When Sorrows Come
(October Daye #15)
by Seanan McGuire
ISBN13: 9780756415099
Author’s website: www.seananmcguire.com
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar
SPOILERS!!!!
Summary
It’s hard to be a hero. There’s always something needing October “Toby” Daye’s attention, and her own desires tend to fall by the wayside in favor of solving the Kingdom’s problems. That includes the desire to marry her long-time suitor and current fiancé, Tybalt, San Francisco’s King of Cats. She doesn’t mean to keep delaying the wedding, it just sort of…happens. And that’s why her closest friends have taken the choice out of her hands, ambushing her with a court wedding at the High Court in Toronto. Once the High King gets involved, there’s not much even Toby can do to delay things…
…except for getting involved in stopping a plot to overthrow the High Throne itself, destabilizing the Westlands entirely, and keeping her from getting married through nothing more than the sheer volume of chaos it would cause. Can Toby save the Westlands and make it to her own wedding on time? Or is she going to have to choose one over the other?
Includes an all-new bonus novella, “And with Reveling”!
Review
It’s happening!!! The wedding of Sir October Christine Daye, Knight of the Lost Words, Hero of the Realm and Tybalt, King of Dreaming Cats is finally happening. Toby and Tybalt are getting married and because Toby accepted the invitation by High King Solly to host their wedding, the gang is heading to Canada.
It has taken some time for the wedding to happen, Toby had to find her missing sister to save her fiancé from her crazy mother, pay her dues to the Luidaeg and help her return the race of Roane, and find her missing stepfather while bringing back the lost King Oberon. Toby has been busy, and she made the decision to let her friends and Fiancé handle all the wedding planning, so she is a bit surprised when she finds the boyfriend of her Squire kissing a different man outside the door of her house. To Toby’s surprise, Quentin, her squire and High crown prince, is the mysterious man, he asked the Luidaeg for potion to hide his appearance to be able to attend the wedding, which is in three days.
At first, Toby is angry but after talking with Tybalt things are set in motion and with the help of Chelsea, they travel all the way to Ontario to the Kingdom of Maples. While Toby is hoping to have a quiet and calm wedding, other people have plans for her big day. In the first hours of being in the kingdom of Maples, they discover that the King’s seneschal is actually a Doppelganger, who is trying to kill the King and pin the blame on Toby.
Now, Toby has to get ready for the wedding and find out who else is a guest in disguise trying to kill the king, it wouldn’t be a major event in Toby’s life if somebody wasn’t trying to kill them.
I’m so happy that Toby and Tybalt are getting married! Their relationship started on the wrong side, where Toby thought that Tybalt hated her and, in some cases, tried to kill her, but cat’s show their interests in different ways and Tybalt was mostly interested in understanding who Toby was. After many trials and tribulations, they expressed their interest for one another and begam a relationship, and now they’re finally getting married!
Just by reading the summary on the back of the book you learn that their wedding is not going to go smoothly. Somebody is trying to kill the High King and pin it on Toby because she is known as the kingbreaker for taking down a couple of false Kings and Queens. It was fun getting back to the mystery part of the series, in which we are trying to find who is the enemy and their reasoning. At the same time, it was interesting to learn more about the lore of the Kingdom of the Westerlands and how it came to be, and its heirs.
The majority of the books in the series have new characters that are there to move the narrative or give new information to Toby. In this story, we have the main one being the Nessa, and the court Seer. But in When Sorrows Come, we get to see Toby’s old friends from her childhood, Kerry, Stacy and Julie being there for Toby and helping her as best as they can.
A fun part of this story is Oberon just being there. Nobody knows who he is and he is just the plus two of the Luidaeg. It’s explained that he is still getting back to his true self and it will take time, but he is just there eating and watching everybody running around trying to keep a kingdom alive. He and the Luidaeg had great scenes, and one sad/angry one with Toby.
One thing that is sure about this book, is that the wedding ceremony will happen one way or another. It was an interesting ceremony and I liked it a lot. The idea of paths is a main part of this series, and we see it in the customs of the Fae. Toby’s dress was beautifully described, and magic made it even better, no blood got on it and stayed clean. How it was made and all the work that went into it was very touching and made things even sweeter.
While, When Sorrows Come ends with the wedding ceremony, this book comes with a short story called, And With Reveling. This story is the party part of the wedding, a giant cake, friends and family giving their blessing to the newlyweds, and some strained relationship mending or worsening as like any other wedding. If you are a fan of the October Daye series, then I recommend you When Sorrows Come. Toby is wearing white and red like always, and she is ready to walk down the aisle to marry Tybalt, even if she has to duck some arrows on her way.
