A Local Habitation: An October Daye Novel (October Daye, Book 2)

I didn’t initially fall head over heels in love with this series. And I’m still not totally in love….but I feel like the first book was our first date and while it wasn’t the best first date I’ve ever been on it also wasn’t the worst. On our first date Toby was dark and moody and most everything in the book seemed to take on a shade of that.But Toby also didn’t break any of my huge no, no rules on our first date and my book bff Jessica assured me this is a good series and I just need to give it a little time to grow on me. So with that I walked into the second book and it went better.This world is still a little more dark than some of the other UF I’ve read. But, the good news is that some of the humor that I found lacking in the first book to counterbalance that darkness finally showed through a little. Toby lightened up a little and with the help of a junior sidekick in training and King of the Cats there was a bit more humor throughout the story. Stuff like:***“Repetition is sometimes the best way to deal with the Luideag: just keep saying the same thing over and over until she gets fed up and gives you what you want. All preschoolers have an instinctive grasp of this concept, but most don’t practice it on immortal water demons. That’s probably why there are so few disembowelments in your average preschool.”AND“Hey!" I turned, crossing my arms and glaring. "I was talking to him!"Tybalt eyed me with amusement, which just made me glare harder. "No, you were inciting him to stab you with a toothpick. Again, the difference is small, but I think it matters.”***Because I’d already been introduced to this world I got to sit back and just enjoy the story a little more. Since we are dealing with the Fae I try to remember that the rules for the immortals are different than humans. Actually for the most part as a Fae you are allowed to do anything you want to a human as long as you don’t get caught. Most of those things seem to be rather cruel and morally bankrupt but you have to remember that to them it is like playing with flies or ants so how bad should they feel about it.This overall story was way more interesting to me for a number of reasons. First the majority of the setting of this story is a Faery Tech Company. Fae and Computers….now this isn’t something I was expecting and so I found it a nice change up to the lore and a great way to bring it into the 2000s. It worked for me and (Second) I totally loved the addition of a computer tree dryad. YES!!! You read that right and I totally want one at my job too. Also the scene with the Night Haunts was creeptastic and probably one of the most interesting things in this series so far.While I did guess a few of the major twists….one super early it really didn’t take away from the overall enjoyment of most of the rest of the story as I tried to decide how it all fit in. I didn’t get to the complete who the killer was until much later in the story and then I totally got the reasons wrong but once explained it made total sense.While Toby is growing on me like Jessica told me she would the actual big seller for me is the world. It is a little different than most of the UF I’ve been reading since this is mostly Fae and the majority of other UF sticks with the shapeshifters, vampires and witches OH MY. So this has been a good switch up for me. Little snippets for the overall story arc seem to be included in this one and I now I have some serious questions about Toby’s mother and Tybalt who pretty much steals the show when he is on page.I would like it is there was maybe a more clear love interest at this time but that is where this story is lacking for me a little. I’m standing on the SS Tybalt for sure but it seems like we are going to maybe have to travel through Hurricane Collin to get there and I’m actually dreading the idea of that for a few reasons one being that he is totally married (yes I know it is only a political marriage…..but I don’t care. I do not want Toby getting caught up in that mess, married is married).So while I’m not in totally in love yet, our second date went much better and if this trend continues then this could easily make it into the space in my heart saved for Series I Love.

Trigger Warnings: pretty typical for Toby Daye books: murder, self-slicing of hands/arms and drinking of blood for rituals, description of car accident/explosion intended as murder, attempted rape/sexual harrassment via magic, using an innocent to commit murder, discussion of experimentation on animals, discussion of child abandonment.Another reread review! I am curious to see when I'll hit the books in this series that I have reviewed as I know there have to be at least a few of the newer ones - we shall see! As always with this series, the audio was excellent. Mary Robinette Kowal does such a fantastic job, y'all - I definitely recommend checking out these versions if you've only ever read it via ebook or physical copy.This one is where it felt like the series really started to fall into the world and pattern that the later books would have. Rosemary and Rue was a good book, but it almost feels like a prequel on a reread of the series. Local Habitation gets us into the groove of Toby as faerie knight errant, and puts us into the kind of mysteries she'll continue to solve for her liege and the rest of the Summerlands. Plus, she's really starting to embrace the abilities her heritage grants her here as opposed to doing so very VERY reluctantly as with Evening's death. We also get more of the Luidaeg and start to understand how that relationship (one of my absolute faves of the series) might grow. Plus Toby and Quentin for the win! She's slowly getting drawn back into making connections here, and I love that about this book. Plus the whole concept of the tech side of Faerie including April the cyberdryad just made me happy honestly. Off to the next book in the reread marathon!

