LATE ECLIPSES open thread. Have a party.

You probably won't answer these but I still have to ask. :-)

Is Amandine the youngest Firstborn?

Is Toby now less than 50% human?

I'm confused, were Toby's magical limitations unconsciously self-imposed or were they because of her mother's tinkering?

I may have to re-read to be sure, but did the scent of the Queen of the Mist's magic change?

I'm totally Team Tybalt (I need to make a Team Tybalt icon). I have to say I loved the little detail of Luna's fingerprints containing flower designs. And Danny's comment about Toby going through a pencil sharpener. I hope the cover for One Salt Sea shows her new look.

Best book yet!

There was one thing I didn’t quite understand though. Exactly what was Tybalt’s logic behind kissing Toby? I know he said that it was so the gossips would have something else to talk about besides their acquaintance but I would have thought public kissing would only bring more attention to their relationship?
If I had been watching in the court I would have guessed that they had been having an affair that had just ended badly.

And if it ended badly the gossips would assume the two wouldn't be working together anymore. I thought he was trying to play down just how close they've become by this point. You don't want to advertise all of your allies, Wild Cards are handy every now and again.

The thing in this book I was most concerned about was that Walther would turn out to be in league with Oleander somehow (since he was Tylwyth Teg and there were mentions of the Tylwyth knowe in connection with Nerium) but I am so glad he was not.

I was so worried by that, too. When Toby went to his lab and was with alone with loads of poisons I totally stressed out at first.

I'm sure they were gritting their teeth the whole time, but the only person who actually touched any iron was Connor, and with his skin gone he was essentially human. Unless I read that part wrong, it was at about 3am...

I love the fact they used SCIENCE to fix things.

I am forever ridiculously excited that I've helped out with some of the Welsh that has come up, along with the quadrillion other fans who've probably stepped up to the Twitter-plate (that almost sounds like twitterpate.... Hm).

ALSO HOLY CRAP I didn't need ANOTHER damn book to review! I'm on this, let the Google-feelers find it when it's posted! Such Toby-love (and SUCH freaking Tybalt-love).

Sorry, all I really have is fangirl-squealing. Carry on, nothing to see here.

I sort of adore the fact that it's possible to change someone's body through magic. The diversity of fairy actually makes sense to me now, especially if we assume that Oberon and Titania and Maeve are so intensely magical they cause mutagenic changes on their own or something.

Amandine strikes me as absolutely horrible to have as a real enemy though, with that kind of power. Most fae don't really seem to have a whole lot of ways to cause serious permanent damage to their enemies without violating Oberon's law, while she really could.

Also, poison as badass and horrible always makes me happy.

I'm happy to see I'm not the only person amused / intrigued by May. :-)

About halfway through the book I was inspired and wrote a song about her. It's here, if you want to see it.

Okay, I feel bad for Connor now. Nobody wants to be on his team.

Connor had his chance and he blew it. Tybalt may have his reasons for not declaring himself more openly, but if he and Toby were in the beginning stages of a relationship and a bunch of his Cait Sidhe relatives said to him, you can't date her, she's not the right race/species, Tybalt would NOT roll over and say okay, I'll stop. Which is what Connor did.

Very enjoyable.

Except for the part where I had to sob because Lily was dead (that was very well written.) And then sniffle again because THERE WERE DEAD (Fae) KITTENS.

I particularly liked the Queen's cold logic for using Toby as a sort of "sacrificial King" (sacrificial countess?). I don't like it insomuch as I went "You go, Queenie, that's the ticket", but insomuch as that it makes sense for her to think that way, given 1. what she is, and 2. that we know her sanity is questionable. She's being internally consistent, and I always appreciate that.

That's actually something I like quite a bit about your writing. I'm not a big fan of incompetent villains or villains who aren't internally consistent. Incompetent villains aren't threatening.

I'd say I'm on Team Tybalt, except I'm not entirely convinced Connor is much in the way of a long-term threat. I suspect it's mostly some sort of a combination of "I want what people told me I couldn't have" and "old childhood sweetheart who's still a total dear and who was stuck in a bad marriage" sort of tender feeling.

This isn't to say that I don't gnash my teeth, because while I like Connor's character well enough, he's just not very useful. In a relationship with Toby, I feel like he's the chick in the relationship and totally not in a good way.

Not that Toby would ever "be the chick." Though the idea of Toby being a chick is hilarious and would probably cause her to try to stab me for even thinking.

So... what's Toby's human to fae ratio now? Could Toby turn all the way fae? Are any of her siblings still living? And how did Orleander know so much about Toby's mom? So many questions... so many months till the next book. *cry*

I should have been doing so many things this afternoon, and instead I spent the whole time reading (and occasionally shouting at, because I tend to be an involved reader) Late Eclipses. My reactions:

Omg, Lily :'( And the kitten :'( :'(

May and Jazz! ♥

Raysel is a great villain - I feel really sorry for her, but at the same time, intensely dislike her.

It's great to see a love triangle where everyone's behaving like an adult, and it's not two guys facing off over who gets to win the girl. I can't even decide how I want things to end up, but I'm hoping for some sort of miraculous ending where everyone's happy.

Quentin just gets more and more awesome. I've loved seeing more of him, and I'm desperate to know who his parents are.

It's been really interesting to see how much Toby's changed over the course of the books. (And not just because she keeps being transformed by people!). It's lovely to see her being more open to other people, and to see that she finally realises that people care about her, and to see her more comfortable caring about them.

