated all responsibility for her wedding. *snicker*
Yep, there is plenty of action revolving around the characters in the story, so many of those who revolve through Toby’s life.
It’s a can’t miss story, if only for that Toby-style wedding.
The Story
It is hard to be a hero, for disaster crops up over and over again, needing Toby to come to the rescue. It’ll take frustrated friends and a High King to get Toby to the altar, only to be assailed by assassins, doppelgangers, murder plots, regicide, a long-planned coup, and more.
And Toby rides the blood of history.
The Characters
Sir October “Toby” Daye, a.k.a. Aunt Birdie, is the Knight of Lost Words of the Divided Courts and is still partial changeling and mostly Dóchas Sidhe, one of two in the world. She also has the reputation as a king-breaker. Toby does not suffer fools. Cagney and Lacey are her ancient half-Siamese cats. Spike, a rose goblin, is another “pet”. She lives in a Victorian in San Francisco gifted to her by her liege, Duke Sylvester.
Tybalt, the king of the Court of Dreaming Cats, the Cait Sidhe, a.k.a. Rand Stratford, is in love with Toby and determined to marry her. Anne, a mortal woman, had been Tybalt’s first wife. Raj is Tybalt’s adopted nephew and heir. Ginerva, a Princess of Cats and daughter of the King of Whispering Cats in Portland, is Tybalt’s steward.
May is Toby’s sister/Fetch; Stacy Brown, a Barrow Wight changeling, is her best friend — who’ll be doing Toby’s make-up (Kerry, a Hob, and Julie are Toby’s other best friends from her Home days); Jazz, a Raven-maid with an antique store in Berkeley, is May’s live-in girlfriend; and, Quentin “Cillian”, a blind foster who’s actually the Crown Prince of the Westlands, has been Toby’s squire for some five years.
Simon Torquill is Toby’s legal father and Sylvester’s twin brother who used to be very bad. Amandine the Liar is Toby’s hideous mother, a Firstborn daughter of Oberon and Janet Carter, the woman who broke Maeve’s last Ride. Amandine has been passing herself of as Daoine Sidhe. The snooty August is Toby’s older sister, a full fae, now living Undersea in the Duchy of Saltmist with Simon after the divorce. Gillian is Toby’s teen-aged daughter, who is now a Roane living in Half Moon Bay.
Dianda Lorden, the Duchess of Saltmist, is a merrow . . . and Toby’s stepmother! Patrick is her husband, and together they’ve married Simon (A Killing Frost, 14). Dean Lorden is her son and the Count of Goldengreen, who is dating Quentin. Peter Lorden is Dean’s brother and their mother’s heir.
Aethlin Sollys is the High King of the Westlands and is based in Toronto in the Kingdom of Maple. High Queen Maida, born a changeling, gave up her mortality to marry Aethlin. Penthea “Penny” is Quentin’s sister. Dame Nessa of Maples, a Gwragedd Annwn (a lake maiden), is Aethlin’s seneschal. Honey, a Centaur, is Maida’s chatelaine. Caitr, a Candela with her Merry Dancers, is a healer?? Galen is an Ellyllon; they can’t fly once they reach adulthood but still shed pixie-sweat. Fiac, an Adhene who can taste lies, is another seneschal. Or is he a Court Seer? Hiram is a palace historian. The titled guards (most are barons or more) include Aron, Artyom, and Enzo. Yenay Ng, a Shyi Shuai (luck bending fae), is the Westlands Librarian.
Faerie
Oberon is the King of all Faerie, who has been hiding for over 500 years, most recently as Officer Thornton. Toby dragged him out. The Luidaeg, the sea witch and Amandine’s oldest sister, is Toby’s aunt, less well known as Antigone of Albany. Poppy is the human-sized pixie living with Luidaeg. Maeve had been one of Oberon’s wives, that bitch Titania being the other. Eira Rosynhwyr, Countess Winterrose, is Titania and Oberon’s oldest daughter and responsible for the original slaughter of the Roane. She’s been manipulating all the way down the line. Malvic was the first King of Cats, Tybalt’s First.
Windermere in the Mists
Arden Windermere, the Queen in the Mists, reigns in the San Francisco-Bay area. Nolan Windermere, Arden’s brother, is the Crown Prince in the Mists. Their father had been King Gilad, who had been murdered. Lowri is one of the knowe’s guards. Cassandra Brown, Toby’s honorary niece, is a changeling, a grad student (her graduate advisor is Prof Weinstein), an aeromancer, and Arden’s chatelaine. Madden is a Cu Sidhe, a fairy dog, and Arden’s seneschal, who still works at the café. Walther Davies, a Tylwyth Teg alchemist and chemistry professor at UC Berkeley, had been a potential heir to the Kingdom of Silences. Formerly a girl, he’s now dating Cassandra. Mags is the Librarian at the Library of Stars in San Francisco.
The rest of the Browns include their parents Mitch and Stacy who are both low-level changelings. Besides Cassandra, there are her siblings who include Karen, who is an oneiromancer, and Andrew.
Shadowed Hills is . . .
. . . ruled by Duke Sylvester Torquill, Toby’s uncle whose liege is Queen Arden. Luna is Sylvester’s wife who had masqueraded as a kitsune but is actually a Blodynbyrd who now hates Toby. Their daughter, Rayseline, has been a bad girl and is in an elf-shot-induced slumber. Sir Etienne is Sylvester’s seneschal; Bridget ”Bess” Ames, a folklore professor at UC Berkeley, is Etienne’s wife and the mother of his daughter, Chelsea, a teleporter. Sir Garm, a Gwragen, is another of Sylvester’s knights.
Neighbors include Silences where Princess Marlis is and Siwan is queen, Painted Sands, and Golden Shore. Jolgeir, Ginerva’s father, is the King of Cats in Portland. April O’Leary is a computer dryad and the Countess of Tamed Lightning in San Jose. Li Qin, a Shyi Shuai, is April’s other mother. Elliot is the Bannick at home. Part of the journey includes the Kingdom of Salted Skies in Utah to Highmountain in Colorado.
The Kingdom of Beacon’s Home corresponds to Nova Scotia where a large colony of Roane lives; it’s part of the High Throne’s holdings. Archibald and Sarah had been Roane. The Kingdom of Ash and Oak in New York was held by King Absalom Shallcross, a Daoine Sidhe son of Vitus, had married Vester. The North Kingdom and Aztalan.
Back in the day High King Clement Pemberton of Europa certified the High Kingdom of Westlands with High King Oakley Sollys its first king. Gordan is a night-haunt who wears the face of Oleander de Merelands, an assassin who specialized in poisons. The Gwragedd Annwn were Black Annis’ children. Ismene had been Nessa’s First and the Luidaeg’s sister, murdered by Conláed. Piskies are one of the few fae races with no Firstborn. The Shadow Roads can only safely be traveled by the Cait Sidhe. A knowe is living magic that arranges itself. Magdaleanan Brooks wrote a biography about Amandine the Liar.
The Cover and Title
The cover is a range of peaches and rust with a dreamy background bordered by golden and rust red leaves on either side, flanking Toby in her rose-bound wedding dress, sword in her right hand as she faces arrow-riddled bodies in front of her. At the top is an info blurb in black with the author’s name also in black above Toby’s head. The series info is in a black shadowed white to the left of Toby’s neck with a black circular badge on her right with text in yellow announcing a new novella. The title is in a distressed yellow at the bottom.
The title reflects When Sorrows Come in the pre-wedding jitters.
