Let me start by saying that I requested this book after seeing the authors name-I’d been interested in her work for a while and thought free NetGalley arc-yes please! What I didn’t bother to read was that this was book 18 of a clearly well established series-my bad. Anyway my lack of knowledge of the series may be somewhat of a blessing in this case as the story starts with Tybalt-king of cats and husband of October (the main character of this gargantuan series of books) being rather confused as to why his wife has just vanished out of existence and nothing else in his world is quite as it should be. I cant give a fair review for this book other than to say it’s really made me want to read the preceding books and I’ve since purchased Rosemary and Rue (book 1) so if nothing else it intrigued me enough to spend my hard earned cash on it!

Set immediately after Sleep No More, this book kept me on my toes. Really enjoyed seeing everything more in depthly from Tybalt’s POV. I hope this series keeps going as I really enjoy it!

This is one of those books that you must have a working knowledge of the rest of the series to truly enjoy, but oh is it worth it

Joe and I share a love of Seanan McGuire's October Daye series, and while he does the honours of the full Nerds of a Feather reviews, I also found time for both of last year's double-Toby entries, Sleep No More and The Innocent Sleep. These are the 17th and 18th books in the series respectively, and they effectively act as companion novels to each other: Sleep No More follows series protagonist October - a fae changeling - as she grapples with the effects of a reality-altering mass illusion, while The Innocent Sleep breaks with series tradition to focus on her Cait Sidhe husband Tybalt, who is working against the illusion from the outside. The actual points of narrative overlap didn't set my world on fire (In one book, October thinks Tybalt looks angry! In the next book, we learn Tybalt is angry!), but the double-bill allows McGuire to let loose with the most unsavoury conventions and darkest corners of fae society in a way that brings the series full circle to its earliest vibes. There's also more time across the books to feature a wide set of supporting characters - including one unexpectedly sympathetic "recast" - who demonstrate the breadth of the series' worldbuilding. As always, I'm eager for more.

This is NOT the first book you want to read in this series. If you are interested in a snarky and reluctant hero, long-reaching plot with a bajillion dropped hints, and badass Shakespeare and folklore references....go pick up book 1, Rosemary and Rue.

Now. For those who are still with me.

The Innocent Sleep is the events of the previous book from Tybalt's point of view. Because Toby and Tybalt are separated for months, there are actually very few replicated scenes between the two. A large portion of The Innocent Sleep shows what misery Tybalt goes through in the four months that Toby got to gloss over in Titania's illusion world. It is artfully woven with the events of SNM so the story feels fresh, even knowing how things will turn out.

I have seen a lot of mixed reactions to Tybalt's POV of the SNM/TIS. Readers who don't like how violent Tybalt is. How possessive and angry and unpleasant. I have also seen plenty of "He's a different species, and he's really stressed, so it's okay." I think it's important to recognize that Tybalt is not usually this extreme in his actions. I have read all of his prequel stories through Patreon, and it is clear that this is not his typical state of being. It is his reaction when pushed to the very breaking point. I am still firmly Team Tybalt with the knowledge that Toby is quick to call him on his bullshit and knows the signs of an abusive partner.

Now to wait the better part of a year for the next installment....

This is a perfectly lovely "b-side" to Sleep No More, following Tybalt's POV through the same stretch of story. It's a great addition to have to see more of what was going on that October wasn't privy to, and interesting to dig more into the people who the illusory world rejected. That said, it also didn't feel necessary; there was no tension and little drama, because we already knew what was going to happen at the key points the story intersected, and it ended at the exact same place. So it was a nice to have but it didn't really feel like a new and unique story; I wondered if it might not have been better as a single 2-pov book or perhaps an addition of a novella to cover just certain key parts about what he was doing behind the scenes.

Tybalt, King of Cats has everything he has ever wanted. As he is on the cusp of his ultimate happiness, Titania upends his world and remakes it so that there is no place for him, his court or others that don’t meet her idea of a perfect faerie. Tybalt must race to protect his people and his future while trying to convince the woman he loves that her life is an illusion.

Initially I thought it might be a bit repetitive to read essentially the same story from a different character’s point of view but it was not. This very clever novel reveals other aspects of the story and overlaps seamlessly with Sleep No More. McGuire is a master storyteller. This is a great read and addition to the series. Highly recommend. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and DAW for an advanced readers copy of this book.

Book Summary:

Tybalt is the King of Cats. He is also no stranger to pain and loss. It all fell apart when it finally seemed like everything was going his way. One moment, he was reveling in the glorious news from his new wife. The next, she was screaming, and the world faded to black.

Titania has rewritten the world to her liking. Unfortunately for her, her magic can only spread so far. Tybalt and the other royalty of his kind know the truth. So do a few others. Together, they will have to find a way to reach October, enabling her to save the day once again.

My Review:

Ow, my heart. I knew that The Innocent Sleep was going to break my heart. In truth, it's why I put off reading it for so long (read: almost two months). I was and still am thrilled that Tybalt officially has a full book from his perspective. As my favorite character, I feel like he deserves this.

