5 stars
Over in the Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant Fans group on Facebook, we’re doing a Re/Read Along as we prepare for book #12 in the series, Night and Silence, to be released in September. It’s newbie friendly, as we’re keeping our discussion limited to just the books we’ve read so far in the Re/Read along. We recently discussed Book #4, Late Eclipses.
October “Toby” Daye, changeling knight in the service of Duke Sylvester Torquill, finds the delicate balance of her life shattered when she learns that an old friend is in dire trouble. Lily, Lady of the Tea Gardens, has been struck down by a mysterious, seemingly impossible illness, leaving her fiefdom undefended. Struggling to find a way to save Lily and her subjects, Toby must confront her own past as an enemy she thought was gone forever raises her head once more: Oleander de Merelands, one of the two people responsible for her fourteen-year exile.
Time is growing short and the stakes are getting higher, for the Queen of the Mists has her own agenda. With everything on the line, Toby will have to take the ultimate risk to save herself and the people she loves most—because if she can’t find the missing pieces of the puzzle in time, Toby will be forced to make the one choice she never thought she’d have to face again…
Late Eclipses is the first book in this series that I found myself unable to put down. Books 1 and 2 are important, but a slog. Book 3 gets better but still drags a bit. Book 4, Late Eclipses is a non-stop ride. Page after page, there’s action, adventure, and Toby finally starting to deal with some of her past. I stayed up waaaaay past my bedtime reading the book, despite already knowing what would happen.
Late Eclipses is particularly powerful on a re-read, after reading The Brightest Fell. TBF adds a ton of context to some of what happens in Late Eclipses. (There are also many little comments and actions from a certain character that make so much more sense from the distance of later books. *eyebrow wiggles*)
We are introduced to two of my favorite characters in the Toby Daye series in Late Eclipses: Walther and Jazz. I love them so much, for different reasons. It also doesn’t hurt that they’re both great examples of diversity within the pages of the Toby Daye series, even if it’s not immediately obvious.
Check back later this month for a review of One Salt Sea, book #5 in the series. (Or if you can’t wait, join our discussion for that book Sunday, April 22!)
Alex Can Read 