Reality Bypass

Book Review: Rosemary and Rue – Seanan McGuire March 17, 2010

Recently the husband and I went to DisneyWorld for our anniversary celebration.  As we were going through one of the security lines the cast member looking through our bags stopped at the pocket which was full of books and said, “Why do you have all these books, you’re on vacation?!?”

I suppose for many people reading is seen as something you only do when you must, not a part of a vacation at Disney.  For us we wouldn’t do any vacation without at least a handful of paperbacks.  This trip I finished almost five. 

One of the books I took on was Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire.  This is a good book to talk about for St Patrick’s day since it’s all about fairies and changelings and that’s a land with a rich history of both.  Part of what I loved about this book was the focus on just the fae.  It was nice not to see a vampire in sight and instead dealing with a wide range of fairy and changelings each type with specific rules that were familiar from myth, but with their own special twists.

October Daye is a Changeling, the daughter of a mortal man and an immortal Sidhe woman.  She is a knight and a defender of her lord’s realm and…umm…has been lost in a pond for fourteen long years.  When she finds herself again her world is very different.  Her daughter is a teenager who wants nothing to do with her.  Her mortal husband is in the same boat.  Then October’s friend, Evening, dies and binds Toby to find out the nature of this death…Toby has no choice and the past and the present collide.  This is a story of a woman finding herself all over again and deciding what parts of her past are something she wants to find again and what things are better left in the pond.

It was a fast read and while there were a few moments where I wanted to slap Toby around, mostly I understood why she was doing what she was doing and I feel like the information pertaining to the mystery was well paced.  There are many of the secondary characters who I’m really hoping to see again in future books, as I feel like they have strong stories to tell and Toby is made stronger by having them there for the most part.  Connor I want to slap to sleep, but maybe that’s just me.

I’ll be getting A Local Habitation (book 2)…I’m sure there are more trips coming up!

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Age:  16+

Content: Violence, mild sexuality

Overall: 4/5  paws