Naturally, The Innocent Sleep goes hand-in-hand with Sleep No More. As such, a few of the revelations/events will feel very familiar. We're essentially seeing the same story play out but from Tybalt's POV.

Don't worry, though; Tybalt and Toby were frequently in different places, so there's still a ton of information to learn from his perspective. My favorite part was probably the insight into how the Court of Cat(s) did during this time.

I know two emotionally draining books in the same season are a lot, but trust me – they're worth it. I would make sure to read these two in order (I know the titles may make this a bit more confusing) because you don't want to ruin the revelation from Toby's side.

Highlights:
October Daye Series
Full-length novel in Tybalt's perspective
Urban Fantasy/Fae

Trigger Warnings:
Memory Loss
Starvation

The Innocent Sleep (October Daye, #18)
by Seanan McGuire
This is a hard book to follow, since the main character is confused on the immediate changes to his world. The character confusion permeates the pages of the story.
The magic permeates the story, as the character switches between cat and human form.

I've been all in on this series since the beginning so, while I've read the Tybalt novellas, I wasn't sure I was ready for an entire book from how POV. But I really valued seeing this story from his perspective. This works Seanan has built so carefully is big enough that I woke probably read full length books from all the characters!

My thanks to NetGalley for making an eARC of this book available to me.

I loved this one. Differing from all of the other books in this series, this one is told from Tybalt's perspective. It covers pretty much the same ground as the previous book, but gives a lot of interesting perspective into Tybalt, his feelings about Toby and everyone else involved in these books, how the Courts of Cats work, and more. It also helps the reader understand that as difficult as this plot was on Toby and her life, it was just as difficult for the others.

The bonus novelette was a treasure as well, telling the story of Saltmist, Dianda, Patrick, and others from the perspective of Helmi, Dianda's Cephali handmaid, protector, and friend.

I wasn't aware this book was part of a series when I requested it so I didn't quite finish this one because I didn't want to ruin the rest of the series for myself! But I'm a huge fan of Seanan McGuire's writing and from what I did read of this book, it is no exception! I'm so very excited to have a new series I can read - planning on ordering the first few books of the series tonight!

As a companion novel to Sleep No More, it's a pretty solid read. Taking from the events in the previous book, McGuire gives readers Tybalt's point of view. As the plot is set in the previous book, there is plenty of overlap. While this works as a book, I think it would have been a solid novella as well. I'm a big fan of Tybalt, so it was a wonderful surprise to actually see things from his point of view. Like other books in the October Daye series, this is a fun fast paced read with plenty of magic and action. I definitely recommend fans of the series read it and also suggest that it's read closely after finishing Sleep No More to help with context.

A companion to the recently released Sleep No More, the same story is now told from the viewpoint of Tybalt and expands upon the background and details of how he struggles to find October and battle against the Summer Queens illusion.

The Innocent Sleep is the 18th book in the October Daye series. No, it’s not a joke but Seanan McGuire did release another second Toby Daye book in the same year. The only catch is this installment runs the same timeline as in Sleep No More which was from Toby’s POV. Now we are going to read Tybalt’s side of the story. One minute he and Toby were having one of the happiest moments of their lives and then the next thing Tybalt knows he’s in the court of cats who are all trapped and only certain cats like Tybalt can leave using the shadow roads. Tybalt and his allies soon learn Titania has placed a great work of magic on the world to recreate her own new version of reality. In this reality changelings are born to serve full Fae, and those fae who are inconvenient to Titania’s new narrative are banished to other realms. Now Tybalt and his allies need to convince their loved ones who living their lives in the new reality that they are living an illusion.

Overall, The Innocent Sleep was brilliant and a nice change that adds depth to the series. There was little repetition so it does not overlap much with the previous book. Tybalt’s perspective filled in many of the blanks that were missing from Toby’s POV so it was an enjoyable read. I’m already excited for the next one.

The Innocent Sleep is technically the 18th book in Seanan McGuire's urban fantasy "October Daye" series. I say technically because the book is a unique oddity - whereas the first 17 novels in the series all are told from the first person perspective of series protagonist October "Toby" Daye,, The Innocent Sleep takes place instead from the perspective of major supporting character Tybalt, Toby's Cait Sidhe companion (and spoiler alert: something more than that). Even more different - this book doesn't tell a fully new story but instead tells the story of the timespan of book 17, Sleep No More (reviewed here), from the perspective of Tybalt as he tries to figure out what's going on and what to do about it. So in a way this is really book 17.5 rather than book 18.

This is not a bad thing at all and The Innocent Sleep more than justifies its existence. Tybalt not only is present for a lot of scenes referenced in Sleep No More, but his different approach and attitude makes him a fascinating character in his own right, with his own motivations all being all over the place but also understandable. He also has quite a bit of the old ingenuity that Toby is missing in her own story (for the reasons set forth in that setting) and it's really fun to see Tybalt deal with the horror through such human and non-fae (and sometimes fae) know-how. Add in some excellent character work to showcase the mental struggle Titania's actions have put Tybalt in, and well...this book is honestly a highlight in the series. You shouldn't read it before Sleep No More, but you should definitely read it afterwards rather than try to skip to book 19. And as a bonus, you get an excellent novella showcasing the perspective of Helmi as she came to first serve Dianda Lorden and then got to experience the events we've seen in the series....

