Across the Green Grass Fields, by Seanan McGuire

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Author’s website | Publisher’s website
Publication date – January 12, 2021

Summary: Regan loves, and is loved, though her school-friend situation has become complicated, of late.

When she suddenly finds herself thrust through a doorway that asks her to Be Sure before swallowing her whole, Regan must learn to live in a world filled with centaurs, kelpies, and other magical equines–a world that expects its human visitors to step up and be heroes.

But after embracing her time with the herd, Regan discovers that not all forms of heroism are equal, and not all quests are as they seem…

Thoughts: Barring the first story in the series, all of the other Wayward Children novellas have been about already-established characters, and I say, “barring the first story,” because that’s the one that, well, established all the characters. While nearly all of the books could be read as standalones, they are so much richer when you have the foundation under your feet, and I can see why some may have been intimidated to just pick up and random book, knowing they might be missing some vital context.

So it was nice to see a story that really could be read as a 100% standalone, without characters from other stories making appearances, at least so far as I could tell. Regan’s story is one that could be picked up by somebody who’s heard good things about the Wayward Children series but who perhaps can’t get their hands on Every Heart a Doorway, but who still wants a glimpse into the kind of rich and compelling narrative these novellas hold without feeling lost or like they’re missing something.

Regan’s character is one that I think many people can empathize with to one degree or another. While in her mundane life, she tried hard to fit in, tried hard to fit into the boxes that other people dictated she should fit into in order to be ‘normal,’ even when doing so was a painful experience that cost her dearly. Only Regan didn’t quite fit into that box as well as she wanted, after receiving some news from her parents that on a biochemical level, she wasn’t quite like the other girls she knew. A moment of betrayal in telling the person she thought was her best friend, the one she’d worked so hard to please and be liked by, and Regan’s life began to spiral in directions that ultimately led her through a mysterious door and into the Hooflands, where she meets centaurs and unicorns and all manner of fantastical beings, all with hoofed feet. It’s there that Regan not only finds herself and finds acceptance, but also where she, as the world’s designated newly-arrived human, she discovers that she has a grand destiny to fulfill.

Honestly, I could spend years reading about the Hooflands and be quite happy to do so. The world that McGuire sets up in complex and real, with distinct cultures and geography and mythology and prejudice, and it feels deeper and more fleshed-out than some worlds I’ve read about in full-blown novels, where the author has so much more time to establish things for a reader. If next year I find that McGuire has sold a trilogy of novels set in the Hooflands, I will pre-order them all, I swear. There’s just something about the place that I love, and I feel like there are so very many stories that could be told there, all of them ones I’d want to read about. This isn’t my favourite otherworld that has featured in a Wayward Children novella, but it’s pretty damn close!

That being said, there was a moment of internal inconsistency that I wanted to mention, and I’ll preface this by saying that I read an ARC (advance review copy) and what I’m about to say might end up being erased from the final publication, but it stood out to be so much that I wanted to tackle it in this review. Shortly after Regan stumbles into the Hooflands and meets Pansy the centaur, Pansy utters a little colloquialism, “hay and horseshoes.” Which seems fitting, and was kind of the equivalent of our, “sunshine and rainbows.” You know, all the good things, everything being happy. But later on the same page, Regan mentions horses, and Pansy has no idea what a horse is. Now maybe this was just a case of someone not reflecting on etymology, because that happens all the time in real life, but it seemed very weird to me that someone would know what horseshoes were but not horses.

I can’t even give this one my usual handwave of assuming that everyone in the novel is speaking a language that isn’t English and everything I read is essentially translated for my benefit, because Regan is certainly speaking English, and Pansy is perfectly understood and seems to speak the same language, so it ended up being one of those weird internal inconsistency issues that kept nagging at me. Especially since Regan later mentions horses to another character, who doesn’t seem confused as to what a horse is at all. Or if she is, she doesn’t say anything about it.

But that one issue aside, the rest of the story was so very damn good that I was riveted from beginning to end. I loved seeing Regan’s progression as a character, I loved seeing more of the Hooflands and the people who lived there, and I loved the way the story took a turn in the end that made it feel very much like a great myth was being told, with Regan making unlikely allies who help her on her journey to fulfill her destiny. It was a fantastic read, and Across the Green Grass Fields quickly rose to become my second-favourite story in the entire series. And given how much I’ve enjoyed all the other books, that really says something!

