Chimes at Midnight by Seanan McGuire

Title: Chimes at Midnight
Author: Seanan McGuire
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Series: October Daye # 7

Mass Market Paperback, 346 pages
Publication: September 3, 2013 by DAW

Source: Purchased for my own reading. 

Buy|Amazon|Book Depo|

Things are starting to look up for October "Toby" Daye. She's raining her squire, doing her job, and has finally allowed herself to grow closer to the local King of Cats. It seems like her life may finally be settling down...at least until dead changelings start appearing in the alleys of San Francisco, killed by an overdose of goblin fruit.

Toby's efforts to take the problem to the Queen of the Mists are met with harsh reprisals, leaving her under sentence of exile from her home and everyone she loves. Now Toby must find a way to reverse the Queens decree, get the goblin fruit off the streets--and, oh, yes, save her own life, since more than a few of her problems have once again followed her home. And then there's the question of the Queen herself, who seems increasingly unlikely to have a valid claim to the throne....

To find the answers, October and her friends will have to travel from the legendary Library of Stars into the hidden depths of the Kingdom of the Mists--and they'll have to do it fast, because time is running out. In faerie, some fates are worse than death.

October Daye is about to find out what they are.

 

Yah know I’m starting to run out of ways to describe how awesome the October Daye series is. Like seriously, this series is beyond amazing and it truly gets better with each installment...which leaves me a bit lost for words. Just when I think I’ve seen it all, or that surely the last book is the BEST, McGuire surprises me yet again. Chimes at Midnight, the 7th in the October Daye series answered many of the questions readers had since book 2 but unsurprisingly it also gave us a whole lot of new ones. Chimes at Midnight takes place approximately 3 months after the events of Ashes of Honor. With life going seemingly well October and the gang do the occasional stake out on the streets of San Francisco to monitor the distribution/movement of the Goblin Fruit after hearing of changelings going missing. Goblin Fruit is an addictive berry with drug-like qualities that are deadly to changelings and humans alike. After finding a dead changeling in an alley, October learns the hard truth that Changelings aren’t missing but they’re dead/or dying due to Goblin Fruit. And October only hope to stop the drug and protect the secrets of Faeries is to ask for help from the Queen in the Mist. But instead October learns that the Queen is the distributor and instead of helping, the Queen banishes October from the realm.

I really enjoyed the plot this time around, more than all the others. I’m a sucker for stories with lost prince/princess, a rebellion and political pandemonium…and Chimes at Midnight had all three!  Readers get to learn a lot more about the last king in the mist and will obviously meet his children that no one in Faerie knew about. Also we get to see first hand the affects of Goblin Fruit on a changeling. We’ve heard about Goblin Fruit since the beginning but never actually see it in effect; I thought that was pretty interesting (and crappy as heck).  And finally the big one, the mystery of Quentin’s fostering.  Many readers have speculated that Quentin comes from a rich-noble family but I was totally surprised at the big reveal. To be honest, I never thought much of his background…not till the last book at least lol.  His fostering is supposed to be hush-hush, but with the cat-out-of-the-bag, I’m excited how things will play out in subsequent books. There’s also a short-story at the end of the book that corresponds to a scene in the book, when Toby takes The Luidaeg’s blood pills and catches snippets of her memories (which involves Toby’s mom). Although it was a short-story, it left me wondering what did The Luidaeg know about Toby’s future that made her wait seven years to interfere with her sister and what IS Toby’s big destiny? I can’t wait to see where McGuire takes Toby’s new story arc! 

I highly recommend this series for those that haven’t read it yet, and to start at the beginning with Rosemary and Rue to see the full characters and world building development/growth (don’t recommend reading this series out of order). This series doesn’t disappoint, and if you’re looking for the best Urban Fantasy series out there, look no further because this is it! Now, on to the next October Daye novel, The Winter Long!