Night and Silence
October Daye, Book #12
By Seanan McGuire
ISBN13: 9780698183537
Author’s website: seananmcguire.com
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar
Summary 
The twelfth installment of the Hugo-nominated, New York Times-bestselling Toby Daye urban fantasy series!
Things are not okay.
In the aftermath of Amandine’s latest betrayal, October “Toby” Daye’s fragile self-made family is on the verge of coming apart at the seams. Jazz can’t sleep, Sylvester doesn’t want to see her, and worst of all, Tybalt has withdrawn from her entirely, retreating into the Court of Cats as he tries to recover from his abduction. Toby is floundering, unable to help the people she loves most heal. She needs a distraction. She needs a quest.
What she doesn’t need is the abduction of her estranged human daughter, Gillian. What she doesn’t need is to be accused of kidnapping her own child by her ex-boyfriend and his new wife, who seems to be harboring secrets of her own. There’s no question of whether she’ll take the case. The only question is whether she’s emotionally prepared to survive it.
Signs of Faerie’s involvement are everywhere, and it’s going to take all Toby’s nerve and all her allies to get her through this web of old secrets, older hatreds, and new deceits. If she can’t find Gillian before time runs out, her own child will pay the price. One question remains:
Who in Faerie remembered Gillian existed? And what do they stand to gain? No matter how this ends, Toby’s life will never be the same.
Review
“Night and Silence – who is here?” – William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
We are our parents’ children, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and when the wheel turns around we sometimes make the same mistakes that our parents made. In Night and Silence, we see October Daye, Toby, struggling with the consequences of her mother kidnapping her loved ones, Tybalt and Jazz, and imprisoning them. While Jazz has been able to work with her shapeshifting issues to some extent, Tybalt instead has become wors, and stopped talking to Toby.
We start the story with Toby and Quentin, who are helped by friend and sometimes chauffeur Troll, Danny. They are tasked by Queen Windermere to capture some rare flying-hedgehog Fae creature; during their chase of these animals, Danny lets Toby know that her friends are concerned for her and that she should know they are there for her if she needs help. After storing the rare animals, Toby returns home and after crying, because of Tybalt’s absence, she falls asleep only to be wake up in the early morning by a loud bang at her front door. Fearing the worst, Amandine, Toby dresses hastily and takes her knife before opening the door, what she finds there is her Ex-boyfriend Cliff and his wife Miranda. Cliff asks if Gillian, Toby’s daughter, is here in her house, and they explain that she disappeared from her college after some vandalism and her car was found trashed. At first, Miranda accuses Toby of taking their daughter, but Toby stops them from searching her house and promises to find Gillian.
After getting ready, Toby accompanied by Quentin and May, they make their way to Berkeley University where Gillian is going to school. Once they get to Gillian’s room, they find things that shouldn’t be there with Gillian, a changeling roommate, and the closet is full of Fae repellent trinkets.
The clock is always ticking when Toby has to find somebody, but this time her daughter is in danger, and Fae has never been kind to humans. It is up to Toby and her friends to chase the clues and find out who is behind this disappearance.
I love the October Daye series, and Night and Silence wasn’t any different. With every story we get to know more about the lore of the world of this series and its characters, we either meet new characters or we get to interact in a different situation with characters that were mention briefly in previous books.
Night and Silence is a little bit more different than its predecessors, in the sense that it feels like a more emotional story given the fragility of its characters. This time Toby is the one shouldering the burden of personal issues that her loved ones have, and she is trying to keep everything from breaking.
It seems that we can’t bury our past forever. Toby has done so many things since she escaped the pond and some of them have consequences, and now people are after her family. It was interesting to read about how problems from previous books are affecting present Toby and that some of them could have been prevented if she or other characters would have inquired about the whereabouts of some individuals.
A part that I liked from this story was that we get to see a type of Fae that has been mentioned before in the first books and has similar abilities to both Daoine Sidhe and Dochas Sidhe, Toby and her bloodline has been compared to this Fae but we have never seen one until now. One of the most famous supernatural creatures is based on this Fae.
This book contains a huge spoiler about Toby’s family and bloodline that for a newcomer it would be very hard to unread. For over half of the series, Toby’s family has been revealing, there have been hints here and there but this time we finally get a confirmation of the origin of her bloodline. And Toby is not happy.
This book comes with a short-story called Suffer a Sea-Change which is a great opportunity to read through the point of view of a character I have wanted to read of for some time. It gives an idea of what will come in the future, not only for Toby but for the Fae. I hope people can read it soon.
It seems that stakes are higher in this book and a greater event is getting near for Toby and her friends. Magic and other individuals have been discovered and I hope we get closer to solve the mystery of the disappearance of Oberon and his Queens.
If you are a fan of Seanan McGuire and her work such as the October Daye series, then I recommend you Night and Silence. In this book, Toby has to be strong for those that she loves because she needs to find her daughter again and at the same time try to keep her family from breaking from mentally and physical fears.
