Read Along: An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire – Week One

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| Week One |

Welcome to the Read Along of An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire, organised by Lisa at Over the Effing Rainbow.

Welcome to the first post in the An Artificial Night Read Along! And what a great start to this third novel in the October Daye series. Tense, exciting and straight into the action, An Artificial Night looks set to be a fantastic read. This week the wonderful Lisa at Over the Effing Rainbow is hosting and some excellent opening questions for us to mull over.

If anyone would like to join in, just head on over to the Goodreads group and sign up. Here’s how the schedule looks:

Week 1 (Saturday 9th April)

Chapters 1-7 – hosted by Over the Effing Rainbow

Week 2 (Saturday 16th April)

Chapters 8-17 – hosted by Books by Proxy (me!)

Week 3 (Saturday 23rd April)

Chapters 18-24 – hosted by Lynn’s Books

Week 4 (Saturday 30th April)

Chapters 25-End – hosted by Over the Effing Rainbow

There will be spoilers!

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| Week Two Rating |

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| The Questions |

| 1. |

The book opens with Toby at a birthday party for Mitch and Stacy’s youngest child, and follows with an early-morning meet-up with Connor. Both scenes serve to keep previously introduced characters in play and show us how life is progressing for Toby, but in very different ways. What do you make of these scenes after all that’s gone before?

Toby’s attendance of the birthday party just goes to show how much she’s changed since the fishcident. In Rosemary and Rue she was reticent about reconnecting with anyone from her past, terrified that she might hurt them in some way, but here we are a few books later and she’s reforged those friendships she thought lost (well some of them at least!). The scene showed how much she cares for her friends and their children which makes the loss of Gillian from her world all the more poignant.

After A Local Habitation it was clear that Toby was flirting with disaster if she went anywhere near Connor with Raysel on the scene. They both seemed to be yearning for a past that couldn’t be whilst both trapped in a situation where life and death were balanced on a knife edge – a recipe for making some huge mistakes! Luckily, in the opening scenes of An Artificial Night, Toby seems to have joined us readers in the opinion that such a relationship would be a complete disaster and has informed Connor of as much. I’m sure he agrees deep down but it must be incredibly hard for him to be stuck in a loveless marriage with a woman who’s certifiably crazy. How all this will pan out remains to be seen!

| 2. |

As we may have come to expect by now, things rapidly go downhill from there… What are your thoughts right now on this interpretation of the Wild Hunt?

Well doesn’t this all seem very sinister?! Blind Michael and his Wild Hunt are definitely going to up the ante in this third novel and, despite the multitude of murders which spattered the first two novels, this theme seems a lot darker, a lot wilder and a hell of a lot more fae. I’m excited to see how Toby fairs against such an unstoppable foe and I can’t help but feel that no one will leave this story unchanged – certainly not the children who find themselves in Blind Michael’s clutches, and certainly not Toby.

| 3. |

And (because it wouldn’t be a Toby read along if I didn’t celebrate him) Tybalt is back! After what was apparently a lengthy absence… What do you suppose kept Tybalt away after the events in A Local Habitation…?

It’s good to see Tybalt and his dry humour back even if Toby was the only one to feel his absence! Tybalt seemed very suspicious – or perhaps interested – in the powers which Toby seemed to wield in A Local Habitation so, along with his need to settle some Cait Sidhe affairs following Barbara’s death, I imagine that he was looking for answers with regards to Toby. Or perhaps he was just being a typical cat and decided to go wandering off into the wilds for a time… In any case, Toby’s obviously strange blood magic peaked my interest in the second novel, so I cannot wait to see how it develops over the course of this one!

| 4. |

Back to the real drama – Toby (eventually) gets some answers from Luna after a non-starter meeting with Lily. Everyone’s being mysterious, but Luna is acting especially strangely – as is Sylvester, who is openly unhappy with her about something… Any thoughts? Guesses? Suspicions?

This was all very strange! I understand Lily is tied by fae rules – rules which at the moment I cannot fathom – but this scene just served to emphasise her strangeness and otherworldliness. As for Sylvester and Luna, something is definitely not right in Shadowed Hills! But whether that’s Sylvester or Luna or something else entirely I really couldn’t say. But I love our resident Rose Goblin and he seems to trust Luna so I’m sure it will turn out ok… Other than that I’m as much in the wilderness as Toby! Perhaps even more so! I guess we’ll have to read on to find out.

Stay tuned for the next instalment of this Read Along on 16^th April