The Innocent Sleep by Seanan McGuire


What a fascinating book!

I love Seanan McGuire. (Note: I review a bunch of her books so I am copying part of some of my other reviews here to save time.). She has quickly become my favorite living writer and I feel very lucky that she is so prolific. I was first introduced to her work when her book Parasite, written as Mira Grant, was nominated for a Hugo Award. I loved it and quickly devoured the Newsflesh series before I realized that Mira Grant and Seanan McGuire were the same person.

I started reading her works under her own name, starting with Sparrow Hill Road, which is amazing, but I picked it because I was intimidated by her long running October Daye series. I had read some Urban Fantasy before, and I fondly remember Mercedes Lackey’s Diana Tregarde books, but my tastes run more to science fiction and then secondary world fantasy, so I was hesitant to dive into such a long series. I picked up the first book, Rosemary and Rue, when it was on sale as a kindle daily deal, and I found it somewhat disappointing compared to her other work. I reminded myself that it was her first published novel, so I cut it some slack. Then Incryptid was nominated for the Best Series Hugo in 2018 and I dove into that instead. I loved it! So I vowed to give Toby another chance. And I was so glad that I did! It is no one of my favorite series.

I was overjoyed when The publisher and NetGalley awarded me an eARC of Sleep No More - I couldn’t stand waiting any longer to find out what happened after Toby was ensorcelled to believe that she had never left her mother. It turns out that Toby wasn’t the only one affected (or is that effected?). A large chunk of Faerie was totally rewritten and it was a thrill to see our characters acting familiarly yet differently based on their new roles in this revised timeline. It reminded me of the TNG episode Condundrum in all of the best ways. As the book progressed, the cracks in the illusion start to show in interesting ways. I was very excited to see January, the cyber-dryad show up in a pivotal role. That was a stellar entry in this series.

But! It was not the only one this year! For the first time ever we get a mainline novel from the POV of someone other than Tobey! This book, which I also got an eARC of from the publisher in exchange for an honest review (and a physical ARC in an amazing influencer box, thanks again!) is from Tybalt’s POV.

Tybalt is now October’s husband. In the first few books, he was on the frenemy to ally trajectory until I realized that he was the love interest! I disliked him alot at first but he grew on me over the years. His overprotectiveness went from irritating to endearing. And I’d recently started reading the short stories in this series that are from Tybalt’s POV so I was intrigued by this book.

In addition, I’ve always enjoyed stories that went behind the scenes of stories we’ve already seen- I remember being amazed and in love with the 1955 redux section of Back to the Future II and this book shares a lot of the fun stuff with that. It’s cool to see the events from a different perspective and Seanan McGuire does an excellent job here. You can see the meticulous attention to detail she puts into every part of the story.

But I’ve had a tough time writing this review - while I enjoyed the book and thought it was well written, it made me dislike Tybalt in a way I haven’t since book 2. His mind set and attitude are very off putting to me. I understand that his pregnant wife has been effectively kidnapped and, based on his personal history, that is especially traumatic for him, but his anger and unkindness and uncharitable attitude through much of the book make him a much less pleasant narrator to follow than October is. Maybe the difference is that October is a Hero and Tybalt is not? He’s the protagonist, sure, but he’s not out to save the day as much as he is out to save his wife.

This book has made me think a lot about the characters I have known and loved for years and it is impressive that Seanan McGuire is able to do that in such a long running series. She’s clearly not phoning anything in and is at the top of her game. I just wish that I found Tybalt more likeable.

As much as I enjoy alternate viewpoints, I’m never quite satisfied when there’s a whole book devoted to it (unless it’s a retelling of a classic by a different author). The Innocent Sleep retells the ending of Be the Serpent and the whole of Sleep No More from Tybalt’s point of view.

I’m a huge Tybalt fan and have been since A Local Habitation, at the very latest. One of the things I’ve most appreciated is how differently he sees things from Toby. But despite my deep and abiding love for everyone’s favorite cat, I was a bit leery of this book.

I shouldn’t have worried. Seanan McGuire shows once again that she knows exactly what she’s doing.

While there are a few places where I got impatient, this remained heartbreaking and perfect and at times surprisingly funny.

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!

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!