Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on September 5, 2023 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
Sleep No More is the 17th novel in Seanan McGuire's urban fae fantasy "October Daye" series, one of my favorite series in SF/F at this point. If by some chance you have no knowledge of the series and are still reading this review anyway, well the series follows the half-fae (Changeling) October Daye, as her work as both a knight of the local Fae Kingdom in San Francisco and her private detective work in the human world gets her deeper and deeper involved in the affairs of Faerie. More importantly, the series really thrives on showcasing its irreverent blood working heroine as she winds up over all the books building her own found family with whom she feels at home....and who aid her as she gets deeper and deeper into trouble.
Most likely however, if you're reading this review, you've heard of or at least read part of the series, and it's kind of impossible to write this review without going into spoilers for the series' first 16 books as Sleep No More builds directly off a MASSIVE cliffhanger in the series' last book, Be the Serpent. At the end of that book, after October had finally dealt with a threat hinted at for 15 prior books, she found her world and herself massively changed in a way that was simply wrong....and horrifying. It was a twist that was downright brutal and unprecedented in this series, and it left me begging for a conclusion.
Sleep No More is that conclusion in part - McGuire actually wrote an 18th book from Tybalt's perspective because there is so much to deal with in this new world that can't be seen here in this book - as October lives in this new world for a while until cracks start to form and set her down the road to restoration. It's yet another gripping book in the series, although its ending leaves a little to be desired...given the sheer amount of threat our series' new antagonist poses, it does feel like our protagonist's set things "right" a bit too easily (especially after everything in the last two books). But well, if you're an October Daye fan, you'll remain hooked on the series after this book and wanting more now that this cliffhanger is resolved.
Spoilers for the First 16 books are below and untagged. If you want to read further, you're reading at your own risk. Spoilers for THIS book will be discussed in a secondary post.
Plot Summary:
October Torquill is a happy Changeling. Born to serve her parents, firstborn Amandine and her husband Simon Torquill, as well as her trueblood sister August, October lives a happy life in constant supervision in her mother's Tower as the compliant and dutiful daughter who knows her place. She is as loved as she could be, and if the Faerie of Queen Titania renders her a second class citizen, born to service her pureblood betters....well, that's all it should be.Sleep No More follows what seemed like a devastating cliffhanger at the end of the last book, Be the Serpent - Toby having defeated Titania, ready to find a moment to relax in her new life after having just told Tybalt that she's pregnant with their child. Except that Titania immediately intervened and we last saw Toby in a life that was very very wrong: acting like the loyal changeling maid of her mother and sister in pure happiness despite it not being who she is at all. It was a horrifying transformation to be teased, and readers have spent a whole year wondering and worrying what had actually happened.
Except This Happiness....this Everything is a lie. And when October is asked to look into a strange mystery by a noble she's never met before, she soon comes face to face with a person who claims that Toby is not merely just her family's maid, but is a powerful bloodworker in her own right and that she and everyone else is caught in an illusion of Titania's creation. An illusion where cruelty and oppression are normal and the people Toby once loved are either forcibly changed or not allowed to exist. And unless Toby is able to do something about it, it's an illusion that Titania may be able to make permanent.
But when all Toby remembers is this happy life where she's grown up with a beloved sister and father (and an absentee mother), will she even be willing to break the illusion before it's too late?
Sleep No More reveals that what had happened is as horrifying, if not more horrifying than what it seemed. Somehow (the extent of which is a mild spoiler) Titania has managed to cast an illusion over most of Toby's world such that the Kingdom of Mists now fits the vision she has for Faerie - one where mixed bloods are gone, Changelings are fully subservient, and Maeve's peoples have been either culled or are non-existent. Toby's family is either missing or warped - Quentin is now a racist pureblood squire of Etienne, Sylvester is unmarried and miserable, Tybalt, May and Jazz are missing (and not missed since Toby has no clue who they are), etc. And just as horrifying is the fact that Toby is, despite some moments of bitterness over how she can't help some changelings coming to her for aid, actually happy about the life she has been magically convinced is real. We know how hard she's worked for a family and love for herself and how she's made the world a better place, so seeing her being happy and content in this far worse world (even with the reality of Faerie as we've known it before not being exactly a super happy place) is kind of brutal.
And so it's not really that surprising when Toby struggles to, when confronted by remnants from the old world of the unreality of her situation, want to take action to replace this new world with her old. The same is true of other characters she meets, and so much of this book features Toby getting caught up in a whirlwind that forces her to try to change things back while at the same time making her feel more and more worse about it. And it's what forms Toby's greatest challenge yet, perhaps.
It's a gripping narrative, but that challenge is I guess part of my only problem with this book - the ending wraps things up way too easily, with Titania being defeated through a method that just seems kind of silly at best and repetitive of other events in the series at worst. Surely it should've been harder to do this, or to at least get into the position to be able to do this, but nope, it's not. More on that in a spoiler post I'll post after the release of this book and the next book.
Still, Sleep No More is a gripping narrative and another excellent installment...and because this story features a lot of things happening off page, we're getting a second new book in a month that features the same story from Tybalt's perspective, as he struggles against Titania's new world from another side. I cannot wait.
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