ONCE BROKEN FAITH drops Toby into the middle of a high-tension political debate which will decide the fate of many people she cares about, now and in the future... and hands her a murder to solve. Every once in awhile Toby needs to have a locked house murder mystery, I think it's good for her, and this one is pretty great. It's a fantastic opportunity to see people under pressure, especially ones who Toby hasn't been around before. I love political wrangling, especially in a fantasy setting, so this was a real treat. The book doesn't focus on the political stuff quite as much as it could, because Toby does not care about the politics in less she is forced to, but I liked how much I got. One of my favorite things on the political side of the plot is that we get to hear what other people in Faerie think about some particular issues that we have mostly discussed from Toby's perspective, or from the perspective of those who love her. 

This wraps up a very major thing left hanging from the previous book (the entire reason this book exists is to wrap up this major thing) and it handles some more minor things along the way. It does have a storyline which starts in this book and was not present in the previous one. There are several major things that are introduced and resolved here. I think this does leave several things to be addressed in future books. Some of those are ones that earlier books established and this one merely did not resolve, but the conclusion here lays out something that will take a significant amount of time and a lot of work to complete, whether or not the main character is the one doing that work. As always with this series the MC is the same and her voice is pretty consistent with the previous books, but this one does take time to note that the kind of things she is worried about has changed since the start of the series because of the ways that she has changed. Because of this book's nature as a locked-Knowe murder mystery, I do think it would make sense for the most part if someone read it without having read any of the previous books. What it excels at is being a mid series catchup point for anyone who didn't start from the beginning but instead started with ONE SALT SEA (book 5) or with A RED-ROSE CHAIN (book 9). I had remarked in my review for A RED-ROSE CHAIN that either that book or its sequel would probably be a pivot point that would let someone join the series, and ONCE BROKEN FAITH bears that out. It greatly expands the way that the reader set up to think about Faerie, about the kingdoms, and the way they relate to each other, introducing us to a bunch of new characters and showing older ones in stressful situations. Admittedly I'm deep enough into these books that it might be hard for me to gauge whether they would make sense without all the backstory, but I'm very confident that the murder mystery angle of the plot will be very easy to follow for a new reader and that, at least, is self contained. The series is very good about having succinct summaries of what happened previously and why it matters, done in a way that conveys at least a little of the relevant emotional context without so many details as to confuse someone new. All of this done in a way that feels like reminding a returning reader of what they already know, neither talking down nor assuming they didn't remember. 

I like that Toby is pausing to think about the children and children-no-longer who are and have been under her care. In this book's capacity as an inflection point, the slumber party at the start of the book serves to remind us just how many teens and recent teens have had their lives changed by Toby. When thinking about these books as they exist as sequels to other books I don't want to lose track of the way that there's a lot of slow changes and really good character work happening in the background and the little moments of every entry in this series. I haven't mentioned Karen in these reviews, because she hasn't played a role that I felt needed to be mentioned specifically in any of the others, but she's been around since AN ARTIFICIAL NIGHT (book 3) and I think we're starting to hit the point where she's becoming a secondary character instead of a minor one. Her existence in the series has quietly made the difference in a number of books, and it feels like something's going on where we might be poised to learn that something more is going on with her powers, but whatever it is hasn't quite happened yet. Likewise Quentin and Raj had been fantastic characters to watch grow up. They matter so much to the fabric of this series because they matter to Toby, and whether they're more of minor characters or secondary characters in any one book doesn't matter much, because if you took them out the series would be the worse for it. The tension between Toby's need to care for people and the importance of their own autonomy is present in almost all her relationships, but it's most obvious in how she relates to to the various teens (and soon young adults) in her life, second only to the way it plays out with Tybalt. This book in particular showcases this tension with Quentin and with Tybalt, and one of the things I appreciate is that she is in frequent conversation with them about how things are going (even if they're not going well). 