A Local Habitation described in two sentences. Toby Daye goes on an adventure at the request of her liege, simple mission gone terribly wrong. Toby's lack of understanding of technology may kill her.⭐️Ease of read: Page turner, easy read, yadi yadi yada. Freebie this time.⭐️⭐️Plot twist: Though I want to say that the story was predictable, the author did keep me guessing. It took until the later part of the book for me to figure out who the villain was. (Since every book has a villain, I do not believe the mention that there is one constitutes as a spoiler.)⭐️⭐️⭐️ Lasting impression: I felt weird at the end of this one. A little bit like, wait, what? Which was interesting for a change. I don't generally remember the plot very well after reading a book. Normally just bits and pieces of feelings, or urges to toss the book or reread it.Character development: I don't feel like any of the characters stood out this time. Everyone remained pretty much the same.World building: Point lost for world building. Though Tamed Lightning was an interesting concept, it was too hectic for my taste. I was consistently going back a few pages to figure out where Toby was at any given time. I understand that is what a Knowe is like, especially to Tody, but I wish it was a little more clear. And since most of the story in A Local Habitation was located in Tamed Lightning, it is difficult for me to reward a star.

I picked up A Local Habitation when I was in the mood for something quick and fun, and while it was a fairly quick read I’m sorry to say I didn’t have a great time reading it. In fact, for the most part, I found this second instalment in the series very frustrating.Duke Sylvester asks Toby to check in on his niece, Countess January O’Leary, who hasn’t been returning any of his calls. This is particularly worrying because she’s the countess of a small duchy caught between Sylvester’s realm and a rival duchy. When Toby arrives, she finds a small team of fae, led by January, who work in computing and are currently terrified, because something, or someone, is killing them off.I can’t knock McGuire’s writing style. These books are so readable, which is one of the things I love about the urban fantasy genre, but sadly I found A Local Habitation fairly boring. The only reasons I didn’t DNF it were because I wanted to continue with the series and because it was so easy to read that I could blast through it.Considering this book tackles the idea of trying to balance magic with technology I expected to love it, but I didn’t find the setting of this computing company inspiring at all. Characters were constantly walking down corridors and in and out of offices and I feel like McGuire was trying to go for that modern Gothic feel, to make her characters feel trapped in this space while someone kills them from within, but because Toby could leave and go and stay in a hotel, I never really felt like she was trapped.Also, Toby simply wasn’t very good at her job in this book. She and so many other characters made incredibly stupid decisions throughout the novel, such as constantly wandering off alone when they knew there was a good chance they’d die, or it would take Toby an age to reach a conclusion the reader had reached months before, and it was so annoying.For example, Sylvester sends Toby to check in on January because she hasn’t been returning his calls. When Toby mentions this to January, January claims she’s been leaving messages and her uncle hasn’t been answering her calls. It takes Toby AGES to realise that someone’s been tampering with the phone lines. I know Toby doesn’t really understand technology – which makes me wonder why Sylvester chose to send her on this mission in the first place – but come on. That’s so obvious!Another little niggle of mine is that everywhere Toby goes, men want to sleep with her. I love that she’s a woman who’s sexually active and doesn’t apologise for it, and I know that urban fantasy is a genre that relies on romance and sex almost as much as it does on fantasy, but I’d much rather watch Toby be a PI than anything else.I wasn’t a big fan of McGuire’s Every Heart a Doorway either, mostly because I hated the whodunnit (it was so obvious whodunnit!), and I’m starting to get the feeling that while she’s a brilliant SFF writer, and her world-building in particular is fantastic, she’s not a particularly strong mystery writer. That’s not ideal when the heroine of your urban fantasy series works as a PI.In fact I’ve noticed that I tend to enjoy the work McGuire writes as Mira Grant much more than what she writes as Seanan McGuire, but I am still going to continue with this series. When I was looking at reviews a lot of people who love this series mentioned this book is their least favourite, so I’m hoping things will only get better from here!

