ONE SALT SEA open thread!

Dearest Seanan,

Once again, you've earned my tears. Of all the things Toby has gone through, this loss was the worst.

I, for one, have liked Connor from the beginning. Thank you for giving him a month of happiness, and thank you for granting him a heroic death.

Also, thank you for an entire book in which Toby is competent, smart, and heroic throughout, and never misses an obvious clue.

I liked Deadline a lot. One Salt Sea is your best book of 2011. I hope to write a review soon, though life is a little insane at the moment.

And now that it's morning, and not about-to-fall-over time, I'll amend the above to "Of all the things *I've watched* Toby go through . . ." The fish transformation, and the resulting loss of Cliff and Gillian, was worse. But the latter always felt like something I was told about second hand. I never knew Cliff and Gillian well enough to have the same emotional investment I had in her relationship with Connor.

When I wrote the original, the strongest thought in my mind was that this was worse than what she experienced in Blind Michael's lands.

I did want to see Gillian show up in the books, but it makes sense that she'd choose human and thus be out of them from now on (presumably).

Lotta lost kids in these books....