A RED-ROSE CHAIN features a villain who uses the letter of the law to shred the spirit of the law until it is something tortured, mutilated, and utterly unrecognizable. Toby has three days to prevent a war, but discovers some prices are too high to pay, even for peace. 

There’s something kind of glorious in an utterly reprehensible villain. Someone presented at first as having done something bad, as being an antagonist, and then as the story builds and events unfold it becomes clear that they had so many opportunities to be good and instead decided to be cruel. There’s a twisted logic to it, something horribly consistent about it. Where the rules they found themselves with and what they’re willing to do means that in order to feel in control they extend pain, horror, and fear to everyone in their reach. The villain here is someone who by all the standards of Faerie could’ve had a quiet and good life, and instead decided to make everyone else miserable to fit his own agenda. By the time we get involved there is no question of the depths of his cruelty, only how much we could bear to learn in one book. He’s a villain by dint of never having enough, always wanting more, especially when “more” means that other people lose. I love this book, I hate the villain, and I like the ending. 

This wraps up a few major things left hanging from previous books. While the conditions for it the main storyline were set up previously, the inciting incident and all that follows are unique to this book, with some things introduced and resolved here. This is not the last book and there are definitely some things for later books to resolve. This is Toby’s series and she is still the narrator. Most of the plot would make sense if someone started with this and didn’t know about the rest of the series. The things that are necessary I explained pretty well, and because the rather dramatic inciting incident happens at the start of the book and is the kind of thing that would make sense even without the rest of the series, do do think someone could enjoy this if they picked it up at random. This is now deep enough in the series that I understand why someone might try to start partway through even though I don’t recommend it, but this feels like it’s definitely in the middle of an arc in the series. If you’re determined to begin in the middle, this represents a significant enough change in the status quo that it might be a good landing place. If I’m right about the cadence of the series either this or its direct sequel will probably be the kind of pivot point that would let someone join the series here without too much trouble. 

I have a few thoughts about the course of the series. This mentions something left hanging at the end of ONE SALT SEA that hasn’t been resolved yet, in a way that feels to me like a nudge to confirm that the author hasn’t forgotten about it, but in a way that works either as a reminder or a brief introduction to that bit of backstory if someone decided to start here. I am keeping my eye a few things that were put on pause for a specific duration that feel like their time is almost up, but I don’t know how quickly time will move between this book and the next. I guess that either next book or two books away will be the time, and I’m looking forward to seeing if I’m right. 

THE WINTER LONG is the bloody showdown we've been hurtling towards, and it does not disappoint. We finally meet the villain who transformed Toby's life, hammering home the lesson that nothing is ever simple in Faerie. Toby's relationships are changing, and some of those changes have been slowly happening for a while. I like that the characters are anything but static, even the ones who aren't personally changing are being seen by Toby in new ways and that shapes how the books treat everything they do. 

This wraps up a bunch of stuff from previous books, even/especially things where it wasn’t apparent earlier that anything was still left unresolved. it puts into place all these little pieces that felt like worldbuilding but actually pointed to this. If the author’s note is to be believed, then the point of all those other books was to arrive here, rather than it being that this book is some grand wrap-up of the previous ones. Its main story starts here and was not present in the previous books. The part I’m not sure about is whether anything major was introduced and resolved in this book. So much of it was technically introduced before, I just didn’t notice because the pieces weren’t together yet. There is a fairly straight line from the inciting incident in the book to this particular volumes conclusion, but the reason it matters is so completely nested in the content and context of the series thus far. It pulls this neat trick of simultaneously being its own story in terms of the specific plot and being the emotional/informational Big Damn Reveal of the series. It leaves at least one very important thing for later books to pick up, and probably even more tiny things that I can’t quite name right now, because the series does that really well. The main character didn’t change because it’s her series and she’s probably gonna be the only narrator. I think this would make sense if you hadn’t read the rest of the series, at least in terms of the specific plot, but I don’t recommend it. If you came here because the cover looked cool and you’d like to know if you can just jump in right here, don’t, at least go two books back please. This book re-contextualize some major things and events since the very start of the series, not in a way that breaks everything, but in a way that will make it probably a frustrating experience if you read just this book, and then try to go back to the start. However, having read the series up until this point, I am very excited for my eventual re-read in a year or two to try and catch all the things people couldn’t quite say but now I have the information to understand. 