Long story short, if you enjoyed the other Wayward Children books, you’ll love this one just as much. And if you haven’t read any of the other books yet but can’t find the first one or are intimidated to start at the beginning of a multi-book series (which is understandable; I often feel like if I start at the beginning, I ought to see it through to the end, and I don’t always have the time or ability to commit to that), then Across the Green Grass Fields is an excellent taste of what you’re in for if you decide to tackle the rest of the series. It’s a proper standalone that’s equal parts thought-provoking and exciting, giving readers a new and unique story while still feeding the craving for more books in the multiverse that is the Wayward Children series. I can’t recommend this one enough; it was brilliant, and I utterly loved it!

(Book received in exchange for an honest review.)

Why Seanan McGuire’s “Wayward Children” Series Means So Much to Me

If you look at my reviews for the Wayward Children novella series, it’s pretty clear that I absolutely adore the stories, and have from the beginning. Reading Every Heart a Doorway changed me, and I’ve read every novella since then, and reread a few of them to boot. Even when they hurt my heart, I love them.

And it’s time to talk about why.

I could say that it’s because there’s positive queer representation, and there is. I could say that McGuire just gets so many things, and has a brilliant way of writing those things, and she does. I could say it’s because the stories are so very creative, and that much is true.

But that’s not why the series resonated with me so intensely, right from the very first one.

That reason is far more personal, and will take a lot longer to explain.

You see, many years ago, I had a dream. In it, I had been taken outside of time. I didn’t fully understand the reason then, and I still don’t now, but somebody in charge of things had decided that I needed to stop existing, and took the steps to make that happen. Not death, nothing like that. More like I had never existed in the first place, my life reduced to nonexistence, everybody I knew losing all their knowledge and memory of me. And yet, I still existing. I had all those memories. I had to go somewhere.

And that somewhere was what I called The Silence.

I called it that because once I arrived at the place where I was going to exist from then on (a huge building, though I don’t remember seeing the outside of it; I remember long white hallways lined with doors, most of them the mini-apartment of somebody else who had never existed), I was handed a schedule, telling me when I could expect to get meals, when it was suggested I sleep, all of that. There was an hour a day when I could interact with others there in a communal space if I chose, but the rest of the time? It was all marked with “silence.”

Nonexistence was a quiet place.

I had my own little room, the place I’d be living from then on. It didn’t have much. A bed. A desk. That was it. But here’s the thing: since The Silence existed outside of time, I could request anything I wanted, from any time, to keep myself quietly occupied during the rest of… my life? Eternity? I wasn’t sure if one died when one had never existed in the first place. If I wanted to read books, from any time past or future, I could request them and read them until my heart’s content. If I wanted to play video games, I could do the same thing. Everything was mine for the asking, so long as I did those things quietly, and by myself. I remember being happy that I could start playing the next Final Fantasy game, without having to wait, because existing outside of time meant that the game already existed somewhere, somewhen, and it was mine for the asking.

And all of this, this silent solitude, felt so comfortable to me that despite a lingering sadness at no longer being able to see friends or family again (and technically speaking, none of them were or had ever been my friends or family anyway, now that I had reached that state of nonexistence), I knew I could be content there for however long I lasted. That while I might sometimes get lonely, I could still see people for short periods if I wanted, or avoid them if I wanted, and I wouldn’t be bothered again by anything except that which I wanted to deal with.

Waking up felt sad and weird, like I had left something of myself behind in The Silence. Being there felt right in ways I have never really been able to express. I tried to tell my friends, but they were mostly concerned over the fact that I seemed remarkably comfortable and happy with the idea of not existing. I could explain to them that this dream wasn’t some manifestation of depression, or suicidal ideation, or anything like that. But far more than this world, this life, I felt like I belonged there, could be myself and do the things I wanted and be comfortable in ways that I have never really experienced.

Seeing this concern of theirs and being unable to convince them that I wasn’t about to go and off myself, I stopped talking about it. I carried the memory and the feeling of the dream for years, a secret inside myself that I figured nobody would ever really be able to understand, because it wasn’t theirs to experience, wasn’t a world or plane or existence that suited them even a fraction as well as it suited me.

