A parallel book to Sleep No More, telling the ensorcelled four months from Tybalt's point of view. We have never been inside his head before, and the closer look at him and at the Court of Cats is well worth the price of admission, even without the rest of the story. Do read this second, as it will make a bit more sense with the other background.

Recommended.

I of course loved reading this book! Tybalt is a favourite character of mine, and this is some pretty hard times for him, given that his wife, who they just learned was pregnant, was put under a spell by their enemy, and is under her control. Add his past with his first wife and their child, yeah, that was something Tybalt wanted to rectify immediately.

This book spends more time in the early days of Titania's version of the world, because Tybalt knows what's wrong, and boy, is he making attempts at fixing things. But between the Court of Cats, and some particular information, results in waiting until the time started in Sleep No More. But it was really great to see what these characters that weren't in Sleep No More were doing in this one!

We didn't have a lot of overlap between the two books, but the times that we did, oh man, I can understand why the both reacted the way that they did. It still hurt! But oh, it's hard to talk about this one without spoiling Sleep No More, but it was great to see that ending from Tybalt's perspective, too!

Doubtless and Secure was a really great story, we got to see the history of Saltmist, of Dianda's parents, and her childhood, and all the way up to the first beginnings of a reaction to Be the Serpent. So that was really interesting, espcailly with her brother (though I though in The Unkindest Tide, he was older? I'm going to have to do a reread!) and that bit of prophecy, I can't wait to see it come true!

These were both such fantastic reads, and I can't wait to see where the series goes in the future!

This tells the events of Sleep No More but from Tybalts point of view so if you haven't read that yet please do before beginning this. That being said I'm sure fans were over the moon to get their hands on that so I question if this was needed as a whole book and perhaps would have been better as a companion novella ?
Unfortunately the first half kind of dragged for me and I was waiting for Toby to appear. I do hasten to add that the second half was much more what I wanted and of course my favourite character the Sea Witch was there so that's always a win. Which brings me to Tybalt and I'm sorry but he's never been that interesting to me and I kind of find him cold and even though this book tries to show he is fighting his instincts as he truly is desperate to get Toby and their world back to normal I still didn't find him passionate just determined .
This book includes a novella which added to the background of characters in this world so that was very interesting to read. I love this series and look forward to finding out what happens next as there's a huge change about to happen to Toby and Tybalt but my lips are sealed !
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair

Thank you to NetGalley and Daw for a digital Arc in exchange for an honest review.

The Innocent Sleep by Seanan McGuire could have been an interesting idea for a short story in the October Daye Series, but as a full book in the series it was mostly underwhelming. Tybalt is a good side character and love interest for Toby, but a full length novel from his point of view is nowhere as enjoyable as having have another novel with from Toby’s point of view. It does not help that the first half of the book is extremely slow paced and honestly not needed. On the plus side it was much more entertaining to read in the second half, if a bit rushed in the end. However, this just really made my wish for this to be a novella or short story much more solid in my mind.
As for Doubtless and Secure the short story at the end of the book. It was by far the highlight of this installment. It was a bit slow to start, but once it got started it was really interesting backstory into the Undersea. I had a lot of fun with it and honestly this is what I think The Innocent Sleep should have been. A quick, fun, and interesting dive into a story outside of Toby’s point of view.

I knew Innocent Sleep was going to be from Tybalt's perspective, but didn't realize it took place during Sleep No More. I was also curious as to how I would like Tybalt's "narration" style. All other books have been from Toby's perspective. I have to say that Tybalt was a very pleasant surprise. Loved this story! McGuire always manages to go to places in her stories I never expect. Love her and love this series.

The Innocent Sleep begins directly after the cliffhanger events of Be The Serpent. We get it all from Tybalts POV and get to see all the lead-up to the moment when he and October are reunited. It was definitely heart-wrenching as Tybalt is frantically trying to find his lady love, while still trying to keep all the residents of the Court of Cats fed and healthy. Which leads to some hijinks. When he is finally reunited with October and she has no memory of him you could feel how upset he was. I loved seeing all the characters we didn't get to see in Sleep No More like Raj and May, and each book just makes me love all the characters more.

Seanan McGuire writes such a good story, even when the two books meet and were reading it from Tybalt's side instead of October's it still felt fresh and new. And now that I finally have the conclusion to that cliffhanger from both sides I can finally start my reread of the series!!

The Innocent Sleep was absolutely riveting! I was on the edge of my seat seeing what Tibolt went through to get October back and not just Tybalt but all of her closet friends and family as they fight to save the true reality that Titania seeks to rewrite. But can they get Toby and break the spell or will all be rewritten to Titania’s desires?

It lost boggles the mind to know beforehand how a story will play out but rom a different perspective be so invested it is as if you never knew what was to come. The book was incredible and if bonds friendships were strong beforehand they are carved in stone now. To see what the future hold when next Titania meddles will be a fascinating thing because for all she meant to do making unbreakable alliances was probably not one of them. And if she weaves a new future will all be undone?I honestly can’t wait to find out. if you are not an October Daye fan yet you seriously need to be one! Start this series it is dark, harrowing, inspiring and entertaining. A absolute must read from a true master of writing! As I’m sure you can tell I very highly recommend this book and series. And yes it is best red in order to fully enjoy this is not a book you can just pick up and delve into. I suppose you could it is wonderful. However, the complexity of the world is truly something to embrace and so much background and character development is in the books you would be missing so much. Plus soooo many books to catch up on!

The Innocent Sleep by Seanan McGuire, the sidecar book that is neccessary to her other latest novel that is a must read TOO!

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.