A Red-Rose Chain (October Daye #9) by Seanan McGuire – bjornsnipe Book Review

I appreciate any book that starts out with teleporting Manx hounds, which is how this one starts out. Toby, Tybalt, Quentin, and Danny (the troll cab driver that has been assisting and ferrying Toby around since Rosemary and Rue) are sent to subdue a pack of Mauthe Doog that have been attacking mortals in Muir Woods, close to Arden’s knowe. (Seeing as my first cat was a Manx, I have a soft spot for anything from the Isle of Man, including their teleporting answer to a Barghest, or as they call them in Lancashire “The Grim, or Padfoot”)

I’m not sorry,” said Quentin. “One of them tried to take my throat away from me. With its teeth. I’m not you. I need my throat.

However, when Toby sends them to be cared by Madden, Arden’s friend, former co-worker and now seneschal, she discovers him elf-shot, doomed to sleep for a century, with a scroll near him announcing that the Kingdom of Silences has declared war on the Kingdom of the Mists.

Sometimes I think Faerie goes to war as much because we can’t find anyone who’d rather talk things out as for any other reason. Diplomacy is not a valued skill among the Courts. Most of our nobles would prefer to do the dance of manners and then slide a knife between someone’s ribs. It’s more fun than actually discussing trade sanctions and why it’s rude to kill your neighbors.

This fact makes no one happy; wars are bloody, depressing, and in at least April’s opinion, very inconvenient.

What is wrong? Is this related to the notice I received from Queen Windermere that a war was being beta-tested, and might be cleared for release? I do not have time to allow my coders to be slaughtered. It seems very inefficient.

Arden however, shows how little she wants war, so she flees the knowe for the safety of her old bookstore apartment, planning on abdicating to avoid the bloodshed. (Boy, I think between the False Queen and Arden, the Kingdom of the Mists must feel like Odin at the end of Thor: The Dark World)

Of course Toby goes after her, and for her efforts, gets stuck being the diplomatic envoy of the Mists and must go to Portland Oregon, where the Silences is, to try and stop the impending war.

Let’s go get ready to do something incredibly stupid.
“Business as usual, then,” he said, and fled the kitchen, laughing, before I could swat him.

Of course, she’s not going alone; Tybalt, Quentin, May and Walther (who happens to have a surprising connection to the Kingdom of Silences) are taken along for the ride. Once they arrive however, they discover that the situation is far worse than originally believed; Rhys, the ruler of the Silences, has aligned himself politically (and personally) with the fraudulent Queen of the Mists, and they both have a rather high price for stopping the war: Toby’s life and her blood. With the situation growing more dangerous by the moment, can Toby stop the war, keep her blood (mostly inside her body), and get her allies home safely? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time she deposed a ruler….

It was like Rhys had ordered the whole thing from Castles R Us, and then never bothered to swing by the local Bed, Battlements, and Beyond for the accessories he’d need to make it believable.

Well, this is not one of my favorite books, but I still enjoyed it. McGuire hits it out of the ballpark every time; even with it being the third time I’ve read the book, I still eagerly turned the pages wanting to know how it ended. As well as the old favorites, this book introduces two new character who (as little as they may appear) I truly enjoy: Jolgeir, King of the Court of Whispering Cats (Tybalt’s counterpart in Portland, and an old friend of his), and Walther’s aunt Ceres, who also happens to be Luna’s sister. Which is one of the two most shocking things discovered about Walther in this book, the other being alchemy is great for body issues. Ceres goes to show that Luna’s “Luna-ness” is mostly due to her being probably heavily warped by her father; how Ceres and Luna are related I just can not see.

What really got to me was the realization that I am now halfway through the series published to date. And the fact that unfortunately, most of the ones left are either not my absolute favorites, or really, really, really depressing. Oh well, you can’t have the good without the not-so good, so onward I shall go!

When I’m a woman, I eat Pop-Tarts and vindaloo. When I’m a big black bird, I eat eyeballs and spleens. It’s all part of the glorious contradiction that is me.

Each time I tell myself you have reached the summit of your strangeness, you find a way to climb still higher.” “Look at it this way: being married to me will never be boring.

Most of the neighbors hated us in an offhand sort of manner, since we had twice the space they did, plus a parking area and a small yard—all things virtually unheard of in modern-day San Francisco. I was sure they’d change their minds if they knew how much I’d bled to earn that house. Or maybe not. Reserved parking is hard to come by in this city.

Sometimes the high ground is reserved for the people who think honor is more important than living.

Just thinking about how long it’s been since I’ve managed to wind up covered in blood,” I said. “It’s like a new trend. A blood-free trend.

I won’t pretend the life I lived before you was somehow the lesser for your absence. There was no hole waiting for you to come along and fill it. I loved often, if not always well. I fought, I fled, I ruled my people, and I thought myself content. But since you have returned to us-since the waters of the Tea Gardens gave you up, and gave you back to me-not a day has passed without my considering the fragility of your smile, or the color of your eyes. You insinuated yourself into my heart like a worm into an apple, and I am consumed by you.