Further discussion of this book is below. Note: Spoilers for Books 1-16 (Be the Serpent) are inevitable and unlabeled in this review after the jump. Spoilers for this book and Book 17 (Sleep No More) will not be revealed as much as possible.



Plot Summary:
After another crisis had seemingly been averted - the return of Titania from the ashes of one of Toby's oldest friends - Tybalt had just heard what might've been the happiest news possible: Toby is pregnant with their child. And then Titania showed up on their doorstep once more....and suddenly everything changed.

Now, Tybalt awakens to find himself in a world that is horribly different from the one he knows, with most people unaware that something has changed. The Cait Sidhe and Fae Cats are locked inside the Courts of Cats, with no one other than the royal cats able to use the Shadow Roads to try to get food. Tybalt can find no way himself at first of entering the rest of Faerie as both Muir Woods and the Luidaeg are nowhere to be found. As is, to Tybalt's growing horror, Toby.

Tybalt will stop at nothing to correct these wrongs. First, he needs to help save his own subjects so they can survive this changed world and allow him his freedom once more. And then he needs to find October, figure out what has gone wrong, and figure out how to respond so that she is safe and sound. But he'll soon find out that this new false world is far deeper than he could have imagined, and that the October he finds is heartbreakingly different from the one he knows and loves...and may not want to change back.....
This is not the first story McGuire has written from the perspective of Tybalt - there's at least one free side short story from Tybalt's perspective available on McGuire's website (or included as part of a prior novel, I can't remember), and McGuire has been putting out prequel stories featuring Tybalt's times in his youth for years on her Patreon. These prequel stories showcase Tybalt's struggles in his youth with his conflicting desires - his loyalty to his people, the Cait Sidhe, his love of those he considers his family, and those he has fallen in romantic love or just plain friendship with. At the same time, those stories showcase Tybalt as he is incredibly practical as he deals with prejudice, florid language, and the fact that he's constantly facing forces far more powerful than himself, despite his disdain for them. They're a lot of fun, if frequently tragic in their happenings and tones.

The Innocent Sleep feels like a longer version of such stories. That's not a complaint - it's a really good thing in fact! Tybalt's voice is great as a first person narrator, and his conflicting desires here and his struggles to balance them and do good...and the reckless actions he sometimes takes, all make sense and read really well. So of course, he's especially worried about Toby and her pregnancy (after all his first wife Anne died in childbirth), which makes him overprotective of a person who usually can't avoid danger on her own but now has issues with him because she doesn't even know who he is thanks to Titania's work. And of course he's worried about saving the Cait Sidhe from what Titania has done...which amounts to a slow death sentence if they can't find a way to feed the other cats (no spoilers on how he manages it, but it's clever and made me smile even as it is a way to deal with something truly horrible). And then there's the fact that Tybalt isn't unrestrained as he once was and doesn't want to say...harm those he knows Toby loves in reality when those same people wind up in opposition to him in this new one created by Titania.

The result is a story that is really really effective and really interesting throughout. I was worried we'd just get a story like October's in Sleep No More, in which we only see events that were referenced but not seen in her book, but nothing more. But The Innocent Sleep tells a complete story in its own right, and does so by not skipping the same periods that that book did (the four months since Be the Serpent), which allows for a more interesting discovery of the false world by a character we already know. Honestly, while it made sense for us to lose the fearless reckless as hell October we know and love in that book, it did make that book a bit more of a drag to get through, whereas here The Innocent Sleep has the Tybalt we know and love, if put through a hell of Titania's making that is definitely horrifying until the happy ending. Not really much more to say here in this non-spoiler review, but I'll try to address a little more in my spoiler discussion post.

I loved Sleep No More and loved The Innocent Sleep better. There's not a lot of stories featuring TIbault's POV and this one is moving, gripping, and kept me hooked and on the edge.
Not a story to be read as a stand-alone but a very exciting and gripping story
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I can't believe I'm caught up noooooo. Anyways, really glad my friend convinced me to read this series. I had SO much fun, they're all so good. It was a bit weird reading a whole story from Tybalt's point of view, but I'm also really glad for it.

Read THE INNOCENT SLEEP by Seanan McGuire if you love desperately sad kitties, alternate points of view, the slower path, shapeshifters, AU fanfiction, big box stores, using 20 words when two would do, shadows, sea monsters, and seeing through illusions.

I found the Toby Daye series through a recommendation from someone on Facebook. I've been hooked and recommending the series myself ever since. This is the 18th book.....the journey definitely does not feel that long....in one of the best series any reader could find. I'd say you could read them as a stand alone, but you'd be cheating yourself. Plan a binge weekend and start at book #1, Rosemary and Rue, and join the fan club with the rest of us.

Tybalt and Toby are finally getting married. We fans have been waiting for this day for many years and are ready to join the rest of the kingdom in celebrating their lives together. We have seen this day through Toby's eyes, now Tybalt gets the chance to fill in the blanks. As a long time fan, I'm just happy to have a new Seanan McGuire/ October Daye book to read.