I want May to do more (and May says she wants to do more), so hopefully some book soon will given her a more active role. It feels a bit like she needed to be around for some very specific things to happen and now they're either done or haven't happened yet (depending on how far the author planned ahead). I'm excited about recent developments with Quentin, and it's nice to see how revelations from the last book but they don't make him into an entirely different character. affect the way Toby interacts with him but they don't make him into an entirely different character. One of my favorite little things in this book is the way the Luidaeg and Tybalt's relationship has altered. I started noticing the change in the last book, but it's a lot more obvious here. I love getting to finally meet a certain character, this villain who has been in the shadow of Toby's mind, affecting many things she's done since the start of the series. The reveal of the mastermind behind so much of the grief and trauma that has filled the story so far is really well handled. For me it landed right in this sweet spot between fitting the clues and being obscure. It's just obvious enough that I can think back to all these things that could have warned me something was off, but not so obvious that I feel like I should have known.

I love this one, I think it does a complicated narrative trick really well: it had to make sense on its own, with enough of a self-contained narrative that there's a start, middle, and end that all makes sense if you've never read the rest of the series or if it's been a while and you're fuzzy on the details, but also it had to tie together a bunch of things going back to the very start of the series. I'm actually a little shocked at how well it pulls it off because that's a very complicated trick to do. Because I did read the rest of the series I don't know whether or not it would reliably convey the emotional weight to a reader who picked this up at random. If it doesn't, that's literally what the previous books are for, so it's definitely not a flaw either way. I am very confident that the main storyline and the events that specifically occur here would make sense even without that backstory. Whether or not you know why the antagonists are who they are, they do more than enough here to justify their place as villains. 

HALF-OFF RAGNAROK properly introduces Alex Price in true Price/Healy fashion: with a bunch of winged frogs and a mysterious death to investigate. This keeps the fun tone established earlier in this death-stalked series, but filtered through a different narrator than before. Alex is a little calmer than Verity (or at least less inclined to jump off of rooftops), and switching to follow him gives the series an opportunity to show someone maintaining a deeper cover. I liked getting to meet Alex properly, as well as spending time with some of the other members of the family. The mystery was engaging, I ended up guessing who but the “why” surprised me and fit the story really well. It was twisty enough to be very interesting and handled in a way where the eventual solution had that really good mix of feeling a little bit inevitable but still innovative. I love the sheer number of reptilian and reptile-adjacent Cryptids which filled this book, those were an exciting treat. 

On to the sequel check! I don’t think this really wraps up anything from the previous book. It does give a kind of status update to several things from the last one, but there was a rather dramatic event in the previous book that is too big to be concluded in a single volume. Almost all of the main story line starts in this book and was not present in the last one, except for that aforementioned follow-up, and features several things which are introduced and resolved here. It does leave a very major thing to be resolved later because the major development it inherited is not done yet. This is the first main character change in the series, and the voice is very distinct from the previous narrator. Most of the similarities they have are explained by being siblings, but they have entirely different ways of using all of that very deadly family knowledge, and that lets their individual personalities shine in their respective narrative styles. This story would definitely make sense if someone started here and didn’t already know about the series. I suspect that that will be true every time the narrator changes, as I understand that is a staple of the series. Either way it’s definitely true for this book that it would still make sense if read first. 

This was a lot of fun and I'm excited for the next one. I like the change in narrators, it lets different parts of the cryptid and cryptid-adjacent world shine without making it strain credulity that any one character would involved in absolutely everything of interest. 

