The Winter Long
Ratings49
Average rating4.2
I honestly don't know what happened. I was pretty meh over the first book, and then I just kept reading them, and now this is my favorite series. :)
This series continues to be amazing!
If you haven't read it, then you should.
Enough said.
Now that I'm well and truly immersed in this world and head-over-heels for all its characters, Seanan McGuire chose to dig deep into the history of these people to add depth and added meaning to connections and rivalries that only made the world even richer as a result. I adore what she did here, masterfully using all the things we've learned in prior books to underpin a book full of revealed secrets and shifting allegiances. Seanan McGuire is forever on my “yeah I'll read that” list already, but here she has really proven it's a good choice.
The Winter Long is entertaining, but I didn't think it was as good as most other books in this series. The big revelations in it were not as major as those in Late Eclipses, and potential obstacles are overcome much too easily (although I do keep wondering if I'm being lulled into feeling a false sense of security before everything bad in the universe happens in a later book). It was enjoyable and fun to read, but I didn't find it as memorable as earlier books in the series.
Full Review: http://www.fantasybookcafe.com/2016/01/mini-review-the-winter-long-by-seanan-mcguire/
I don't like parties. Someone always tries to assassinate someone I actually like, and there are never enough of those little stuffed mushroom caps.
A book starts off with a line like that? You're going to have fun.
Thankfully, one's appreciation of a book doesn't depend on how the protagonist acts. When I was on page 46, I wrote , “Granted, this is early, but Toby's being stupid, foolishly so. She's not paying attention to anything said during the fight she just had – actually, technically didn't really have. Instead, she's reacting to something that happened to a friend, and acting out of fear, prejudice and alarm. That disappoints me. Her saying, ‘that smile, brief as it had been, was all I could have asked for. A smiling Tybalt was a Tybalt who was still capable of stepping back and looking at the situation rationally. I loved him, but even I could find him frightening when he was fixated on vengeance.' Man, choke me on the irony, McGuire.”
There's just go much about this novel that I can't describe without spoiling it. Let me limit myself to a couple of more notes: Toby lost a lot of blood on this one – I mean like The Bride in the Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves kind of a lot. It's a good thing she has a healing factor to make Logan jealous. While she's bleeding she's having her world rocked.
McGuire takes a lot of what Toby's “known” since we met her (all of which is what we've “known,” too) and turns it upside down and shakes the truth out. Every other book in the series has been affected by these revelations – in one fell swoop, she re-wrote previous 7 books – which is just so cool. It's not that we've (we= readers and Toby) been wrong, our understanding is just . . . askew. There's also some nice warm fuzzies in this book, which isn't that typical for the series. McGuire's outdone herself.