This is a classic murder mystery where the potential victims are all within a closed environment – in this case a software systems industrial unit – and Toby is desperately struggling to discover the perpetrator before everyone is wiped out. A complicating factor for Toby is that she is not working alone – Sylvester wanted her to take along one of the young pureblood courtiers to get him out of the way. So when she finds herself pitchforked into the middle of a situation far more dangerous than she expected, she is also responsible for a youngster who has no training or preparation for this kind of assignment. Though Toby increasingly is coming to the conclusion that she hasn’t sufficient preparation for it, either…I loved this extra insight into McGuire’s haunting, dangerous world of fae where creatures who live for a very long time are slowly failing against humanity. As for the variety of types – think of the TV show Grimm. The standout characters are brilliant, abstracted January, who is responsible for keeping her people safe and running a successful company; Alex with the red eyes, who Toby finds she enjoys being around far too much. And poor little April – a young tree dryad who escapes the slaughter of her community when the oak grove where she lives is bulldozed flat to make way for a housing estate and is found wandering alone and traumatised by Jan. She is rescued and, before she fades away, is digitised to wander around the server as a shy, ever-present entity who occasionally runs errands for the staff and spends much of her time with Jan, who she regards as her mother.Often in this type of murder mystery, the victims are the props – no one likes or cares much about them and they are there to provide clues and possible red herrings as the investigator and reader tries to puzzle out who is doing the killing. While I didn’t particularly care about some of the characters who died, there was a real sense of loss conveyed in the story. Each one was mourned by those around them, which had the effect of both upping the stakes and creating a sense of menace as Toby tries to discover what is going on.I guessed part of the puzzle before we got to the denouement, but that didn’t really matter, as this case was as much about the ‘why’ as the ‘how’. And the answer is something of a heartbreak. Perhaps it was because I was feeling ill, but the ending left me with a lump in my throat as McGuire’s depiction of the final funeral drew to a close. This one really packs a punch and I now need to get hold of the next book, An Artificial Night, before too much time goes by.8/10

3.5 of 4 stars[...]ALH is the second in the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire. I’m really enjoying this series and have a strange feeling that it’s just going to get better and better. If you’re looking for a new Urban Fantasy series then you might want to give this a go. Also, beware of spoilers below as they will possibly be throwing a little party and I don’t want to spoil book No.1 for those of you who haven’t started the series yet!In this second instalment we get off to a fairly immediate start. Following the events in Rosemary and Rue Toby seems to be settling down a little inasmuch as she’s started her detective agency work again – that is until Sylvester, her liege, gives her a special assignment. Sylvester is worried about his niece, Countess of Tamed Lightning, January O’Leary, who seems to have been out of contact for a while. Things may not be all they seem over at TL and Sylvester needs to check on his niece but also tread carefully so as not to start a potential incident with the neighbouring rival Duchy.I must confess from the start that this book took me in a direction I never would have expected. Yes, I guess, the fact that Toby is an investigator and one with a special affinity to blood magic, is going to be a given, but what was unusual with ALH was the combination of new and old – and I won’t say much more than that for fear of spoilers.What I can say is that there are murders aplenty, in fact I feared at one point that none of the inhabitants of Tamed Lightning would make it out alive, there is some great imagination and a lot of guesswork. I was like a maniac suspecting everyone at the drop of a hat (and usually quite firm in my own conviction until my latest suspect turned up dead)!So, we have Toby, accompanied by her trusty assistant Quentin (a little bit like having a fluffy poodle puppy following you around!) I like this duo though and I’m kind of hoping that it will be repeated as it gives Toby somebody to have banter with. Connor also makes an entrance (a former love interest of Toby’s that was long since put to rest – although that doesn’t stop Connor from trying it on here and there). And, of course Tybalt puts in an appearance and brings with him his own blend of cool self assurance, wit and sizzling chemistry.On top of this we make the acquaintance of a number of new changelings with different abilities – not least of which is a computer dryad – which, come on, how cool is that!I won’t go into the characters too much – they all seem to have their own potential motives for being the murderer and for a while they had me jumping through hoops.In terms of the setting. Well, I really enjoyed what McGuire did with ALH. She keeps all the focus on the Tamed Lightning setting which gives it an almost claustrophobic feel and helps to ratchet the tension. A bit like an old horror movie where a party of people are stranded at a house and one by one are being picked off. I can see that this could be an issue for some as it tends to give it less of a UF feel but I thought it worked perfectly with this particular story and helped to give it a feeling of being trapped and added to the threat somehow.The plot. It’s a twisty turny whodunnit and, whilst I managed to see what was going on with some of the issues that were going on, I didn’t manage to second guess the ending.In terms of criticisms. Well, this is a little like other UF series in that it takes a little while to build up the characters and the world. Frankly I don’t think you can have it any other way. The layers have to be put down book upon book otherwise it would be one huge info dump and a doorstopper size book! As it is I feel like McGuire is settling us in at a reasonable pace and keeping us enticed with her own strange additions to the UF universe – Night Haunts for example!Very enjoyable second in series and I’m looking forward to No.3.