MIDNIGHT BLUE-LIGHT SPECIAL has a relentlessly upbeat tone, somewhere between "laugh through the pain" and "if you keep smiling as a distraction they'll be easier to sucker-punch later". It's optimistic without being glib, a mood carried by the protagonist's attitude that an okay resolution to the current crisis could end up being one where she doesn't personally survive but her friends and the myriad cryptids of the city do. This creates a genuinely tense atmosphere without constantly feeling doomed. I love this attitude and it's handled really well here.

Now for the sequel check. This wraps up a pretty major thing left hanging by the first book. The storyline is dependent on a situation set up by the first one, but the actual main storyline is self-contained here. A very major thing is introduced and resolved within this book. Something very important is left open to be resolved later, or to at least get interesting updates on how it isn’t resolved yet. The MC is the same from the previous book, but there is a section with an alternate narrator and they feel very different from the main protagonist. This would definitely make sense if someone started with it and hadn’t read the first book, but it’s so early in the series that I would hope if someone picked this up and realized it was book to they were just curried book one. If they didn’t and they carried on anyway, they should have a good time because the relevant backstory is very neatly explained, and it’s also early enough in the series that we're still learning the lore and it isn’t yet too deep to wade through. 

I like this one a lot, it builds on the first book in some really great ways and I'm looking forward to reading more about the Price family. The chapter-header quotes are delightfully macabre and make me feel like I've already met a lot of the family even though the series hasn't formally introduced us yet. The world-building is handled really well, conveying the general mood and what kinds of things to expect, but staying away from being a massive list of every possible cryptid they might encounter.

CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT begins with upheaval and a race against the clock, then doubles down with a deadline etched in blood. A little past a third of the way through the book, I was thinking to myself that this all seemed too easy, too breezy for our long-suffering and self-sacrificing hero. I was concerned that the story might start feeling rote, though it wasn't quite yet. It did not stay easy. The way the characters handle the particular series of complications that arise out of a very shocking event instantly pulled me back in and I stayed engaged all the way to the end. The twist/event as it happens feels perfectly inevitable and foreseeable, and yet lands as a horrific surprise with devastating consequences. It turns a perennial thorn in Toby’s side into the main antagonist in a way that feels suitably epic for a clash that has been slowly building since the start of the series, but so immediately understandable that if someone came across this at random they would grasp the general shape of the conflict even without the weight of all that history. I like the new characters, I like the returning characters, I’m glad that May finally said something about having felt sidelined for the last several books because I was feeling that too. This is a solid entry in the series that feels like it heralds a shift in upcoming books. Pretty much every one of these has changed who is in charge of somewhere, but this time that attempt is the point of the plot and not seemingly an effect of whatever the characters were actually trying to do. This most recent change has been a long time coming and I'm glad it's here.

Time for the sequel check! This continues several things that were set up in previous books, perhaps most importantly one which was introduced and then seemingly went nowhere in the previous book, serving there just to further the development of a relationship, but it’s picked up here and has a much more central role. There is an adjacent but technically different major storyline which starts in this book and wasn’t present in any of the previous ones, as well as a very major thing which is introduced and resolved here. This is not the last book, and it leaves several things to be picked up in later volumes. The ends of the books in the series have a stylistic thing that I like very much, where somewhere in the last chapter or two, the main character will acknowledge major things that are currently unresolved. It’s not a list of everything, that would feel tedious and would break the fourth wall too much, but it’s nice as an acknowledgment that the character knows that the resolution in this book didn’t fix everything, didn’t close everything, and gives kind of an idea of what might be coming in the next few books. I like it as a style choice, especially in a long running series like this. The main character didn’t change, and I’m pretty sure isn’t going to change, and her voice is consistent with the previous books. I do think this book would make sense, at least mostly, if someone started with it random and hadn’t read the previous books. Just like the previous book would’ve been a pretty okay jumping in point for someone new to the series, I think this one is as well but in a different way. If someone told me they intended to start with this one I would recommend that they at least go back one book before moving forward, but starting here (or only going back this far if doing a re-read in anticipation of a new release) would be fine. One thing which distinguishes it from the previous entries is that Toby is in a relationship with a particular character from the start of the book, and this probably marks my last review where it will be possible to conceal who that is without talking in circles. As always I really do think people should start with the first book in the series, but this story would make sense as long as it’s not your first introduction to the fae and Faerie.

