October is very happy with her life as the second daughter of her pureblood parents, Amandine and Simon Torquill. Born to be the changeling handmaid to her beloved sister August, she spends her days working in her family’s tower, serving as August’s companion, and waiting for the day when her sister sets up a household of her own. Everything is right in October’s Faerie. Everything is perfect.

Everything is a lie.

October has been pulled from her own reality and thrown into a twisted reinterpretation of Faerie where nothing is as it should be and everything has been distorted to support Titania’s ideals. Bound by the Summer Queen’s magic and thrust into a world turned upside down, October has no way of knowing who she can trust, where she can turn, or even who she really is. As strangers who claim to know her begin to appear and the edges of Titania’s paradise begin to unravel, Toby will have to decide whether she can risk everything she knows based on only their stories of another world.

But first she’ll have to survive this one, as Titania demonstrates why she needed to be banished in the first place—and this time, much more than Toby’s own life is at stake.

Who would think that the 17th book in a fantasy series could still make a reader gasp, cry, and want to beg the author for mercy on behalf of the characters? I suppose it’s not truly a surprise when it comes to the October Daye series — this is a series that delivers heart-stopping plot twists and emotional upheavals consistently (while also having plenty of humor and moments of absolute delight). The author doesn’t let the characters (or the reader) get comfortable for long, and books 16 and 17 in the series are prime examples.

Going back a book for a quick minute, book #16 picks up after our hero Toby (a literal hero of the realm) finally finds true happiness and marries the love of her life. And then her world takes a horrifying turn, devastating things happen, and life as Toby knows it will never be the same.

Without going too far into plot details, the 16th book ends with a terrifying twist that left me practically sobbing on the floor and screaming NOOOOO. So it’s not a surprise when book 17, Sleep No More, picks up the story where it left off, ready to tie my guts into knots once again.

Have I mentioned how much I love these books? Honestly, I do, even though they wreak havoc on my state of calm.

In Sleep No More, October is imprisoned within a false world in which nothing about her former life remains true, and what’s more, she has no idea that the world she now inhabits isn’t where she’s always been. In this world, she lives according to the rules for all changelings (half-human, half-fae) — her purpose is to serve her family, especially her pureblood sister. She’s happy with her lot. She loves her sister August, and knows that she has an important role to fill. So long as she keeps her head down, does what she’s told, and doesn’t offend any purebloods, she’ll have as good a life as an unimportant changeling can aspire to.

But cracks in the façade of a perfect life appear. Toby begins to experience things that don’t make sense, and soon people show up who insist that this isn’t the real world. Even as Toby begins to recognize the elements that don’t add up and starts to discover her own true nature, she clings to the false world where she’s loved and protected. Eventually, though, she can’t deny the truth of the situation, and along with trusted allies, sets out to save the world (again).

For fans of the series, this book is powerful, scary, upsetting… and also a totally compelling read. It should be pretty obvious that the 17th book in a series is not a good place to start, but I’m happy to take this opportunity to once again recommend picking up book #1, Rosemary & Rue!!

In a truly unusual move, the next book in the series, The Innocent Sleep, will be released in October. Two books within two months! These books typically come out once a year, so this is totally exciting. Stay tuned! I’ll be back with thoughts on The Innocent Sleep very, very soon.

Side note: At certain points in the story, I kept flashing to a bit of dialogue from the Buffy episode The Wish:

Anyanka: You trusting fool! How do you know the other world is any better than this?
Giles: Because it has to be.