The Innocent Sleep (October Daye #18)

The Innocent Sleep by Seanan McGuire

First of all, I don't usually do star ratings on here, but this book gets stars, so many stars, all the stars. Book 17, Sleep No More, takes place at the same time as this one but with October as our usual point of view for the series. THIS book, released just a month later, shows us Tybalt's point of view on those same events, and it is so incredibly good. I read it in a day, I was laughing and crying. I've loved Tybalt pretty much since day 1, so a whole book from the perspective of my favorite Cait Sidhe was like Christmas came early.

We've seen in past books that October is one of Tybalt's vulnerabilities. We've also seen that Faerie can be unkind to shapeshifters. Both of those get put into play in big ways, and Tybalt has to assemble a ragtag bunch of allies to try and put things back to right while fulfilling his duties to the Court of Cats. We get to see him be clever, compassionate, responsible, fragile, angry (so much angry!), and just a whole range of responses to the chaos that Faerie has found itself in.

The novella at the end of this book is from Helmi's perspective. Her story spans hundreds of years, which is remarkably well done given how short novellas are, and adds valuable context to what we know about the Duchy of Saltmist, and it's ducal family, both past and present. McGuire is a skilled world builder, and she adds a lot of richness to the Undersea with this one.

The Innocent Sleep is another great installment in the October Daye saga, and is right up there among my favorites of the series so far. I wrote in my review about Sleep No More that it was 'essentially a book about what family is and holding fast to it when you've found it,' and that is 100% true for this book as well, it's just told from Tybalt's side of things. A gripping read that is by turns bleak and hopeful.