And then I read Every Heart a Doorway. And in it, I read about characters who had taken trips to impossible worlds, worlds that had room for them and fit them and gave them what they craved, even when those worlds were no shiny happy positive-all-the-time things. Those worlds were theirs, the way The Silence was mine, and nobody really understood what it was like to have that unless they, too, had gone elsewhere, wandered through a door that shouldn’t exist and found something on the other side that impacted them so profoundly. People who came back never really fit in here, in this world, any more, having been changed by being given that taste of something that fit their nature and personality far more than what this world can provide. I thought, while reading it, that if I could jump into the pages and tell any one of them about that dream, about The Silence, they would understand.

Do I think I actually slipped through the gap between realities and dreamed my way into another world? No, not really. There’s part of me that would love to be adamantly convinced that it all really happened, because imagine the implications of that! But that’s not really the point. The point is that my connection to that dream is what gave me multiple mind-blow moments while reading Every Heart a Doorway, because never before had I seen something like that in print. Stories about people ending up in other worlds, sure, those are everywhere, but that same sentiment? That feeling of rightness even when nobody else understands, even when everybody else says that’s a cause for worry and alarm, that particular expression? I hadn’t seen that before.

The first book resonated with me so hard because of that one dream I had nearly 2 decades ago.

I’ve wanted to get this off my chest for a long time. Many’s the time I’ve been tempted to try and write about my experience with The Silence, to turn it into a short story or a novella, but there have always been too many unanswered questions. Why did I need to stop existing? Who makes those decisions? What even is the point of such a story? And now that the Wayward Children series exists, I don’t think there’s a way I could turn it into a piece of fiction without thinking I was just being derivative, and a poor imitation at that. I’ve debated talking about it like this more than once, and decided against it because I worried that either people just wouldn’t give a damn, or that they’d start to worry about my mental health again after seeing how much that whole idea appealed to me, still appeals to me.

But here I am, and here we are, and the words have finally been written.

This series will always have deep meaning to me. For me, they go beyond the stories of adventure and loss, of need and use and misunderstandings. Even though that mind-blow moment of, “Holy shit, I get this!” has passed, I’ll always have a personal connection to the stories, and one that I certainly didn’t expect when I sat down to start reading them for the first time. McGuire certainly didn’t intend to write a series that would smack me so hard between the eyes, or give me something that I could connect with in such a deeply personal way, but that was the end result, and for that I will always be grateful for the fact that these books exist at all.

Come Tumbling Down, by Seanan McGuire

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Author’s website | Publisher’s website
Publication date – January 7, 2020

Summary: When Jack left Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children she was carrying the body of her deliciously deranged sister—whom she had recently murdered in a fit of righteous justice—back to their home on the Moors.

But death in their adopted world isn’t always as permanent as it is here, and when Jack is herself carried back into the school, it becomes clear that something has happened to her. Something terrible. Something of which only the maddest of scientists could conceive. Something only her friends are equipped to help her overcome.

Eleanor West’s “No Quests” rule is about to be broken.

Again.

Thoughts: I love the Wayward Children series more than a little bit. From the way the first one, Every Heart a Doorway resonated with me, right up to this one (which I’m sad to say actually took me this long to remember I actually had), the series has had more high points for me than lows, and each new story continues to impress.

Jack and Jill’s origin story, if you can call it that, was told in Down Among the Sticks and Bones, providing the details for how they found their door into their ideal world. When we last saw them in Every Heart a Doorway, Jack was carrying her sister’s dead body through the door back into their world, back where they belonged, an act of compassion even if Jill had just proven herself to be homicidal and had been killed to stop her from killing others. Now Jack has returned to Eleanor West’s school, but trapped within her sister’s body, with Jill haven switched bodies and stolen Jack’s once her own had been revived.

See, in their world, Jill is in thrall to her vampire master, seeking to become a vampire herself. But once-dead bodies cannot become undead, and so her own body became useless. Jack’s body, though, has never died, and so could go through the transformation. Jack now has to get her own body back before Jill does something irreversible with it, and all the while struggle to maintain the balance of power that the Moors demand.

You’d think that a world as bleak as the Moors wouldn’t appeal to me, but honestly, I love reading about it when it appears in these novellas. It’s certainly not the world for me, but it does hold a certain appeal, that dark pseudo-sci-fi from classic horror movies and the like, where you can practically hear the crash of distant thunder and feel the approaching storm as you read on. So it was nice to read another novel with Jack and Jill — though mostly Jack — as the centre of the story.

