I finished the sixth book in the October Daye series just the other day, and since I’ve only had time to review the first book so far, I thought that I would make an October Day appreciation / bullet point reviews post since I love this series so very much! Since I haven’t made a post quite like this before, I played with the formatting a bit by making the purchase links smaller, as well as including a favourite quote from each book after each of my bullet point review! Thank you again to Milana @ A Couple Reads for introducing me to the very wonderful world of October Daye!

Title: A Local Habitation (Book 2)
Author: Seanan McGuire
Type: Fiction
Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Mystery, Fae
Publisher: DAW Books, Inc. (Penguin Random House)
Date published: March 2, 2010

• Sadly, this was my least favourite October Daye novel … but only because I didn’t particularly like the setting (a Fairy knowe that is an office building…)
• The plot itself was a creepy, (multiple) murder mystery set in Fairy, which is something that I’m always down for!
• And, it was nice to spend more time with the characters that I had grown to love in Rosemary and Rue.
• It was also great to see these characters (as well as their relationships with each other) develop over the course of this book.

     

“I’m an idiot. All I could do was hope that I wasn’t already too late. Sometimes hope is
the cruelest joke of all.”

― Seanan McGuire, A Local Habitation

Title: An Artificial Night (Book 3)
Author: Seanan McGuire
Type: Fiction
Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Mystery, Fae
Publisher: DAW Books, Inc. (Penguin Random House)
Date published: September 7, 2010

• While the second book in the series wasn’t the most enjoyable for me (for reasons outlined above), the third book might be my favourite!
• The second book may have been creepy, but the third book got even creepier … and I was all for it! My friend actually warned me that some parts were very creepy, but that just made me all the more excited!
• This book took place in a much more … Fairy kind of setting, with less urban locations (from what I remember).
• The magic and overall content of this book was also quite dark (which is a very good thing in my books … no pun intended)!
• And, lastly, the relationships between October and her allies (and enemies) developed yet further, and in a very satisfying way (well, when it comes to the allies, anyway). I was in sad and happy tears for the last third of this book!

     

“Children’s games are stronger than you remember once you’ve grown up and left them behind. They’re always fair, and never kind.”

― Seanan McGuire, An Artificial Night

Title: Late Eclipses (Book 4)
Author: Seanan McGuire
Type: Fiction
Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Mystery, Fae
Publisher: DAW Books, Inc. (Penguin Random House)
Date published: March 1, 2011

• This (the fourth) book in the series kind of blended together with the fifth book for me … probably because I binge-read them one right after the other.
• The plot was good in this one, and it definitely kept me interested. And I also think that the villains in this book also made me the most angry. I think there was a lot of cursing on my part while audiobooking parts of this book while driving in the car, haha.
• The characters visibly developed yet further in this book, and it was interesting to see my opinions of them change as this was happening.

     

“She did the best with what she had, and that’s all any of us can do. We’re handed the balance of our blood and the shape of our lives and told to do
something with them.”

― Seanan McGuire, Late Eclipses

Title: One Salt Sea (Book 5)
Author: Seanan McGuire
Type: Fiction
Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Mystery, Fae
Publisher: DAW Books, Inc. (Penguin Random House)
Date published: September 6, 2011

• I was very very excited to get to this (the fifth) book in the October Daye series ever since I noticed that October has a mermaid tail on the cover!
• I think that this might also be one of my favourite covers for that reason, as well as the more … peachy tones, haha. If you couldn’t tell by the colour scheme of my blog … I’m a big fan of peachy tones!
• The only reason why this book did not get a full five stars from me is because we didn’t get to spend as much time underwater as I’d hoped! I don’t think that this is spoiling anything, considering the cover … and the fact that I would have been happy with the whole book taking place underwater (so this wouldn’t really spoil the actual time that October spent underwater for you future readers)!
• The ending to this book was sad but also quite satisfying for me! And it made me eager to dive into the next book ASAP!

     

“I was getting tired of being in an endless succession of things called “the fight of a lifetime.” Just once, I’d like to have the fight of a Tuesday afternoon.”

― Seanan McGuire, One Salt Sea

Title: Ashes of Honor (Book 6)
Author: Seanan McGuire
Type: Fiction
Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Mystery, Fae
Publisher: DAW Books, Inc. (Penguin Random House)
Date published: September 4, 2012

• By the time I got to the middle of this book, I think that I’d binged too many October Daye book in a row, because I lost a bit of interest. I also had a lot of requested books to get through, so I took a bit of a break!
• The break was so worth it too, because once I dove back into Ashes of Honor, I was a lot more focused on and invested in the plot as well as the characters. I really missed them! Ahhhhhh!
• This book was definitely quite action-packed, and I don’t remember any parts that lagged at all! I also live for the ending of this book! But, I won’t tell you why … because of mega spoilers!
• Because of the ending of this book alone, this book and An Artificial Night are kind of in a tie for my favourite of the series so far!
• Once I finished this book, I dove right into book seven, so … get ready for another post like this for the next set of books very soon! I’m trying to get through all of them before Night and Silence (the twelfth book) comes out on September 4th of this year!

     

“I do so love how all magic comes with its share of dire warnings and unclear requirements … It’s like being on the stage, only there’s no director, and the understudies have all died of typhus.”

― Seanan McGuire, Ashes of Honor

– Short Stories –

These short stories are available for download on Seanan McGuire’s website!

Also, I recommend that you don’t read the synopses for these unless you are up to book 4 for the first one, book 5 for the second story, and book 6 for the third,
because there are definitely spoilers in the synopses!

Through this House (Book 4.5)

This was a fun and short read! And it was great to have this interlude between the intense plots of books 4 and 5. It was also great to learn a little bit more about faerie knowes (since they confused me a bit up to the point when I read this short story).

In Sea-Salt Tears (Book 5.1)

The content of this short story was a little surprising, and it was sad. But despite this, I did enjoy it, and I was happy to learn more about the Luidaeg / the sea witch! But, I won’t say more … because this one is super short, and saying more would basically be me summarizing the story for you all a.k.a. spoiling the whole thing!

No Sooner Met (Book 6.2)

This was the most fun to read out of all of the October Daye short stories that I’ve read so far! It was the same length as the others, but the content definitely made me happy! I was purring with happiness when I read the last word!

THANK YOU FOR READING MY OCTOBER DAYE APPRECIATION / MULTIPLE MINI REVIEW POST! HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE OCTOBER DAYE SERIES OR SEANAN MCGUIRE BEFORE THIS POST? HAVE YOU READ ANY OF THESE BOOKS, OR ARE THEY ON YOUR TBR LIST? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS!