Review: Chimes at Midnight (October Daye #7) by Seanan McGuire

Chimes at Midnight by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the seventh book in a series I'm hopelessly in love with. Every time, I say they get better with each book, and every time, it continues to be true. Each book advances the worldbuilding, develops the characters, reveals plot lines that have been building all series, and thoroughly entertain me. This is how you write a series. Epic fantasy writers, take note.

This book has Toby getting to the bottom of the goblin fruit trade. She uncovers that it's killing changelings, and goes to the Queen to sort it out. Instead, she's banished. She has three days to pack up and go. This being Toby, she isn't about to meekly slink off. Instead, she uses the resources she's been building all series to research how to wriggle out of it. Along the way, she nearly dies several times (but what else is new?), finds new corners of the realm, visits the library, and gets hit in the face with an evil pie.

She also finds out who Quentin's parents are, so, if you've been looking forward to that revelation, it's in this book.

My favorite part of the book is finding out my cat is aptly named. About a year ago, I adopted a brown tabby, and I named him after Tybalt. He's vocal and loyal, and extremely affectionate. He's also distressed if I'm out of his sight for any period of time, and not a fan of dogs or car rides. The fictional Tybalt displays all of these characteristics (though his affection is of a different kind), and, every time he acted like my little Tybalt, it made me happy.

I'm also convinced that the dog park mentions (there are two in so many pages) are Night Vale references. I don't think Ms. McGuire started listening to the podcast until after the final edits were in on this book, but, if nothing else, it might add to her personal amusement. It certainly enhanced mine.

Much is changed of Toby's world in this book, and we get some hints about where this might be leading, or what might have led up to the current situation. I could speculate, but I'd much rather just wait until the next book comes out in a year, and be surprised.

I love this series.


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