Ok, so I’ve had Seanan McGuire friends-ed on Livejournal for quite awhile because we have at least one mutual friend who turned me on to her.  Her Livejournal entries are often really damn funny, and frequently insightful about the writing process.  I got hooked on her short stories about Rose, the Hitch-hiking Ghost in her Sparrow Hill Road series on the Edge of Propiniquity.  I encourage you to go read the free stories by Seanan, so that you, too, will become hooked and search out the stuff you have to pay for.

Like the October Daye novels (see what I did there?  Segue for the win).

Ok, so it wasn’t that clever.

The October Daye books are more Urban Fantasy than Paranormal Romance, because there is a very limited amount of getting naked.  Toby Daye is a changeling (half-breed) knight and private investigator for the fae court in San Francisco.  The first book Rosemary and Rue opens with Toby tracking the brother of her liege, who she suspects has kidnapped her liege’s wife and child.  He captures her and turns her into a fish.  She loses fourteen years of her life.  And we meet up with her again after she’s been rescued and is trying to put her life back together without interference from the world of the fae. However, fate has other plans, and soon she’s embroiled in a murder mystery that forces her back into contact with the fae, and the world she’s tried to leave behind.

Book two, A Local Habitation has Toby back to being a

private investigator, looking into the lack of communication from her liege’s niece, who runs a small .com start up and rules a small county between his kingdom and a neighboring rival territory.  She takes a young page of the court, and heads down to check things out.  Once there, she discovers several murders and that Sylvester’s niece has been trying to contact him, but she hasn’t gotten any callbacks.  The cast of characters include a selkie, a treeless dryad who’s been ported into the network and lives on the servers, and several other fae misfits.

Book three, An Artificial Night, which I’ve just started concerns several missing children and Toby’s quest to find and return them.  I’ll hold off on providing a synopsis on this one since I haven’t really gotten into it yet.

I really enjoyed the first two books.  They are funny, touching and poignant.  I found myself snickering  out loud on the bus several times, and surreptiously wiping away tears so my fellow commuters didn’t look at me strangely.  Toby is a compelling heroine, who struggles and fumbles, and while you get the impression she’s rather small THAT ISN’T HER BIGGEST DRAWBACK!!!!  For which I am very grateful.  (Long time readers have seen me rant about the heroine being “petite” being her sole drawback.  Grrr) Her biggest advantage and drawback both, seems to be not knowing when she’s in over her head.  Or more to the point, not caring.  If there’s a job to be done, she’s going to do it, no matter how banged up she gets.  She has an over-developed sense of guilt, and a lot of inferiority issues from being raised as a half-breed in the fae lands, but she does not let those things stop her.

The only real complaint I have about her is that she has a touch of the Mary Sue-ish tendency that everyone thinks she’s hot, even if she doesn’t realize A. that she’s hot or B. that other people think she’s hot.  However, it’s a teeny, teeny bitch about an otherwise fantastic series of books and a very three dimensional character, that I am enjoying the hell right out of.

Book four is due out soon-ish, and I can’t wait!

That said, I also blame Ms. McGuire for my recent radio silence.  Since she’s inspired me to look at some of my old writing, and I’ve been working on what I affectionately call The Novel ™ and it’s kind of consumed all my time lately.  This is not the first novel I’ve written.  This is, however, the first novel that anyone* gets to see ever, ever, ever, ever.  Trust me, you don’t want to see the first one.  It…  You know that quote about everyone has so many words of crap in them before they get good?  That.

However, I am planning on being a little better with the time management in order to bring you more reviews, more shameless fangirl squee-ing, and in a week or so, that interview with Felicia Day I was talking about.

Also, if I don’t post for a while, feel free to email me and ask me what the hell is wrong with me, get back to work.

Just a reminder:  Geek Girls Rule is on Facebook and Twitter (@geekgirlsrule).  I will frequently jot quick notes on Facebook that I don’t bother with here.

*I’m not kidding.  Not even the Geek Husband What Rules will ever be allowed to read the first novel.  It’s that bad.  Yes, it is.