Night and Silence (October Daye, #12)

by Seanan McGuire

Now in hardcover, the twelfth installment of the Hugo-nominated, New York Times-bestselling Toby Daye urban fantasy series!

Things are not okay.

In the aftermath of Amandine's latest betrayal, October "Toby" Daye's fragile self-made family is on the verge of coming apart at the seams. Jazz can't sleep, Sylvester doesn't want to see her, and worst of all, Tybalt has withdrawn from her entirely, retreating into the Court of Cats as he tries to recover from his abduction. Toby is floundering, unable to help the people she loves most heal. She needs a distraction. She needs a quest.

What she doesn't need is the abduction of her estranged human daughter, Gillian. What she doesn't need is to be accused of kidnapping her own child by her ex-boyfriend and his new wife, who seems to be harboring secrets of her own. There's no question of whether she'll take the case. The only question is whether she's emotionally prepared to survive it.

Signs of Faerie's involvement are everywhere, and it's going to take all Toby's nerve and all her allies to get her through this web of old secrets, older hatreds, and new deceits. If she can't find Gillian before time runs out, her own child will pay the price.

Two questions remain: Who in Faerie remembered Gillian existed? And what do they stand to gain?

No matter how this ends, Toby's life will never be the same.

• ISBN10: 0756414768
• ISBN13: 9780756414764
• Publish Date: 4 September 2018
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: DAW Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 368
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780756414764

Reviews

[Quirky Cat]

Night and Silence is the twelveth novel in the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire. And our girl is still getting herself into a whole new world of trouble. It's both impressive and terrifying. But at least it makes for a good story for us all to read.
This novel, like so many previously, brings some of Toby's story full circle. In this instance, she likely would have preferred to leave things well enough alone. You see, once again Toby faces a world in which her daughter has been abducted. Again. And this time around her daughter is wholly human, and not able to defend herself.
So it's up to Toby to find her daughter and find her quickly. The real question is, who is behind it this time? We can only hope it was a human, and not one of Toby's many enemies. But we all know that it's unlikely to be the case.
This novel also follows the tradition of the last few, including a novella at the end. This one is titled Suffer A Sea-Change, and can't really be described without spoiling the conclusion for Night and Silence. So do make sure to read things in the correct order!
“You lost a great deal of blood.” “I didn’t lose it,” I said. “I know exactly where it is.” (Seanan McGuire, Night and Silence).

Night and Silence is an intense read, especially following the events of the previous novel. Toby and her family are still trying to recover, but it's clear that the universe isn't willing to give them that break.
It also seems like Gillian can't catch a break either. First, her mom went missing. Then, years and years later, she got abducted. And now the whole thing is happening all over again. I'd say that I was hoping this would be the last time it happens, but that would feel like I was rooting for her to die (because that's the only way I see this ever ending).
I think, in a way, that Toby needed a quest to distract her. I know that Tybalt did. I don't think either of them wanted a quest quite like this one, however. I know that Tybalt never would have wished this on Gillian, even if it did help him get out of the cycle he had trapped himself in.
On the bright side, this novel does start off on a slightly more cheerful note. I don't think Danny can be involved and not have it be cheerful. Not when little critters running loose are involved, at least. But maybe I shouldn't say that, it sounds too much like a challenge.
The pacing of this novel is pretty fast, and Toby is really put through the wringer in this one. As were all of the people that love and support her. And it was heartwarming to see how many people stepped up in an effort to help Toby. Even if they could only help a little bit – it still clearly meant the world to her.
There were some shockingly emotional revelations in this novel. There were also some unexpected twists, which I won't dig into too much. Let's just say that I've officially found a new character that I love to hate. And I'm not going to feel guilty about feeling that way. Because she deserves it if you ask me.
The conclusion of this novel was rough. It was beautiful. But it was still rough. There were a lot of things happening, and a lot of people stepping up. I think what the Luidaeg did – at no cost – is what hit me hardest. There was something in it that just really touched me, so I can't imagine how it made Toby feel.
Now there's just one novel left in the series and I'll be caught up. I'm actually more than a little bit sad by that. At least there's the novellas and short stories to read. And the fact that the series is clearly not over yet.