You know me, I love seeing queer characters in my reading. Jack is most definitely queer, given that she’s involved with a woman (and as such, so is Alexis), and Kade is transgender, and it’s so very good to see casual representation like that. This isn’t remotely a new thing for this series, but it still makes me smile every time, because McGuire knows how to write queer characters without making every aspect of them be entirely about their queerness, if that makes any sense. They are queer, and no attempt is ever really made to hide that, but it’s more than a “just so happens to be gay/trans/etc” situation. Their queerness is an important part of their character, but their character is much more than merely their queerness. I’m probably not doing a very good job of explaining it, and it probably makes a lot more sense if you grew up, as I did, with queer characters in fiction always needing some sort of coming-out scene, or another character needing time to adjust to the idea that someone they know is queer, then just sort of casual representation is a true treat, and I love it when authors do it. Their being gay is as much a part of them as another character being straight, their being trans is as much a part of them as another character being cis.

Anyway, moving on.

The Wayward Children series has a habit of making my heart ache for the characters and the situations they find themselves in, an emotional kick right to the chest, and Come Tumbling Down was no exception. From the bittersweet pain of realizing that Eleanor West herself was gradually coming to the end of her time as head of her own school, to Kade’s realization that being a hero sometimes means making the hard choices and the deep sacrifices so that others don’t have to, there’s a lot of emotion packed into so few pages, and it’s not exactly something I recommend reading if you’re feeling particularly vulnerable. While every novella within this series is an adventure story, they’re also stories with a strong overlay of loneliness, of the sort of isolation that comes with knowing you are not where you belong, and getting back there requires the sacrifice of everything you’ve built in the meantime. You follow these characters along on their journeys and you ache and mourn and yearn with them, every time, and you have McGuire’s stunningly evocative writing to thank for that.

I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of this series. Whether it’s revisiting previously established characters or showing the origins of entirely new characters, I’m here for the journey, and every ounce of heartbreak along the way. Even if I relate to some characters far less than others, there’s a familiarity to all of them that makes me want to keep coming back, to keep discovering more and more about where their lives take them. Jill’s horrible downfall, Jack’s painful rise, and the commentary along the way, commentary that strikes at the heart of so many marginalized experiences and lays pain and beauty bare for other to experience. This is portal fantasy, yes, but it’s also something beautifully and tragically unique, and I want to be there for every second of it.

(Book received in exchange for an honest review.)

Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire

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Author’s website | Publisher’s website
Publication date – September 1, 2009

Summary: October “Toby” Daye, a changeling who is half human and half fae, has been an outsider from birth. After getting burned by both sides of her heritage, Toby has denied the Faerie world, retreating to a “normal” life. Unfortunately for her, the Faerie world has other ideas…

The murder of Countess Evening Winterrose pulls Toby back into the fae world. Unable to resist Evening’s dying curse, which binds her to investigate, Toby must resume her former position as knight errant and renew old alliances. As she steps back into fae society, dealing with a cast of characters not entirely good or evil, she realizes that more than her own life will be forfeited if she cannot find Evening’s killer.

Thoughts: I’d heard good things about Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series for years now, but I’m so rarely in the mood for urban fantasy that starting what I knew to be a long-running series seemed too daunting. When the mood struck me again and a copy of the first book in the series was available at the library, I thought to myself, “Why not?” At worst, I would read the book and dislike it and not have to worry about continuing the series. At best, I would find something new and fun to read that I could keep visiting over and over again with the many different novels that make up the whole story.

Unsurprisingly, I now must lament that the library only has this book, and none of the others, and so I must begin the process of tracking them all down one by one.

I’m used to thinking of urban fantasy series with female protagonists as being rather formulaic. Mid-20s attractive woman and martial arts skills must thwart growing supernatural menace and date hot supernatural guys. I know that stereotype is something of an injustice to the genre, especially these days, but that was the bulk of urban fantasy I saw growing up, and so it’s a surprise to me (and yet it shouldn’t be) when I encounter something that bucks those trends and gives me something I didn’t expect.

Much of Rosemary and Rue could have been written with a protagonist like that, I suspect, but that this wasn’t the case caught my attention immediately. October “Toby” Daye was born in 1952, though in fairness she’s part faerie and also spent 14 years living as a fish in a koi pond, so her appearance doesn’t make her true age immediately obvious. She has a husband and child, though thanks to the aforementioned fish pond captivity, they’re not part of her life to the degree they used to be. She knows how to fight, how to defend herself, because she was a trained private investigator. And unlike the first books of many urban fantasy series I’ve read, she doesn’t begin the multi-novel journey in ignorance of the supernatural forces around her. She knows what she is, she knows what lurks in the shadows and in the danger of the sunrise, and she has experience dealing with a variety of things both mundane and otherworldly. She’s competent, experienced, and resourceful, and it was refreshing to see.