Every once in a while I read a book just because of the title, this time that was a very good decision. HOLD ME CLOSER, NECROMANCER is about a young man who discovers very abruptly that he's actually a sorcerer and his mother never told him.  Suddenly dealing with just enough power to get him in trouble but not enough to get him out of it, he has caught the attention of a very powerful and territorial necromancer who is still making up their mind whether to use him or just get rid of him altogether. Thoroughly irreverent but able to buckle down when things get serious, this was a fun ride.

The whole book has a wry sense of humor: understanding how serious things are but joking about it anyway. It's a "laugh at the darkness in order to not weep" sort of feeling, and it completely fits the protagonist's personality. It builds the world and what we need to know of the magic in a kind of haphazard way, more about how the characters need and react to the information than trying to lay out the rules for the reader. I like the choice to have the villain be a point of view character, he seems almost cartoonishly evil when he’s around the main character because his goals are so antithetical to everyone else’s happiness that he could easily have felt overplayed or one-note in his dealings with Sam. Getting his perspective and goals in his own words didn’t make me like him any better as a person, but it made him a much fuller character and I think it worked well.

ASHES OF HONOR follows Toby following a scared teleporting teenager across the Realms to try and help them come home, while working through her own grief after the events of ONE SALT SEA.

There's always been a lot of attention paid to the logistics of how to get where in this series (which I appreciate), and since this book involves chasing someone who can travel much more easily than the protagonist can on her own, that means that at times this book felt like it might be fifty percent travel. That travel is rarely (possibly never) spent alone, and is used for a lot of great character-development and relationship-building... but wow was it a lot of travel. 

It continues the grand tradition of changing who is in charge of somewhere I think at least once per book so far, I'm very pleased with the most recent adjustment. I'm extremely happy with the way a certain relationship has developed now that one character has exited the series. Actually, I'm not just happy, I'm ecstatic. Only my efforts to reduce the number of spoilers as much as possible is sparing you from my detailed and gushing praise of how much this relationship has changed and grown throughout the series, and how it feels like precisely the right time for the move made here. It feels like something that took a long time but happened naturally, and I'm so happy for them. The world-building continues to be excellent, and it feels like each book introduces us to just as many new characters as we can reasonably handle, letting some of the now massive cast of characters be in the background sometimes. I'm looking forward to seeing more of the characters who are the focus of this book, both new and old. It takes some time to process and reflect on some revelations from the last book, and I liked the brief but necessary attention paid even though it's been a year since we last saw everyone.

Now for the sequel check. I'm not sure if this really wraps up anything from the previous books. It did get a certain relationship to progress in a very satisfying and important way, but this book was mainly focused on continuing several things that I hadn't really thought of as being open. We learned a lot more about a character who had been kind of one-note so far (not boring, just predictable), and we get to see more of the residents of a place first introduced several books ago, along with their leader (returning for them, new for us). The whole main storyline starts in this book and wasn't present previously, and it's both introduced and resolved within this book. As for whether it leaves things for sequels to address... technically yes, but mainly in that relationship I mentioned earlier, I'm Very interested to see where that goes. The main character is the same as the previous books and her voice is consistent throughout the series so far. This would definitely make sense if someone picked it up at random. The main pieces of backstory which need explanation are handled really well, and because it introduces a new side of a character we don't know well and a brand new character who will probably matter a lot going forward, it's an idea jumping on point for people new to the series. As someone who's read the previous books I thought at first that it felt like a filler arc, but it's actually doing some very important things for the structure of the series. There need to be stories at regular intervals in a long-running series where someone could jump in if they want to, where they wouldn't have to go back to the very start if they just wanted to know enough for the most recent book to make sense. This feels like that kind of book. It's fully grounded in the world, it gives returning readers some very, very satisfying updates and a lot of new world-building, but also since this is the book where we meet one character and get to know another way better than we did before, it wouldn't matter much if a new reader hadn't known anyone of them at all. Obviously things will make more sense if you've read the whole series, but as a mid-series point to jump in, this one feels good. 