Suffer A Sea-Change is the novella immediately following the conclusion of Night and Silence. Actually, some of the events overlap. So if you don't want spoilers, don't skip ahead and read it. Because it is super spoilery, I'm going to try and be as vague as possible here.
It was interesting to see Gillian's perspective on these events. I wish I could say that I like her more, having seen things from her eyes. But I don't. I don't dislike her, per se, but I don't like her either. I know she's been through a lot though, so I'm willing to give her more benefit of the doubt than I'm inclined to give.
I will say that it's interesting seeing the same events from the eyes of a person who is human. And thus literally can't see some of what was happening. It's an interesting viewpoint to include, and went a long way in reminding us of what happens to humans when the fae chose to target them.
I'm happy that this one got included at the end of Night and Silence. Now nobody will stumble upon it by mistake. And once again, it makes me realize that I really need to read the rest of the novellas for this series.

For more reviews check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[llamareads]

I’ve been following October Daye’s adventures from the very first book, and now twelve books in, I can only say that this series just keeps getting better. I will admit that when I read the blurb, I was a bit put-off – Gillian’s been kidnapped again? Toby’s (non-) relationship with her estranged daughter has been one of my least favorite parts of the series, so the prospect of a book rehashing that all again was not very appealing to me, and I went into this expecting to enjoy the individual bits and pieces (like Toby, May, Danny, and Quentin catching flying faerie pigs in an upscale SF neighborhood) even if I didn’t care for the overall plot. Well, my fears were unfounded, because instead I found another fascinating take on family – the families we make versus the ones we are born into – in a thematic continuation of the last book.

“You’re not alone anymore,” he said softly.

When the book starts, the repercussions from The Brightest Fell are still being felt – one large one being that Tybalt has PTSD from Amandine’s imprisonment, and even Toby’s resemblance to her mother is enough to trigger it, so he’s avoiding her and any attempt at help. Toby’s actually rather introspective at being on the wrong end of the “I can handle my problems MYSELF!” stick, so while she’s happy for some work to get her mind off of her relationship problems, the last thing she needs is her ex and his new wife showing up on her doorstep and accusing her of kidnapping Gillian from UC Berkeley, where she attends college. Toby, of course, rushes off to investigate, and as the clues pile up, it’s clear that the perpetrator is someone in Faerie. But where the kidnappers targeting Toby herself, or is there more at work than meets the eye?

“No matter how far we run, we never get away from family.”

I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings about Toby and Gillian’s relationship – when the book starts, she didn’t even know that Gillian was attending college, let alone which one – and while I’ve come to understand and sympathize with her reasons for walking away from a daughter she obviously loves so much, it’s never sat quite right with me. The interesting thing, though, is that Toby is a much different person now than she was when back in Rosemary and Rue, and she’s got a wealth of friends and found family to back her up (or be used as hostages, as she found in the last book). At one point, Toby describes her early self as a Nancy Drew knock-off, and it’s a fairly accurate description, and a reminder of another of my favorite parts of this series: Toby grows and changes, and you can never expect exactly what will happen. The broken Toby who came back to the human world after fifteen years as a koi is very different from the Toby who’s deposed two monarchs and defeated a Firstborn, or, more importantly, the Toby who, at the end of a long day, looks forward to returning home to her house to her Fetch and her girlfriend, her squire and his friends, and her fiancé. What we’re reminded of, most importantly, through the book and the novella that follows, is that there’s more than one side to every story, and sometimes people have REASONS.

“Um, this is Toby,” said Quentin. “We’re always about to die. When we’re not about to die, we’re still about to be about to die. She’s like a Rube Goldberg machine whose only job is generating life-threatening situations.”

Please note the all-caps on that “reasons,” because about halfway through the book, there’s a humongous plot twist that puts a lot of things into a new light, including Toby’s relationship with Gillian, which, needless to say, I felt a lot differently about at the end of the book. Beyond the unexpectedness, there’s the same tight mystery plot I’ve come to expect, and the same cast of characters I’ve grown to love, including Walther, Arden, Danny, and, of course, the Luidaeg. I am continuously wowed by how Ms. McGuire never seems to phone these books in, despite writing one a year for the past twelve years – there’s always a new fully-formed area of Faerie to explore or a new revelation to rip open Toby’s world. The worst part about reading these books? Knowing that I’ll have to wait until next September for another one!

“Well,” said May, after a long pause. “You’ve pissed off the Queen who’s actually in charge of us and convinced a Queen who isn’t that she should help us out. That’s … pretty true to form. You’re still you. I just checked.”

I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.