Review – When Sorrows Come (October Daye, Book 15th) by Seanan McGuire (5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: DAW
Release Date: September 14, 2021
ISBN-13 : 978-0756415099
Stand Alone or Series: 15th book in the October Daye series
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 5/5 stars
“It’s hard to be a hero. There’s always something needing October “Toby” Daye’s attention, and her own desires tend to fall by the wayside in favor of solving the Kingdom’s problems. That includes the desire to marry her long-time suitor and current fiancé, Tybalt, San Francisco’s King of Cats. She doesn’t mean to keep delaying the wedding, it just sort of…happens. And that’s why her closest friends have taken the choice out of her hands, ambushing her with a court wedding at the High Court in Toronto. Once the High King gets involved, there’s not much even Toby can do to delay things…
…except for getting involved in stopping a plot to overthrow the High Throne itself, destabilizing the Westlands entirely, and keeping her from getting married through nothing more than the sheer volume of chaos it would cause. Can Toby save the Westlands and make it to her own wedding on time? Or is she going to have to choose one over the other?”
Series Info/Source: This is the fifteenth book in the October Daye series, there are 17 books contracted for this series. I borrowed an ebook of this from my library.
Thoughts: Toby is finally getting married to Tybalt, the King of Cats. The complex travel arrangements have been made so no liege or region is offended, the cake is ready, and the dress is a secret (to Toby). Of course Toby’s life is never simple and at the first dinner at the High Court someone tries to kill the High King and Toby is (again) covered in blood. Now not only does Toby have to follow through on her marriage, she must unravel a plot to kill the High King as her duties as a Hero of the Realm demand.
I love revisiting this world and these characters so much. This series is so well written and has been going on for so long that these characters have nearly become family to me. This is a pivotal point in the story and we get to see so much of our favorite characters and learn a lot more about both Quentin’s and the High Court’s past. The mystery here is very well done and the wedding planning parts had me in stitches. They were so funny.
The Luidaeg plays a big (and hilarious) role in this book. Pretty much all of our favorites are a big part of the story. I continue to love Toby and Tybalt as a couple and really enjoy seeing how Toby has built herself such a tight family and how she has grown as a person through this series. This book comes with a novella at the end that I definitely recommend reading since it covers the wedding reception and was very fun.
My Summary (5/5): Overall I can’t say enough good things about this series as a whole, and this book continued in that trend. This was a wonderful addition to the series and made a lot of progress, both in character development and unraveling the mysteries of faerie. If you are looking for an amazing urban fantasy series and haven’t picked up the October Daye series yet, I highly recommend it. I am so curious to see what happens with Oberon in the next book “Sleep No More”.
