DAW Books, Mass Market Paperback
September 7th, 2010 * ISBN: 978-0756406264
Sequel to A LOCAL HABITATION
HOW MANY MILES TO BABYLON?
Everyone in the Bay Area knows about Blind Michael, the unseen, dangerous figure whose Hunt sweeps the Berkeley hills on full moon nights. He's a familiar hazard of life in the Kingdom of the Mists, and most people don't waste time worrying about him. October "Toby" Daye certainly doesn't. She has better things to worry about, like paying the electrical bill on time. So it's understandable that she'd be upset when Blind Michael suddenly starts taking an interest in people that matter to her, like the youngest children of Mitch and Stacy Brown.
Tasked to find the missing children, and with the stakes growing higher by the minute, Toby has few choices and fewer allies to help her through the dangers yet to come. With the Luidaeg's help and a candle to light her way home, there's a chance that she'll come through this latest danger...but the sudden appearance of her Fetch doesn't give Toby all that much in the way of hope...
An Artificial Night is the third book in the October Daye series, a modern urban fantasy set in both the San Francisco Bay Area and the Faerie Kingdom of the Mists which overlays Northern California. It was released in North America by DAW Books on September 7th, 2010, and has been translated into German.
BACK COVER TEXT
Changeling knight in the court of the Duke of Shadowed Hills, October "Toby" Daye has survived numerous challenges that would destroy fae and mortal alike.
Now Toby must take on a nightmarish new assignment. Someone is stealing both fae and mortal children—and all signs point to Blind Michael. When the young son of Toby's closest friends is snatched from their Northern California home and his sister falls into a coma-like state, the situation becomes way too personal. Toby has no choice but to track the villains down, even when there are only three magical roads by which to reach Blind Michael's realm—home of the legendary Wild Hunt—and no road may be taken more than once. If she cannot escape with all the children before the candle that guides and protects her burns away, Toby herself will fall prey to the Wild Hunt and Blind Michael's inescapable power.
And it doesn't bode well for the success of her mission that her own personal Fetch, May Daye—the harbinger of Toby's own death—has suddenly turned up on her doorstep...
BLURBS
"This series is turning out to be one of my favorites because Toby seems so real she could walk off the page." —SFRevu.
"...should appeal to fans of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files...Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs..." —Library Journal.
REVIEWS
"McGuire hits her stride with this fast-paced, sharply plotted, tense urban fantasy, the third featuring half-fae detective Toby Daye...McGuire adeptly plunders folklore, nursery rhymes, traditional ballads, and fairy tales for her framework, and fleshes it out with plenty of action and intrigue." —Publishers Weekly.
"An Artificial Night carries on the series tradition of starting off with a bang and pretty much refusing to let the reader rest from there on out. Which is how I like this series to be: fast-paced, gritty and emotionally gripping." —Kenda Montgomery, Lurv ala Mode.
"For me, An Artificial Night brought this series back up to the five-star rating that I gave to book one, Rosemary and Rue. Seanan McGuire's writing feels so dense and weighty to me, like a flour-less chocolate cake, but what astounds me is that her stories are such easy-to-read page-turners as well." —Rebecca, Dirty Sexy Books.