Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire (2009)

We finish out the week with two posts from Circulation Services Director Melissa Simpson.

There seem to be a lot of fantasy novels on the shelves — vampires, werewolves,  and faeries abound!  It’s refreshing to run across a new author that offers some inventive takes on the genre.

Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire introduces us to October (Toby) Daye, a changeling (part fae, part human) private investigator living in San Francisco.

After a stakeout goes horribly wrong, Toby lost 14 years of her life  and doesn’t want anything more to do with the fae.  Easier said than done.  One of her old friends, Countess Evening Winterrose, draws Toby out of her isolation and back into Faerie to solve a murder — the murder of the Countess herself.   To make sure Toby follows through, Winterrose places a binding curse on Toby so if she doesn’t manage to figure out “who done it,” Toby will die.  How’s that for incentive to take a case?

What makes this book original are the myriad details. A wealth of characters from fantasy — Daoine Sidhe, Kitsune, Undine, Cait Sidhe, as well as goblins, selkies, and a variety of changeling combinations populate both Faerie and the human realm.  It’s interesting to see how the different races interact with each other.

In addition to her wits, Toby has some magic of her own.  She can relive someone’s last memories by tasting a drop of their blood.  She is able to confuse mortal humans by using nursery rhymes, helpful when crossing a toll bridge without the exact change.  And  there are hints throughout the book that Toby performed extraordinary deeds before that disastrous stakeout at the beginning of the book — I’m hoping McGuire sheds more light on these in the future.

If you like  modern urban fantasies by Jim Butcher, Kim Harrison, Karen Marie Moning, Kat Richardson or Laurell K. Hamilton – you should give this new series a try.  The next book, A Local Habitation, is due in March.

Check the WRL catalog for Rosemary and Rue