Rosemary and Rue

This urban fantasy story introduces October "Toby" Daye who is a changeling fae in San Francisco. Toby had turned her back on the fae world and was making her living as a private investigator. She married a human man and had a daughter. When the fae world catches up to her and turns her into a koi living in a botanical garden, that life is destroyed.

When the story begins, Toby has come back from being a koi but has lost 11 years of her life. She's lost her license, her husband, and her daughter, and is working as a night clerk in an all-night convenience store. But faerie isn't finished with her.

Calls on the answering machine she's been ignoring are from Countess Evening Winterrose pull her back in. The first calls just ask for help, show more the later calls demand it, and the last call curses her to find Evening's killer or die herself.

Toby is forced to return to faerie where she meets old friends and old enemies as she tries to solve the murder of Evening in time to save her own life.

This story had very intriguing worldbuilding. I liked all the various fae creatures and characters. I liked Toby and enjoyed seeing her return to life after all she had gone through. This story had a nicely twisty plot. Mary Robinette Kowal did a good job narrating and bringing all the various characters to life. show less

I haven't been fully grabbed by other urban fantasy books that deal with the fae, but this one snared me from the very start. Toby is a fantastic protagonist who feels more human than fairy, and that humanity makes it easy to sympathize with her as she is attacked and brutalized and snubbed by the high echelons of the hidden side of San Francisco. Now I have yet another series I want to continue. No wonder my to-do stack is out of control.

"Rosemary and Rue", the first book of the October Daye series, is an extraordinary piece of Urban Fantasy. It is sombre, complex and well written, a combination I can't resist..

The series was recommended to me as an Urban Fantasy must-read, otherwise, I wouldn't have bothered with a series centred around the Fae. Fae Fantasy seems to bring out a rose-tinted, undisciplined, acid-high hippy mindset that I have no sympathy for or it becomes a vehicle for New Adult eroticism that, even when it's done well, leaves me wanting either to laugh or to wash my hands.

The blurb wasn't encouraging, with references to Ladies and Knights and a reluctant half-blood fae PI. Yawn.

The title intrigued me. It has a Shakespearian feel to it. Rosemary and rue show more are two of the flowers in Ophelia's bouquet. Rosemary is for remembrance and rue is for repentance. That suggested I wasn't in for a happy-ever-after read, so I bought the audiobook version and settled down to listen.

From the beginning, it was clear that this was not a normal Urban Fantasy story with a kiss-ass heroine whose magical powers and strength of personality allow her to triumph against overwhelming odds and live to fight another day, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

October Daye is not a heroine. She's just someone trying to find a place for herself in the two worlds her half-fae half-human blood straddle. Finding a place is more about survival than ambition. October lives in a world where failure has consequences and success has a price. It is grim, unforgiving and relentless.

At the start of the book, October fails and is made to suffer consequences that would crush most of us. One of the things I admired about the book is that Seanan McGuire doesn't let her characters off the hook. Consequences are to be lived with like wounds and scars.

At first, the book seems to be about October being forced by a curse to solve the murder of a Pure-Blood Fae or die in the attempt. On this level, the book is a little flat. October bounces around the problem like a pinball, never in control and always being thrown against hard surfaces. I thought Seanan McGuire had taken Chandler's advice:

"When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand."

In line with the actions-have-consequences mindset, October spends as much time recovering from being hurt as she does investigating the death.

As the book progressed, I realised that the real focus of the story was October herself. She is made to re-examine the life she had before a mistake cost her everything. With each bounce of the pinball, we learn more about October's world and she learns more about herself.

What she learns and what she does with it bring us back to the "Rosemary and Rue" of the title: she honours her past, assessing it without nostalagia; she repents her failures without wallowing in regret and she moves on. October knows that while the life you've lived explains the scars you carry, it is your choices about what to do next that makes being alive worthwhile. The choices she makes show an acceptance of "the balance of her blood" rather than a desire to be someone else. It's a good start.

