140. Seanan McGuire, A Local Habitation

This second book in the October Daye series chronicles the further adventures of Toby, the fae changeling whose day job is private investigation. Toby’s liege lord, Sylvester, has a job for her: his niece January hasn’t been returning his phone calls, and he’s getting worried. Jan is the Countess of a small independent territory sandwiched between Sylvester’s kingdom and that of his greatest rival, so he needs a discreet investigator who won’t create a diplomatic incident. At first, Toby thinks this will be an easy babysitting job, but she soon realizes that there are many secrets in Jan’s territory. Jan and her subjects run a computer software company, and they’re working on a mysterious project. Even more alarming, several of her employees have recently been murdered. Can Toby find the killer before she becomes the next victim?

As mentioned, this is the second book in the Toby Daye series, and it’s definitely not a stand-alone; if you haven’t read the first book, you’ll be utterly lost. I read Rosemary and Rue about six months ago, and I had trouble remembering some of the aspects of Toby’s world, so some parts of this book were confusing to me. I’m really impressed with the complex world of this series – I get the impression that McGuire has really thought things through – but it sometimes seems a little overcrowded. There are so many different types of fae, all with their own abilities, and it’s hard for me to keep them all straight! The plot of this book was interesting enough, but it moved slowly at times. As for Toby herself, there wasn’t much development of her character in this installment; I felt like I could relate to her better in the first book. All that said, I did enjoy this book and will continue with the series. I’ll be interested to see how the little hints and details in this book will return in later installments!