The bulk of the novel is a supernatural murder mystery, after a fae Countess is brutally killed and her last words are to bind and compel Toby to solve the matter of who killed her and why. The binding places something of a time constraint on Toby, not in a strict “you have 48 hours to figure this out” way, but by actively hurting her if she’s taking too long to find clues and follow the trail. Which is honestly a bit difficult to wrap my head around, when it comes right down to it, because there’s the implication that the spell knows the answer to the puzzle, at least on some level, since it eases up on Toby when she’s getting closer to the truth, and squeezes tighter when she’s taking too long. The magic itself seems to have awareness of the truth. I can’t say it’s based on Toby’s motivations or actions, not entirely, as there are times when Toby is getting close to something but the situation isn’t much different from times when Toby thought she was getting close to something but it was more of a false lead. Could Toby have escaped the binding by just blaming somebody who seemed likely to kill Countess Winterrose, even if there was no definitive proof but plenty of circumstantial evidence? If somebody falsely confessed, would the binding know that the mystery wasn’t solved, even if Toby believed it was? Could the binding be unraveled to just lead right to the truth of the matter?

Am I reading too much into this?

Probably. But I enjoy asking questions like this. I enjoy looking at possibilities and trying to figure out how magic systems in books work, seeing where the holes are and trying to reconcile them with what’s presented to me. Sometimes there’s no satisfactory answer. Sometimes the answer is, “It just works. It’s a mystical thing and human minds can’t fully grasp it, but it works, and that’s all you need to know.”

It’s also very possible that anything I see now as an ambiguity will be addressed in later novels, as the October Daye series currently has 13 novels and a few side stories. There’s plenty of time to see how this all unfolds.

It’s the backdrop of faerie lore that makes Rosemary and Rue more than just a typical murder mystery. The binding curse on Toby definitely propels things forward, making sure that there isn’t much downtime in the story. But people also know that Toby is on the case, including the murderer she’s seeking, and so traps and obstacles come her way. Up to and including people sent to kill her, to stop her from finding out the truth. There’s more to it than just Winterrose’s death. There’s also an item of legend thrown into the mix, a box that reportedly contains great powers, that Toby must protect and that other people want to get their hands on. The balance between Toby needing to stay safe (which rarely happens) and to rush into danger so that her quest can be finished and the binding removed causes the story to always be moving forward, but at something of an unsteady pace. None of it slows down the story to the point where it feels stuck, however, which is a testament to the author’s ability to tell a good story.

I love the complicated world of the fae. Political lines drawn and shifting, and there are complex rules to follow that aren’t always apparent. The different kinds of supernatural beings all seem connected to the fae even if they’re not quite what I’d typically think of as faerie, such as trolls or kitsune, but I can still see how they could be considered under a similar umbrella, so to speak. The author certain did a decent amount of research when figuring out the way a lot of these groups would fit together and relate to each other, both politically and in terms of lifestyle, and it all comes together quite nicely and feels coherent, if complex.

Even if I disagree with some aspects of the pronunciation guide at the front of the book… (Kitsune is not pronounced kit-soon. Sorry.)

As I said previously, I quite enjoyed my experience reading Rosemary and Rue, and I’m inspired to continue following Toby Daye’s adventures and misadventures through the rest of the series. I don’t know how quickly I’ll be able to actually do that, since finding them might involve a lot of luck and interlibrary loans, but I certainly want to read them and to see where the story leads in the end. Seanan McGuire is a skilled writer who can balance enjoyable fluff with serious considerations, and while Rosemary and Rue leaned a little more heavily to the side of enjoyable fluff (at least, that’s my interpretation), it did dip its toes in darker waters at times, turning from witty and quick to grim and brutal in a matter of pages, and I liked the effect. Sure as if there’s now a binding on me, I’m compelled to read on!

Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire

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Author’s website | Publisher’s website
Publication date – April 5, 2016

Summary: No Solicitations
No Visitors
No Quests

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere… else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced… they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of things.

No matter the cost.

Review: Seanan McGuire is a name you can’t really avoid when it comes to urban fantasy. And yet, I don’t think I’d actually read anything of hers until now. I knew the name, but not the works, and after having read and adored Every Heart a Doorway, I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed in myself for not making the time to do so sooner.

