This post is for a spoilery discussion of the 15th novel in Seanan McGuire's October Daye series. If you are interested in the series and want to speculate on what the events of this book mean? This is for you. If not, and you still want to read this series, I recommend not reading on beyond the jump.
If you accidentally found this page and want to read the actual spoiler free review of this book, go HERE.
You have been warned.
As a result of leaving people behind in San Francisco, When Sorrows Come does not deal with some of the major teased plot threads and mysteries in the series - again this is more a book about wrapping up what I think of as the second arc of the series: which can either be considered Books 6-15 (basically when the Tybalt romance started openly occurring) or Books 9-15 (After Toby's engagement to Tybalt, with this involving her first getting married, and with her accumulating so many second family figures).
So for example, our biggest ongoing mystery - who is Marcia really, is not dealt with at all in this book, because Marcia isn't at the wedding (I'm guessing with Dean there, Marcia is required to managed Goldengreen as the Seneschal).
That said, we do get some comments that suggest more answers to another mystery - what is going on with Toby's good friend and changeling Stacy Brown - whose grandparents supposedly hated changelings, and who is absolutely insistent her kids not date, and of course has two seers as kids. One theory I've seen suggests that Stacy is in fact Titania in hiding (while Marcia is Maeve), and if you want more fuel for that theory, Stacy has a comment here that goes: "Parenthood is hard...you know that. Maybe we can't blame Titania for everything." I still think Stacy as Titania doesn't quite make full sense given how awful we know Titania was in the past, and not just as Evening's mother, unless she's under some curse or spell that suppresses her real personality....although the idea that she might some unknown secret Firstborn of Titania appeals to me and would also make that line make sense.
Other than those teasers, the epilogues story features a number of changes in the status quo of Toby's relationships: first August appears to have seemingly cast off her anti-changeling/human attitudes and is now willing to try to befriend Toby again and to help out with the kids. I speculated last book that that might happen through her moving in to the empty room in the House, but it seems instead it happened from moving to the undersea with Simon/Patrick/Dianda (that can't be comfortable). Second, Gillian is a bit more willing to try to get to know Toby and Toby's new family (an hour talking with the Sea Witch as part of her bargain for going to the wedding may have helped there), which just made me really happy.
Then there's Sylvester, whose relationship with Toby I......am actually confused about. Toby made up with Sylvester in book 10, and became exiled from Shadowed Hills after book 11 (with Book 14 not helping) because of Luna's rejection of her due to what happened with Raysel and Simon. Fine, makes sense, and apparently the Sea Witch off page after book 14 refused to let Raysel wake up (a surprise that suggests something will happen with Raysel later) which can't have helped. But again Toby and Sylvester were made up, with Toby feeling guilty that her first father figure and her are estranged, something that is still seen in the main part of this book, when Toby wants to know if Sylvester knows about the wedding and when she smiles at him at the end, because she can't not do so.
And then in the epilogue novella, Sylvester goes off on Toby about Simon, resulting in her getting angry and Tybalt giving a really angry speech, as if Sylvester is still on the outs with Toby? It just seems off.
Anyhow, I look forward to seeing how the next act of this story begins next book, probably with a lot of trauma given well...its Seanan McGuire and I've read enough books to know what's coming in this series. But hey October has a knife from Oberon now, which I'm sure is not a matter of small importance....
No comments:
Post a Comment