It's not my favorite entry in the series, but it's one that feels structurally important for the longevity of the series as a whole, and I like where it went.

The ableism lingers in just a few places but it’s not totally gone yet. It’s definitely way less than in the earlier books, now limited to occasionally commenting on the relative sanity of the antagonists. 

WHO I WAS WITH HER follows a teenager who finds out her secret girlfriend has died, and doesn't know how to move on when almost no one knows they were together. 

This is a story about agency, about a girl growing up and learning to make certain decisions for herself. The title is "Who I Was With Her" and I had assumed we would learn a lot more about "Her" (Maggie). Instead we have a lot more "I", following Corey's stress and fears, the way she feels like she has nothing to talk about with her friends because of this big thing she can't say... Ultimately the story is more about Corey learning to be her own person and not trying to fit what other people want, than it is about the actual girl who died. Corey's dreams were wrapped up in visions of them together in the college-bound future and now she has to figure out what she wants her life to look like when she's not running after someone else. I wish we knew more about Maggie, but ultimately the book isn't really about her, it's about who Corey was with Maggie, and who she's going to be after.

Where LATE ECLIPSES was a brief landing to wrap up major threads from the first three books, ONE SALT SEA is a point of inflection. It changes the status of various relationships: rivalries, loves, and lurking villains alike, and makes Toby more aware of long-standing and slow-moving forces with debts finally coming due. As a pair of books, they feel distinct from the first three because they’re straddled between wrapping up large plot points and deep grudges, and making space for Toby to tackle new problems in the future. Certain characters have had a constant presence until now, either frequently appearing on the page or taking up a great deal of Toby’s thoughts and emotional bandwidth in the background, and this feels like a moment of clearing the air and finally dealing with hanging threads, good and bad. 

I loved the introduction to the Undersea, I hope to see more of it in the future though Toby’s fear of water will likely reduce how often that can plausibly occur. I hadn’t been tracking this specifically until now, but I think every book so far has introduced at least one new magical location, gradually building the world as it’s needed rather that flooding readers with a list of all the places they might eventually go in the series. The mix of characters who have different levels of knowledge even though they’re all at least partially fae helps to mean that explanations feel like either brief and unobtrusive recaps or they’re fascinating discussions, as there’s always a natural reason to need to offer this explanation at that particular moment. 

On to the sequel check! This book wraps up a bunch of very major things from the previous book. It either addresses them completely or puts them in a state that feels like it could be on pause briefly or for the rest of the series (things are tricky when not even death is necessarily final in these books). It has a major storyline which wasn't present in the previous books. There's definitely an episodic nature to this series, where even if many things continue there's always whatever big problem Toby has to solve that was a big enough event to fill a book about it. There are several major things which are introduced and resolved within this book. The ending explicitly leaves things to be picked up later, I don't know if they'll necessarily be addressed in the very next book, but this series has been good about having some kind of succinct sum-up of a few major things which are still unresolved when the book ends. The MC is still the same person, I don't anticipate that changing since the series is named for her. Her voice has been consistent through the series so far. Because of the way this book feels like an inflection point, I actually think this would mostly make sense if someone picked it up at random without knowing about the series. The necessary background details are explained enough to give context without feeling like infodumps, and the main plot is introducing a new realm and new players in a way that feels like a pretty good mid-series introduction. 

I like this one a lot and I'm very excited to keep reading the series. The ending has some fascinating information with cool (but also sad) implications for future developments.