What we have is the story of Nancy, and let me take a moment to just right in with the praise because Nancy is one of the few asexual characters I have ever found in fiction. There have been a few, but often when present, authors fall back on explaining a character’s asexuality away as a result of trauma or that it was traded away for something (usually a religious something). McGuire is quick to mention that there’s a difference between celibacy and asexuality, that someone who’s asexual can absolutely have romantic feelings for someone, and in only a few short lines, scattered here and there throughout the novella, eradicate many of the assumptions that people often have about ace individuals. So many thanks to McGuire for improving visibility and representation for people like myself.

Anyway, this is Nancy’s story. And Nancy now finds herself at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, after having disappeared for a time into a different world, and when her parents have no idea how to bring back the person she used to be. But Eleanor’s establishment isn’t just a rehab place for emotionally unstable teens, as Nancy suspects. It’s actually for people just like her, people who has crossed over into other worlds and have been changed for the experience. Bit by bit Nancy learns that she’s not alone in her experiences, that everyone at Eleanor’s has traveled elsewhere at some point in their lives, and that there are countless worlds, all different but all, in their way, quantifiable. Although Nancy can’t return to the world that gave her such comfort for a time, it seems her life might be starting to look up.

That is, until the murders begin.

The story that follows has Nancy and her newfound companions attempting to catch the culprit and figure out why they’re killing off teens at the house. McGuire does a great job of building suspense and laying out the mystery piece by piece, leaving the reader narrowing down the list of suspects as events unfold. It wasn’t so much a case of “Is it this person? No? How about that person?” so much as it was, “It could be these people. Okay, now I know it can’t be that one… Or that one…” And so on. It’s not always a comfortable story. The characters are not your typical teens, even by urban fantasy standards. There are gruesome circumstances, frank talk of death and dismemberment, and sometimes you end up liking characters even as they frustrate and repulse you. But it’s still a fantastic story with a fantastic cast (one of whom is a well-presented trans guy, and yes, there is some antagonism from some of the other students over it all, because people are people and that means they can be ignorant sometimes), and I loved sinking into it all.

On a personal level, this story resonated with me in a far deeper way than I expected it to. Each of the characters who had gone to different worlds found that the new world suited them on a soul-deep level, that however much they had to change and learn new behaviours, there was something right about it, even when it was difficult. And I’d be lying if I said I’d never had that kind of experience myself. It was a long-ago dream, but in it I went somewhere else, somewhere out of time, where I didn’t have to worry about mundane problems, where I had an endless amount of books to read and video games to play, where I could stay always, and the proviso is that I had to stay silent. People there had an hour a day to interact, to talk quietly with each other, but for the most part, we stuck to ourselves, passing endless time in silence, happy because that was what suited us. I told my friends about that dream, how it felt so comfortable for me, almost ideal, and it worried them rather than intrigued them, because, well, most healthy people don’t dream about leaving everything behind and being silent forever. And I guess I can see that. But to me, it was still comfort. A place to go to in my mind that was still and peaceful and had no worries with it, and it was mine.

That was years ago. I still think of it, and I still remember the peace that came along with what I eventually just called the Silence.

And then along comes Seanan McGuire, writing about a bunch of people who found worlds that fit them as well as the Silence fit me, and so you might be able to understand why reading this hit me so hard.

Anyway…

The ending of Every Heart a Doorway is a bittersweet one, one that I didn’t know if McGuire would do. On one hand, Nancy desperately wants to return to the Halls of the Dead, though she’s told it’s highly unlikely she’ll ever be able to do so. Few people return to their worlds. On the other hand, you do see her form bonds with people in this world, bonds that she would have to give up if ever she did return. So no decision is without its drawbacks, and without giving away too much of what happens at the very end, I have to say that I think the author handled it well. As I said, it was bittersweet, full of calm-but-deep emotion, and as satisfying as it could get.

This is a novella for the misfits, the people who don’t belong, the people who hope that there’s a place for them out there, even if it’s a strange and fantastical place that nobody else understands. It’s a story for the curious and the brave, for those who enjoy urban fantasy and magical realism but who are looking for a different flavour in their reading. It’s short and wonderful, it’s an adventure in both clarity and obscurity, and I know that I’ll be rereading this one again in the future. In all, an amazing introduction to McGuire’s writing!

(Received for review from the publisher.)