Absolutely loved it! I can't decide which I want more, the next book or my very own rose goblin :D

It's been really interesting to see how much Toby's changed over the course of the books. (And not just because she keeps being transformed by people!).

Bwahahahaha! Thank you for this. I have the giggles so bad now.

Kittens! Wah. But -- answers, yay!

I thought this was the best one yet, and now I must reread them all to find the breadcrumbs. Just snagged the R&R audio to get started on that.

(Not very coherent because I've been driving all over the state this week. Argh.)

I'll join the chorus in saying this is my favorite thus far. I was bawling over the kittens and during Toby's dream with her dad.

I am SO bringing you a big bag of candy corn if I ever make it to a con/signing!

Just to test my understanding --

Is Amandine the one who brought Lily to the US? I thought that that was part of it. It also reads like they were romantically involved.

I would really like to see Quentin do some ass-kicking.

Also, someone mentioned Goldengreen being a good version of what Home was. I love the idea.

Little bummed we didnt see more of Countess Daye inside her new digs. Is it likely she's going to move in?

Someone speculated that Quentin is somehow related to the High King/Queen, i totally agree.

And that's about all i've got :)

I don't think I've seen any speculation in these threads yet about the "he" who Oleander refers to in her encounter with Amandine just after she and Toby return to the Summerlands during Toby's childhood. I'm thinking that's not Oberon, so am I correct in thinking that Amandine was involved with someone else, who we may or may not have already met?

I assumed she was talking about Simon. Amandine did make some sort of reference to Oleander becoming a messenger for the Daoine Sidhe.

A couple of other things popped into my head while i was re-reading Late eclipses at work:

Is there a particular reason we dont see more flash-bang glittery magic bits from various people? I mean, the Queen of the Mists throws around transformations, Oleander does illusions, Toby has a mish-mosh of spells. The first born seem to have the most, but there havent been any sort of cataclysmic showdowns between the players thus far. I appreciate the fact that Toby solves situations, and then charges to the rescue in mundane ways. But I wondered why Sylvester didnt start throwing magic around when Oleander went to rush him or if fireballs and lightning werent in the realm of faerie magic.

Just a ponderance.

I continue to wonder what price Sylvester paid - and may pay later - for the pardon. in these sorts of things, it takes a great deal to get something like that.

(and as we know, those sorts of deals ever come back to bite people in the ass. people like Toby.)

also, I am hoping that in the next confrontation with Raysel, Toby notes something like "the horrible people that
kidnapped you turned me into a fish for fourteen years, and my first worry when I came back was you, damn you" or something like that.

Glee! Loved this. Finished it a few hours ago. I didn't pick up on a lot of the hints (like Quenten's parents) but I suspect I would have if I'd had more time to read and re-read books, lately. Totally planning to do that for all four books in the next week or two if I can manage it. I need to see all the hints that were there.

In the meantime, I have so many questions that I'm sure will be answered in due time.

Favorite moments: Tybalt kissing Toby, and the spelled rose goblins rampaging through the Queen's Court.

If anyone *does* manage to make rose goblin plushies, I want some... *contemplates learning how to make plushies just for that*

Also, thought I'd throw out one of my questions to see if anyone else is wondering:

We know Amandine's father is Oberon, and her mother is NOT Titania. Does that necessarily mean that Maeve is her mother, or could it be someone else?

Damn fine novel, Seanan!

Whenever anyone above said "Team Tybalt" I thought of "Team Toby..."

I also wanted to mention that your five detailed background posts contributed greatly to my increased enjoyment of this novel.

I want a time machine so I can go pick up Deadline and One Salt Sea :-(

And I would so buy a Rose Goblin!

I first discovered your books about two weeks ago, tore through the first three in about four days then sulked for a week until the LE release (and as previously noted, made puppy eyes at the bookstore lady until she liberated a copy from its packing crate for me). Needless to say, I love them.

I don't find Toby as unreliable a narrator as some above commenters, as she notices things that she proceeds to ignore but the reader is free to think about and remember - like Blind Michael calling her Oberon's grandchild, after the Luidaeg had already indicated she was of Oberon's line. I did appreciate the specifics of the revelation in LE, particularly as I was still wondering about her escape from the pond; very nice use of foreshadowing giving some information in advance but not all. (Toby also completely ignores the memory she gets in the first book from Tybalt's blood - for me, at least, headdesk.) I can also believe Toby not paying attention to these things, instead of falling into smart characters being dumb solely for plot purposes.

I love that before I found your blog I could already tell you had (and loved) cats: Tybalt's behaviour has an impressive versimilitude for all of us who live with felines. There are places where I think 'if he had a tail right now it'd be bushed out to three times its usual size and lashing violently.' For cats with human intelligence, I like Tanya Huff's Austin but Tybalt is fantastic.

The romance between Toby and Tybalt is beautiful and one of the best-written I've come across in a very long time (last literary relationship I was this excited about was probably Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner novels). The pages light like fire when they interact, and the kiss made my stomach disappear. I am worried by your remark in the above comments about "Toby's long-term relationship changes," particularly as happy, stable relationships (which I hope this becomes!) can be a sad rarity in fiction, but obviously it's your creation. I'm definitely not asking for any extra-textual information, just wanted to say how much I love this part of the books and my own hopes.

If you do in fact at some point feature actual bisexual characters, that would be so affirming and totally awesome. We exist!