Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire
DAW Books
September 1, 2009

Full disclosure: Seanan is a friend, but I consider that more the reason that I knew about this book than the reason that I liked it. 😉

Short version: I love, love, loved this book.

Longer version: Seanan McGuire’s first novel, Rosemary and Rue, is for anyone who has ever believed in faeries, for anyone who has ever wished to step into a wardrobe and out into a world that is magical and every bit as real as our own.

October (Toby) Daye is a changeling–half human and half faerie, caught between two worlds and never quite fitting in to either. Toby is a private investigator–I picture her as sort of a grown-up version of Veronica Mars, but with magic. This book calls itself “faerie noir,” and that’s an apt description. It’s dark, it’s gritty, and it’s not always easy to read, but it is always compelling reading.

In the book’s prologue, we learn that Toby had fallen in love (and had a child) with a human man. She was off working a case one night when she walked into a trap and disappeared. For seventeen years.

When she returns, her family has moved on, having believed her to be dead. She isolates herself from everyone she knew, not wanting to be a part of either of the worlds she inhabits. That is, until the murder of a friend (if you can call her that) pulls her back in and forces her to interact with the people (and fae) she tried so hard to walk away from. Toby will solve the case, or die trying.

McGuire’s voice is influenced by modern-day writers like Warren Ellis, Stephen King, and Joss Whedon, yet it is completely her own. The world she creates is at once fantastic and utterly real. The book is set in present-day San Francisco, and the city lives and breaths and inhabits the book as much as the characters do.

Toby is a fantastic example of a flawed heroine–she hurts, she bleeds, she screws up, and you will alternately want to hug her and slap her silly. In short, Toby is real, as real as the world she inhabits. She’ll make you feel her pain, and you’ll cry the tears that Toby won’t let herself cry.

Rosemary and Rue is the first book in a series, and it does exactly what a good series novel should do–it makes you want more, but stands on its own as a complete story at the same time. I’ll be anxiously awaiting the release of book 2, A Local Habitation, in March 2010.

If you like paranormal fiction, grown-up fairie tales, urban fantasy, tight prose, well-drawn worlds and characters, sarcasm, murder mysteries, or any combination thereof, pick up Rosemary and Rue. You won’t be disappointed.