The world.building in "Rosemary and Rue" is skilfull and original. October takes for granted abuse of power and levels of punishment that makes the "magical" world very far away from Disney Princesses and much closer to the Brothers Grimm. To me it seemed to be to Urban Fantasy what Cyberpunk was to Science Fiction - a grimier, more credible version that was less about escapism and more about mirroring how the normal world works.

So now I'm a fan of Seanan McGuire with a lot of good books to look forward to.

I've bought, "A Local Habitation", the next book in the series and "Discount Armaggedon", the first book in the InCryptid series.


I strongly recommend the audiobook version of "Rosemary and Rue". Mary Robinette Kowal's narration is pretty close to perfect. She amplifies the unusual rhythms of the prose and gives October a unique voice. show less

(First of 13: October Daye series. Fantasy)
(Re-read. LT recommended)

This is the first of the October Daye series, which I've seen raves about around LT; and especially since we're born in the same month (October), I was intrigued enough to order it in to my bookshop and I read it for the first time in April 2015 (when I gave it 4 stars). To be honest, urban fantasy isn't really my sub-genre so I thought I'd give it another go as the inaugural book for our newly created book club (in November 2018). This time I gave it 3.5 to 4 stars. (Consolidating both reviews:)

October (Toby) Daye is a changeling; a child of a fae Daoine Sidhe mother and a mortal father, living on the fringes of immortal fae society - and bitter as heck about it, like show more all other changelings. Having lost years of her life to fae magic, she now survives from job to job. She had been trapped in a fish pond for fourteen years but, as she can't explain the true reason to her mortal family, they want nothing to do with her now she has returned.

Then she receives a call out of the blue from Countess Evening Winterrose, with whom Toby has a love-dislike relationship, who lays a curse on Toby to solve a crime committed on a pureblood fae living in the mortal realm in the city of San Francisco or she (Toby) will die. The story follows her as she races time to follow the clues through a San Francisco mortals won't entirely recognise and that Toby herself is rediscovering after her long absence.

This time, I found that the first part of the book didn't grab me and pull me in; I kept distracting myself, but that could have been my reading mood. Reading the second half flowed better for me.

Usually I don't find urban fantasy easy to read, but either I've got more comfortable with it, or Ms. McGuire writes very well, because the mortal and fae worlds fit well together here; and even the unexplained displacement of the Sidhe from Ireland to San Francisco didn't throw me (though there was no mention of Native American supernatural creatures). I usually have a problem with urban fantasy of knowing where the boundaries of fantasy and reality blur but I didn't find it an issue in this book.

One of our book club members is Irish and found it a bit disorienting to read about creatures of Celtic mythology displaced to the west coast of America, where they have obviously been for a few hundreds of years. That's one of the issues I usually have with urban fantasy - but this time I just took it as a given. However, a glossary of the different types of fairy creatures and their characteristics would have been useful since Toby comes across many folks with different ancestries in the course of her investigations. I do question the use of the word 'changeling'; usually it is used for the children of faerie who are substituted for mortal children rather than people whose ancestry is a mix of human and faerie.

I quite like Toby but her reluctance to get back in touch with the people who knew her before and have been begging her to come back into their lives is confusing. When she does connect, it is obvious that they have been worried about her with reactions ranging from concern (from women) to infatuation (from at least three men/ male characters). I'm not sure how much sleep or food Toby managed to get over the course of the story and the number of times she was attacked and had to be rescued was also slightly uncomfortable.

McGuire does explain the way her fae survive in the mortal world, crafting illusions to blunt their otherworldly features and having to avoid the pressure of breaking dawn when the magic of the previous day is stripped away. I'm not sure how magic works in her universe but, apart from a couple of spells, it happens and you accept it; you don't have to be told how to use a telephone, for example, because you use it every day so you already know how.

The mystery was solved satisfactorily and I would like to find answers to questions from Toby's past, such as why she was trapped in the fish pond, whether she will find peace with her daughter and maybe find out a bit more about her own mother; so I will read the next book in the series, at least.