It's 6 months after ROSEMARY AND RUE. Toby's settled into life in San Francisco, combining her duties for Duke Sylvester with work as a private investigator. When Sylvester asks her to check on his niece, January O'Leary because he hasn't heard from her, she thinks it will be easy an easy job. But nothing is ever easy in the world of Faerie. In Tamed Lightning she discovers that January's court is being plagued by a series of mysterious murders, murders that leave bodies not even the Night Haunts will take. When the court becomes cut off from the outside world, Toby and Quentin find themselves in a race against time to find and stop the killer before they're next ...The second in Seanan McGuire's October Daye Series contains some great ideas but this can't overcome a disappointing central mystery plot that lacks tension.The mystery riffs on the idea of the remote country house where the guests are being murdered one by one. Unfortunately Toby's a lousy detective, running from one corpse to the next without ever asking key questions. The blurb is actually misleading because the purpose of January's company is central to the mystery but Toby never asks her what the company does despite January actually offering at one point. It really irritated me, not least because when she realises that there's a problem with the phones, she never just sends someone to go and get help in person. I found the murderer really easy to guess and their motive never convinced me.It's a shame because there are some great ideas here, particularly the idea of a techno-dryad fused into the computer servers and a scene with the Night Haunts is chilling. McGuire also does well at weaving in more traditional faerie myth and Quentin's a fun foil. Toby remains a fascinating character, and while I was disappointed that there's nothing in this book about her human family, I enjoyed the way McGuire teases out information about Toby's faerie heritage. Tybalt's developing as a potential love interest in a triangle with Connor (who's rather under-developed), but it's very much in the background at the moment.All in all, the book didn't work for me because the plot didn't draw me in, but I've bought the next couple of books in the hope that this is a blip in the series.

In this novel October, the changeling detective, investigates murder and mystery at a fae-owned IT company in Seattle. It is both startling and interesting to read about the intertwining of magic and computers. There are times in the story when the reader sees the fae world as mundane and the computer world as magical, and this echoes the subconscious feelings of a lot of people! There is plenty of mayhem and tension to keep thriller readers on the edges of their seats, including major problems with cars and telephones which can be magically influenced. The resolution is a satisfying blend of the worlds of fairies and IT. Throughout the novel the background stories of October and her friends and enemies are further explained and expanded, leading to a strong desire for the next book in the series.I particularly liked the descriptions of the building the IT company uses - partly in a fairy kingdom and partly in Seattle, it alters inside and dizzies the visitor. How often we have all felt that about the architecture of the buildings big companies inhabit! The cats, too, along with their king, are a powerful part of this book. Ms McGuire's descriptions are detailed, unique and absorbing.This is a worthy successor to Rosemary and Rue. Seanan McGuire has created a fascinating clash of cultures in her tales of fairies in modern California; the well-researched fairy kingdoms are a vivid counterpoint to present day America and also echo the human condition. The characters are all three dimensional and memorable; even the villains are very real people with nothing 'cardboard' or stereotypical about them.The writing is assured and smooth. It segues effortlessly between the lyricism of faerie and the grittiness of the classic detective novel. A quintessential urban fantasy with a heroine who will take root in your heart.Highly recommended.