Late Eclipses (October Daye, Book 4) by Seanan McGuire (5/5 stars)

This is the fourth book in the October Daye series by McGuire.  The fifth book, One Salt Sea, is due out September of 2011.  This series just keeps getting better and better.  The book moves along at a great clip, adds further depth to Toby’s world and was a very engaging and wonderful read.

When Toby is awarded her own land, she knows that she now owes allegiance to the half-mad Queen and that things are going to get dicey.  Then Lily (an undine water spirit) comes down with a severe illness and Luna collapses in illness too.  Unfortunately for Tody she is present for both incidents and because of her changeling nature is suspected as being involved in their illnesses.  Toby only wants to help and she thinks she senses the prescence of Oleander (the evil lady who turned her into a gold fish all those years ago) at the scene of these people’s collapse.  Now it is a race against time: Toby has to figure out what is happening before more people die and before she is arrested in connection to the illnesses.

This is a very fast paced book and it was hard to put down.  The world is complex and intriguing.  This book thrust the reader deeper into fairy politics than any previous book.  We get more insight into a lot of characters that we have meet in previous books and gain a lot of understanding of Toby’s past.

Toby is still confused about who she likes more Tybalt or Connor.  Tybalt plays a pretty big role in the beginning of this book which was awesome because he is my absolute favorite character in this series.  Then his role fades in the second half of the book and Connor plays a bigger role.  We finally got to spend time with Connor and get to know him better, but for me he isn’t anywhere as interesting as Tybalt is.

We also got to see more of Toby and May making a life as roommates together.  It was nice to see some of the more domestic aspects of Toby’s life.  This book really filled out May as a character and made her one of the characters that I really enjoyed reading about.  Toby also undergoes some incredibly drastic and interesting changes and I am eager to see what they mean for her in future installments.

The story wraps up nicely but there is a lot of room for more story in the next book.  This book doesn’t do more than touch on the fact that Toby now has a fairy kingdom all her own.  There also isn’t much progress or resolution on Toby’s relationships with Connor and Tybalt; hopefully we will see some of that in the next book.  I really enjoy McGuire’s writing style it is very readable, has great description, and is incredibly engaging.  I continue to enjoy how McGuire merges fantasy, mythology, and nursery rhymes into a cohesive whole.

Overall a really excellent addition to this series.  I loved spending more time in fairy and watching Toby unravel this complicated mystery.  I love the characters more with each book in this series and absolutely can’t wait for what will happen next.  This was an incredibly engaging and fun to read book; the complex world and intriguing characters are a joy to read about.  I can’t wait for book 5, One Salt Sea, to come out in September 2011.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Horror and Urban Fantasy Challenge
– 100+ Reading Challenge