Comments from our Book Club night: Toby is short for OcTOBer (two of our six members didn't get that, and I remember it took me a while to realise that when I first came across talk of the series). The story is written like a Dick Francis (noir crime) book with a gender reversal and the addition of faerie. It feels like McGuire's first book, but that could be because it's the first book in a series and she is introducing characters and situations which will, presumably, feature in future books in the series. Toby's reluctance to communicate with people who would willingly help her is a bit frustrating.

Averaging both scores 4**** show less

Review after re-reading in 2017: I've read a lot more Urban Fantasy since reading this the first time, so I have more stuff to compare it to, and it was a lot better than I remembered. The world-building is wonderful, but the murder mystery is not really my thing. 3.5 stars.

Original review:
Half-human, half-fae changeling October ”Toby” Daye gets turned into a fish for fourteen years (yes, really) and when she comes back nothing is as she once knew it. Not her family. Not her friends. Not even her enemies. Feeling lost, she retreats from the faerie world but is drawn back into it after the murder of Countess Evening Winterrose of the Fae. Evening, described by Toby as “the worst of friends, and the best of enemies”, trusts Toby show more with the investigation of her death by cursing our protagonist so that she must find the truth or die herself (yeez, Evening, why so drastic!?).

Taking place in a dark and secretive San Fransisco, this story gives us a taste of what is obviously a much bigger world. This is still an ongoing series and I’m intrigued enough to continue with it. After this first foray into the world of the Fae, I’m left with a feeling that there is so much yet to discover, so much left unanswered that begs to be uncovered in the following novels.

Now, let me start by saying that urban fantasy is not my usual cup of tea. And this book doesn’t exactly convince me to love the genre. I’m intrigued by the fantasy parts in this book, but not necessarily fond of the urban parts. Though I understand this is one of the first books published by the author, and everyone keeps telling me the series improves as it continues.

Seanan McGuire obviously has a vision of what she wants to do with this world, I just don’t think this book in particular reaches all the way. The murder mystery itself is not that interesting, at least not to me personally, and the reveal of the killer not that impactful. But there are plenty of other things in here to make it an enjoyable read. Toby herself is a fascinating character, her personal struggles engaging and her relationship with the fae world endlessly dynamic. The character gallery overall is nicely varied, the motivations of the fae dubious and some of the action cinematic. A friend of mine said she could easily imagine this as a comic book, and I agree. It has all the right elements for something like that.

Overall, I found this story somewhat sprawling and meandering, but the world itself wonderfully imaginative, and the characters for the most part likeable. It’s not a bad book, and to be honest I can’t quite put my finger on why it didn’t engage me more than it did. I’m left with a slight feeling of “meh” yet curious where things are headed. For this is not the end. It’s barely a beginning. It’s a taste of greater stories yet to come. show less

Goddamn. Goddamn this book. I could have given it 5 stars, but it's first in a series so I have to leave room for improvement.

I love a story about a woman who tries to run from her past but it keeps dragging her back. I loved all the different types of faeries and their rules and chants, even if I sometimes got confused because I know next to nothing about the myths.

Also I sort of ship Toby with someone and I hope to see more of that relationship even if it never becomes romantic.

It is a testament to how incredibly good they are that whenever I read myself to a stopping place in the series (i.e. the last published book - so that I have to wait for McGuire's writing to catch up with my reading), the world becomes a sadder place. Patience is never my strong suit. I began reading the October Daye series largely because I love the Newsflesh series so much (first book is Feed, by Mira Grant, McGuire's pseudonym). I am now hooked into this one as well, though to a lesser extent. Toby Daye's world is reminiscint of Charles De Lint's, with more of an emphasis on Celtic folklore and more believable, multi-dimensional characters. Toby is a faery knight cum private investigator, and she never runs out of crimes to solve, show more thanks to the faery-world's Macchiavellian royal court system and abundance of shady characters. There is a lot of backstory that is revealed in tantalizing little bits - and even more, the further you get into the series. McGuire has said on occasion, on her blog, or in interviews, that she admires Stephen King, and I can see it. As a would-be writer myself, I admire her, because she's learned a lot of King's tricks without copying him in any way. She is very much her own voice. This is a smart fantasy book series, and I think you all should read it. show less