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 30, 2025 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.
Silver and Lead is the 19th mainline book in Seanan McGuire's October Daye series of urban fantasy novels, one of my favorite ongoing series out there. It's the first book in basically 2 years, and also takes place after a major two part event in the series that took place over books 17 (Sleep No More) and 18 (The Innocent Sleep). I'm not going to spoil those books or that even before the jump (after is fair game), but it was a major gamechanger in terms of the mental states of the characters. This is something McGuire has kind of done a bunch of times in the series, and often it is followed by a novel that keeps up the stakes but ends in a way that calms things down into a more stable and temporarily happier status quo.
Silver and Lead doesn't quite go in that direction as much, (we end up with a new status quo change that is kind of happier but still extremely tense), and while it's another solid October Daye novel (I think my low score for any of these book is a 7.5, just to be clear), I struggled with some parts of this novel for a few reasons. We again have one old antagonist returning in a bit role, whose capabilities the main characters should be well beyond at this point, so say nothing of the "new" central antagonist. That's to be expected after our last book had one of the 3 essentially gods of Faerie as an antagonist I guess, but it rung me wrong. The central surprise antagonist of this book is what kind of saves this one from being one of the other books with this similar issue (Book 12, Night and Silence, comes to mind), and I'm intrigued on how things go from here so October Daye fans should still be satisfied, especially with the tease at the end of this book.
Spoilers for Books 1 through 18 below, I can't talk around them further here. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. I may post a spoilery post also for this book after this book's actual release too.