varjohaltia | Seanan McGuire: Ashes of Honor

Ashes of Honor is the latest installment in the October "Toby" Daye urban fantasy series from McGuire. The setting is present day San Francisco, except with a resident population of mythical creatures from Celtic and Asian folklore. So far, the setting has been devoid of vampires and werewolves.

The book doesn't immediately follow the events of the previous one, One Salt Sea, but rather picks up some months later. Nothing major happened in the period, but it's relevant for some of the relationship development. The plot is pretty standard for the series — a young changeling girl has vanished, and Toby needs to find her. Of course, Fae court plots and intrique end up making things much more complicated.

The novel was basically well written, McGuire continues to produce prose that easily carries you along for a fun ride. By now, the characters are familiar, and not too much effort is put into really developing them further, which is a bit of a mistake. No notable new lore is introduced either, although we learn few more bits about the Cait Sidhe and the Luidaeg.

Even worse, the novel feels uneven and rushed; the events are properly epic and amazing and all, but it still left me a little cold. The protagonist's behavior was a bit of an annoyance as well — I really liked the way McGuire addressed some of her character flaws, but she seems to have developed more to compensate. Finally, the witty one-liners and banter came across as artificial and forced, admittedly subjective, fine line.

There's very little exposition of the setting or characters, and consequently this isn't a book you should pick up to get into the series.

I'll certainly look forward to her next novel, but I'm hoping it's better than this one. Two and a half subjective stars; only because I've already been reading this series.

The book I got from Amazon was misprinted, and jumped from page 230 back to page 87 for a chunk of pages, so I'm missing about a chapter. If you get one, check it for misprints before gifting or putting it in your reading queue.