The Winter Long

The Winter Long (2014) Seanan McGuire

I held onto the book for a while, solely because I knew I was going on vacation, and would have the time to read the whole thing in one sitting.

This book tied up some loose ends that I hadn’t realized were loose ends, and made for a slow start to the book.

My phone rang again. I stood, moving to retrieve it once again from my jacket pocket ad blinked. The display listed the caller as “East of the Sun, West of the Moon,” which was definitely not within the local service area.

Of course other threads were dropped; leading to new books in the future I’m sure.

As a whole, I’m not certain how I feel about this story. Perhaps reading it immediately after finishing Rob Thurman’s Downfall wasn’t the best idea, because I love Cal, and most other supernatural fantasy characters pale in comparison to him. Not that Toby and her friends aren’t witty, they just aren’t anywhere near as sarcastic and bitter and rude as Cal.

“Remember, there is no fighting in the Library. Simon Torquill has a Library card. He hasn’t done anything that would cause me to rescind it.”

I stared at her. “He turned me into a fish.”

“Did he do it in the Library?”

Weirdly, after spending time with Cal, whose first, last, and always solution to most problems is over-the-top violence, Toby’s reactions to several issues seemed… odd. I had a difficult time accepting her reactions to Simon. Of course I also had a hard time parsing Simon’s actions, period. He talked about not being evil, but some of his actions seemed to defy logic.

But again, it’s quite likely this book suffered from being read immediately following the latest Rob Thurman.
Rating: 7/10

Published by Daw

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