I've read this series for a while, and I loved reading this installment from Tybalt's perspective! Added depth to the story for me. As usual, paced well and very engaging, with beloved characters. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advanced copy!

The Innocent Sleep tells the same story as the previous book in McGuire's October Daye series from the point of view of Tybalt, King of Cats and Toby's husband. I love how McGuire has done this, telling the story we didn't get from October's first-person POV in the previous book. That said, it feels a bit overlong and padded. While McGuire's written a number of short stories and novellas from POVs other than Toby's, they are never quite as good: they just don't have the unique, individual voices they need to carry things, and this is true here. Tybalt's voice is often undifferentiated and uneven, and there's what writing teachers like to call "telling, not showing"--which makes the reading interesting and compelling.

I apparently made a major oops here. I got so excited when I saw this on Netgalley, I didn't realize that The Innocent Sleep was supposed to come AFTER Sleep No More. How did I miss there were two books coming out this Fall?!

Anyway, I got so excited to get a book from Tybalt's perspective that I basically spent the entire book squealing. So unlike a lot of folks who were like...'uh, what the heck, this is the same freaking book?' I got this book with entirely fresh eyes and loved every freaking second of it. It was a joy to revisit moments from the beginning of the series and because of McGuire's gift for succinctly summarizing SEVENTEEN books worth of content, I never felt lost even when I didn't remember what had happened way back when.

This world has become absolutely epic and Seanan McGuire has managed to breathe life and excitement to it while staying true to its roots. Exploring Tybalt's POV made this feel so deeply romantic to me as well. This series has been such a slow burn for their love story and I absolutely swooned over the ability to experience his emotional narrative.

I look forward to getting back into October's head, but I'm honestly glad I read Tybalt's perspective of these events first. It was so exciting and fresh for me!

Thanks to DAW and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are my own.

This is my favorite ongoing fantasy series, and after the end of Be the Serpent I was pretty desperate to find out what happens next. I was lucky enough to receive ARCs of books 17 and 18 from the publisher. Both of these books cover the same time frame, the first from Toby's perspective (as usual for the series), and the second with Tybalt taking over the first person narrative. Toby's book is due to be published first, and should also be read first as Tybalt's book covers what's going on in and around Toby's perspective.

At the end of Be the Serpent Toby (and a large chunk of faerie) are wrapped up in a massive illusion. Toby doesn't remember her hard won family or life as a hero of the realm. She spends her book slowly figuring out that something is wrong until she's finally in a place to do something about it. Tybalt on the other hand, is completely losing his mind. His wife doesn't know him, their house is abandoned, the court of cats is closed off to all but royalty, and many of his more powerful allies are missing. This is all especially difficult for Tybalt due to the way his previous marriage ended.

It was very cool to get Tybalt's perspective on all of this madness, especially since his story filled in many of the blanks that were missing from Toby's story (like what was going on with many of the characters we didn't see in the previous book). Once again I was left both satisfied, and immediately wanting more.

(The included novella is Helmi's story, and tracks her history in Dianda's kingdom up through the present events.)

THE INNOCENT SLEEP, best read after SLEEP NO MORE, is Tybalt’s perspective on the time after Titania’s actions at the end of BE THE SERPENT. Because Tybalt has a radically different perspective than October (even more so than usual), trying to read this book first would spoil some mysteries out of turn. By necessity, as the books are a pair covering much of the time and even a few of the same scenes, some of the resolution is present in both. I love them singly and together, and am working on a long, spoiler-filled essay analyzing some of the key elements in both books.

As a sequel, this explains some things which either just happened in SLEEP NO MORE, or were only briefly explained but turn out to have quite a bit more behind them. In particular, I note that towards the end there are several sections which are only lightly narrated in SLEEP NO MORE, but which are described in THE INNOCENT SLEEP in much more detail, and vice versa, allowing each to wrap up hanging plot threads for the other. There’s a new storyline concerning several months which weren’t of note for October, but which are extremely important to Tybalt. Additionally, even once they’re mutually aware of each other, they’re not in the same place most of the time, which means almost everything Tybalt does is new information even for a reader who comes to this book after SLEEP NO MORE.

One of the challenges in parallel novels where the resolution of one by necessity spoils some elements of the other is that the story needs to still have stakes, even if the reader knows whether things will or won’t work out in a general sense. Part of how THE INNOCENT SLEEP maintains narrative tension is by addressing the perils of the Cait Sidhe in great detail, as well as Tybalt’s emotional state (much of which October only could guess at in SLEEP NO MORE). Tybalt also has contact with many more of those who retained their memories, lending an entirely different (often anxious) feeling to the story.

