Review: One Salt Sea

One Salt Sea by Seanan McGuire

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



These books keep getting better and better.

That is not to say that the previous books sucked. On the contrary, they keep building upon one another, expanding the mythology and world-building and character development. This book would not be as excellent as it is without four previous books to build upon. But, as the latest installment in a series I run out to buy the day it comes out, it just keeps getting better.

This book has Toby trying to stop a war between Undersea and the not-all-there Queen of the Mists, which involves finding two kids who have gone missing, and who the Duchess thinks the Queen stole. Right around the halfway point, though, the stakes are raised, and it gets way more personal than that for October Daye.

After I read about 100 pages in, I needed my husband to comfort me that there was any point in my writing anything, because I would never be this good. It's tightly-plotted, the pacing is perfect, and McGuire knows her characters through and through by now. There were a lot of the elements I liked from previous books, and Tybalt, everyone's favorite Cait Sidhe, is downright charming in this one. Toby remains snarky and pricklier the longer she goes without coffee, and her friends remain a motley, unpredictable bunch who can still be counted on to have her back, no matter what. There were a lot of laugh-out-loud lines, and they're not all Toby's.

All-in-all, the only disappointment I have with this series is how few people I know offline who I can talk to about how awesome it is. If you like fantasy elements, if you enjoy a touch of fairy tale in your fiction, if you like well-realized characters in a fully-developed world and a well-plotted story, you should read it. ALL of it. You have a whole year to catch up before the next one comes out.

Me, I'll be biding the time by rereading what I have of the series and trying not to think about how long 365 days is.



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Previous books by Seanan McGuire reviewed by me:
A Local Habitation
An Artificial Night
Late Eclipses