Review: The Brightest Fell

The Brightest Fell by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from the author.

“Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
yet grace must still look so."

-Wm. Shakespeare, in which Macbeth, speaking to MacDuff, references Lucifer’s fall, and probingly acknowledges that people who appear to be graceful can still be quite foul.*


4.5 Stars

Note: This review assumes that you are current with all the Toby Daye books and most, if not all, of the shorts bound in the books. If you aren't, just stop, because you won't even understand what is going on in this book.

This latest installment of the October Daye series has me questioning so many things I thought I knew about Toby’s extended family that I am still reeling almost two months after reading the ARC. As we know from the blurb, which has been around for months, Amandine shows up, demanding that Toby find her long lost half-sister, August. She takes Tybalt and Jazz hostage to guarantee results, and this terrible scenario forces Toby to partner with August’s father, Simon Torquill, her liege Sylvester’s elf-shot and utterly disgraced brother, who stole 14 years of Toby's life. Forging a bargain with Sylvester to gain Simon’s aid, Toby goes in search of August, dreading every hour that passes with Tybalt and Jazz existing as captives in unknown conditions. Toby’s quest to find her sister, following a now-cold trail more than a century old, recover her fiancé and her sister May’s lover, will challenge her on a more deeply personal level than any previous outing in the series. Along the way, we see that October's inherent kindness and fairness, perceived by some to be a flaw, has made lasting impressions, creating allies where she might not have expected them.

Did you ever, like me, feel angry at Sylvester Torquill for his keeping his promises to Amy rather than giving Toby, who was supposed to be like a daughter to him, all the facts about her early life and her mother? Did you hate Simon Torquill for his having turned Toby into a fish, an act which he assured us only a few books ago, was the safest thing he could do to her, given what he was tasked with doing by Eira? Did you feel sorry for poor crazy Amy, mysteriously called by the ugly name “Amandine the Liar,” by so many in Faerie? Did you think that Eira killed Toby's sister August, or stranded her in some horrible Old Road or collapsed shallowing off Annwn and that August couldn’t escape, oh, the poor dear girl?

With twists almost as shocking as those in The Winter Long, The Brightest Fell delivers you to a place that will make you reconsider much of what you thought you knew about October’s family. And some of it will certainly break your heart.

Buckle your seatbelts.



*He ain't kidding.





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