Sleep No More
(October Daye #17)

Entire review is a big spoiler for the series as a whole, if you haven't started it but would like to, so proceed at your own risk. No spoilers here for this book.

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Titania is really, really mad at Toby. And what worse revenge could she get than to curse her into an existence where she meekly accepts a quiet life under the thumb of her cruel mother, Amandine?

In an enormous undertaking, Titania rebuilds the world into one in her own image, placing everyone where she believes they belong, and fabricating an alternative history that paints her in the best light. And the place where she wants Toby is as a submissive changeling, clueless of her prior life, friends, and husband, and happy to serve those in power.

While Titania cannot change the personalities of someone, she can cause them to misremember the past and believe they have experienced life a certain way. In a sense, she cannot change their nature, but she can change their nurturing -- or what they think their nurturing was, anyway. As we meet well-known characters who have been very differently formed by the false world around them, we begin to see the changes. A few seem more or less the same, just in different life situations, some less likeable characters seem much more lovable, and some lovable characters turn out downright villainous.

(All this begs some pretty deep philosophical questions concerning whether our own goodness is innate or dependent on those around us and the gray, fuzzy line between what makes someone a "good" person or a "bad" one.)

But this spell is beginning to crack in places, and some begin to realize that something is not quite right.

The next book, The Innocent Sleep, retells the same time period and events from the viewpoint of Tybalt.

Copy received to review