This is far from the end of the story, and it leaves open the details of what will happen next for the characters (and most of the coastal inhabitants) in the wake of such traumatic events for so many. Some of them may have had their lives upended without ever knowing who was responsible or why it happened, especially the cats with mere drops of fae heritage who were nevertheless swept up in the mass removal of the Cait Sidhe to the lost places.

With long-running series it can be tricky to figure out where new readers could jump in with minimal confusion if they didn't want to go all the way back to the beginning. As this is part of a pair of books which apparently were what the whole series is building towards (or just the beginning of the arc the series was trying to reach which had been planned from the start), answering where a reader could jump in to avoid confusion is tricky. Supposing that the answer isn't "start with the first book", someone could understand the most important parts of what is happening and have a pretty good experience if they started with WHEN SORROWS COME and proceeded from there. Everything from then proceeds pretty directly to this very traumatic time for Tybalt and everyone he loves, and skipping any steps in that final sequence would make this emotionally incomprehensible. A story about how things were suddenly changed can't make much sense without knowledge of how it was before, after all.

I love how seamlessly this works with SLEEP NO MORE while being its own story. It manages to be unabashedly focused on Tybalt's need to get October restored, all while still having so much more going on in terms of the actual narrative. Ginevra, in particular, is shown very well here. I thought most of her relevance was in SLEEP NO MORE, but in THE INNOCENT SLEEP she's a major presence, more than just the regent for Raj.

It's taken a long time to get here, and I'm so excited for what this series holds next!

This was a very fun companion to Sleep No More.

It was very fun to see the events of that book from Tybalt's perspective, as well as getting many missing scenes, and some of the leadup. I'm definitely excited for #19 (holy crap there have been so many) and to see what Toby will do then.

Seanan McGuire, as ever, is able to pull me along with her storytelling. Tybalt, as ever, is annoying, with his 16th century approach to being a wife guy.

Thank you to Netgalley for an early copy of this book.

I must confess, as much as I love this series I don't tend to favor the books or novellas or short stories written from anyone's perspective other than Toby's. Tybalt is definitely one of my favorite characters however, so this one telling his perspective on the events covered in Sleep No More was more enjoyable to me then a number of the recent shorter stories. Still, there is a lot of identical writing in the two books, and I'm not entirely sure that I would have chosen to set them as two entirely separate books as opposed to one longer book interspersing perspectives. While a lot of this one was new information and interesting in that regard, it did feel very repetitive in a number of places, by necessity given the format. I doubt I will be rereading this one, but it was an enjoyable read nevertheless.

this was okay, but read a little juvenile and i didn't feel connected to the characters or what happens to them at all. i can see other reader enjoying this a lot tho!

— thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the free digital ARC.

Yet another knock out for the Toby Daye series. This follows Tybalt this time and I thought I would be angry about it. I generally don't do well with character switches, however the in sight it give makes that moot. I have loved Tybalt for years and seeing him come into his own and his perspective of the illusion was amazing. I was concerned that this would take away from the narrative but seeing it from a second view point really solidified the story line for me. 10/10 I am pre-ordering.

I received a free arc and am leaving this review of my own volition.

This is book 18 of the Toby Daye series from Seanan McGuire. It is the same story as the 17th book but told from a different perspective, that of Tybalt, Toby’s husband. Book 17 also had a novella that told the tale from a different POV, but what was good about that one was bad about this one. This book covers the same plot points but doesn’t bring very much fresh and different. E we don’t learn that much new and it felt boring because of it. I also found myself disliking Tybalt more than I expected. This POV didn’t as anything special to the previously twice told story and I wouldn’t recommend to readers of the series. They can skip this and still be fine.

First novel not in Toby's POV. Instead we get Tybalt's version of events since the cliffhanger ending of Be the Serpent. I enjoyed getting into his mindset, especially comparing it to Toby's version. Yet I didn't enjoy it as much as Sleep No More. There were more clunky references to events that happened earlier in the series.

Reading order rec: Read Sleep No More first, then The Innocent Sleep. The reveals are better experienced through Toby's eyes. That said, i may re-read both books simlutaneously in roughly chronological order.

