I’m an admirer of Seanan McGuire’s and have been for a long time. It started long ago with a fairytale re-write and continued with a number of short stories and blossomed into full-on love with the Wayward Children Series. ROSEMARY AND RUE is Seanan first book and one of a 9 book series with 22 short stories to track down. You can understand why I was intimidated by this series.

The first installment was surprisingly good. Good as in far better then I was expecting. As with a lot of first books from authors I come across several books in their careers, I tend to be let down a bit by the first one so I set the bar low. However, I don’t think that was a necessity in this case and that’s a good thing. The world Seanan has created is massive and complex and both horrific and beautiful at the same time. Myth and lore have been weaved into every aspect of this novel and it was refreshing. The story is solid and kept my attention, but there was one thing that bothered me a bit. The main character, Toby, spent like 14 years as a fish right at the beginning of the book. She has a daughter and a husband and I was baffled by her lack of drive to find and make up missed time with them. It’s lightly explained away a by a few different things but I still wanted more from this line of thought. There is a lot about Toby’s fae family and when I decided to let it go, I was able to take it for what it was. I do hope however that this huge unfinished plot thread is taken back up again.

On the whole, I enjoyed this book a lot and will be looking forward to the next in this series. If you’re a fan of Jim Butcher you’ll enjoy this book. Another Urban Fantasy for the win.