Review: Rosemary & Rue by Seanan McGuire

Rosemary and Rue (October Daye, Book 1)
Title:
Rosemary & Rue
Author:

Seanan McGuire
Series:
October Daye
Rating:
Publisher:
DAW
Year Published:
2009
Genre
Urban Fantasy;
Paranormal;
Magic;
Supernatural:
Fantasy
Why Picked:
Gift
Number of Pages:
368
Fiction/
Non- Fiction:
Fiction
Summary:
October “Toby” Daye, a changeling who is half human and half fae, has been an outsider from birth. After getting burned by both sides of her heritage, Toby has denied the Faerie world, retreating to a “normal” life. Unfortunately for her, the Faerie world has other ideas…
The murder of Countess Evening Winterrose pulls Toby back into the fae world. Unable to resist Evening’s dying curse, which binds her to investigate, Toby must resume her former position as knight errant and renew old alliances. As she steps back into fae society, dealing with a cast of characters not entirely good or evil, she realizes that more than her own life will be forfeited if she cannot find Evening’s killer.
Review:
This book was a nice break from the “meh” books I have been reading.  This book took a bit of reading but by the 50 page cut off I was interested and kept going. The summary doesn’t mention the circumstances which lead to Toby rejecting fairy but they have to do with a fae curse and losing years of her life.  As always I enjoy stories which understand that fairy is not all glitter and light and love and Disney.  This story manages that in spades.  Most of the fae are dark or at least have a dark underbelly.
The Toby character is not one that I was instantly in love with but over the course of the book as you got to know more and more of her back story her walls and anger because understandable and she in turn becomes more relate-able. A comment that many reviewers have noted was the myriad of “Toby gets beat up and almost dies” plot points.  This was disappointing as the story opened with a great you didn’t die but might have wished you did plot point.
The minor characters were even more interesting at times then Toby.  Tybalt, King of the Cats; Duke Sylvester Torquill, her Liege Lord and Duke of the Shadowed Hills; Spike, a rose goblin; Luna, Dare, Manuel, and so many more. I have mentioned before that I am a sucker for good characters and so I will be picking up the next in the series.