Probably my fifth reread of this book. As an introduction to a long series, this was a great book. It touched on several overarching plot themes and met a lot of characters you will see throughout the series, establishing a good baseline for all of it without being overly informative like a lot of fantasy series can be. The story is set in recent day (catching up to modern 2024) San Fransisco giving a familiar feel to the story and allowing the reader to balance the new magic and fae system and references with something more familiar. Out of this series, it’s not the best, but is close. There are times when you’ll love October, the main character and times when you’ll chastise her, giving her a very 3 dimensional feeling. As detective novels go, I would say it’s intermediate. The twists aren’t too predictable, and if you’re reading it for the first time, you may not ever see the end coming (I remember not expecting that twist until October starts puzzling it together). As fae series goes, I’d say it’s really good. It blends common knowledge with more niche references to fae folklore easily and only scratches the surface of larger themes and ideas as it should being the first of a long series. The sex scenes are fade to black, and the only real graphic moments are of fantasy violence. 

I've been following Seanan McGuire on social media for several years, and she's always been upfront that this book has some issues. She's said it's kind of a rough start to the series and contains language and attitudes she would edit out if she could. I have read far worse things. This was a fun and snappy popcorn read - extremely readable and entertaining. I've never read a urban fantasy book before and I found it to be fun. 

It's not perfect. We have a prologue that leads into a 14-and-a-half years timeskip that really felt like starting the story off by smacking into a pothole due to a lack of explanation. The story then later gives us the infodump of how that 14+ year situation resolved in a dream sequence, which was, certainly a choice. Our protagonist really has no self preservation instinct and almost bleeds to death multiple times. I felt the plot struggled a little because it had to introduce so many characters to us, not all of whom are big movers and shakers in this particular story. But I never felt like putting the book down. Even if I was a touch annoyed at how slowly we collected clues for the mystery, I just kept reading. I found myself thinking about the story and the characters at work. I just had to know more, and as soon as I finished this book I picked up the second book in the series without even pausing to mark this one off as "finished." 

[Side note, I've heard Seanan McGuire talk about the language issues in this book and early series before, it's probably that she kept negativity comparing things to "hookers" and women kept calling each other bitches.]

I had fun with this one. I always love fae stories.

Rep: white female MC with PTSD, Asian coded female side character, various other fae race side characters.

CWs: Blood, confinement (in a pond as a fish), death, grief, gun violence, injury/injury detail, kidnapping/attempted kidnapping, medical content, murder, racism (within the fae there is discrimination and prejudice towards changelings and half fae), toxic relationship, violence, emotional abuse. Moderate: Ableism, child death, gore, sexual content. Brief: Dementia.