***Read an eARC from NetGalley***

First of all, if I could give this book extra stars I would. Book 17, Sleep No More, takes place at the same time as this one but with October as our usual point of view for the series. THIS book, released just a month later, shows us Tybalt's point of view on those same events, and it is so incredibly good. I read it in a day, I was laughing and crying. I've loved Tybalt pretty much since day 1, so a whole book from the perspective of my favorite Cait Sidhe was like Christmas came early.

We've seen in past books that October is one of Tybalt's vulnerabilities. We've also seen that Faerie can be unkind to shapeshifters. Both of those get put into play in big ways, and Tybalt has to assemble a ragtag bunch of allies to try and put things back to right while fulfilling his duties to the Court of Cats. We get to see him be clever, compassionate, responsible, fragile, angry (so much angry!), and just a whole range of responses to the chaos the Faerie has found itself in.

The novella at the end of this book is from Helmi's perspective. Her story spans hundreds of years, which is remarkably well done given how short novellas are, and adds valuable context to what we know about the Duchy of Saltmist, and it's ducal family, both past and present. McGuire is a skilled world builder, and she adds a lot of richness to the Undersea with this one.

The Innocent Sleep is another great installment in the October Daye saga, and is right up there among my favorites of the series so far. I wrote in my review about Sleep No More that it was 'essentially a book about what family is and holding fast to it when you've found it,' and that is 100% true for this book as well, it's just told from Tybalt's side of things. A gripping read that is by turns bleak and hopeful.

This series is pretty much an automatic pre-order/stalk NetGalley for the ARC, and this one does not disappoint. I enjoyed it much more than Sleep No More. I did read them back to back, and there is some repetition of passages, but if you're reading them with the gap in the publishing date, you should be fine. I adore Tybalt as a narrator, and would love to see more in his voice. The novella made it clear that I've forgotten the majority of the Undersea adventures.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and DAW for the ARC!

I'm a huge Toby fan, and while I enjoyed this book, I didn't love it in the same way as the others. Part of that might be because I somehow missed reading book 17, and part of it was just Tybalt. I've realized I appreciate his POV better if its just for a short or novella.

However, the plot itself was great and I loved the short story at the end.

Two (excellent) new Toby Daye books in one year! How lucky are we!

THE INNOCENT SLEEP is (a first for the series!) told from the perspective of Tybalt, Toby’s husband and dramatic badass extraordinaire. Toby's voice (as our usual narrator) is one of my favorite things about these books, so I wasn’t expecting to love this book as much as usual, but I was proved wrong immediately and delightfully, and laughed out loud multiple times while reading.

It recounts the events of SLEEP NO MORE from Tybalt's perspective, and let me tell you, there's a lot to tell, from the funny to the emotional and everything in between. (There’s even a heist! Of a Costco!!) And even though the two books deal with roughly the same series of events, I didn’t feel like I was reading the same book twice.

Really fun, really excellent, and I'm already excited for the next one. Thanks so much to DAW Books and Netgalley for the ARC!

This is the longest it’s taken me to give feedback on a net galley book.

This is because I had to reread this book, then the entire series including short stories, then read this again, and then the others some more as well.

This so at the least in a two way tie for my favourite of the series. Possibly just straight up favourite.

It’s both excellent as a book, and has some very interesting really tiny worldbuking things, and combined with a short ti make me Notice something it doesn’t seem like anyone else has.

The second perspective at this point in the series is likely to earn this one some negative reviews, but honestly it’s very well done and absolutely necessary to the story eworking.

There are several scenes in particular that are never going to leave my brain for various reasons (everything with A, for instance), that I will detail more on StoryGraph when I have spoiler bars.

I enjoyed this book more than I enjoyed Sleep No More, October’s version. It felt more hopeful and he characters acted more like them selves. I liked getting all the details of what was going on and seeing how well the situation was dealt with. #TheInnocentSleep #NetGalley

Seanan McGuire’s stories keep getting better and better. I always look forward to a new installment in the series.

The Innocent Sleep is from Tybalt's point of view, which is new for readers of the series. It was actually nice to spend time in someone else's head to see how they see this world and October. I also enjoyed reading from his point of view, because I understood the frustration with weird, timid October so reading this book was experiencing the changes with Tybalt instead of just watching them.

This book tells the events 4 months before the start of and during Sleep No More, all from Tybalts POV. Tybalt has felt a bit two dimensional for awhile now. Serving the purpose of watching October's back, worrying about her, and transporting her around. Although he is still mainly all about October, this book fleshed him out a bit more which was nice to read. His viewpoint added clarity and depth to certain events in both stories. It was an enjoyable book and thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my ARC!