The Literate Kitty

Being a young woman has never been quite the walk in the park it might--at first blush--appear to be. Sure, it looks simple enough when viewed from the outside. Young women giggle and share secrets with their best friends. They sit in front of mirrors, studying their reflections and analyzing every pore. They spend hours in pursuit of the perfect article of clothing or pair of shoes. They daydream about who they want to fall in love with them... and then devise elaborate schemes in the hope of ensuring romantic success. Young women are a lot more than such fluff and frippery, of course. They think about the world at large, looking beyond their own small corner of it. They rail at social injustices and inequalities, and chafe at being told to blindly accept the status quo. They ponder the great unknown of the future, and think, perhaps, that they could solve all the world’s problems, if given the chance. They have minds of their own, and they look for opportunities in which to use them....

I am, admittedly, something of a slave to research. That comes as no great shock, I know; we quiet, “bookish” ( ugh! ) folk are just sort of made for spending hours cooped up in libraries or in front of computers, compiling endless lists of data for later tabulation, consideration, and regurgitation. Case in point? I spent two semesters in college-- working for minimum wage, 20 hours a week, mind you --cooped up alone in a glorified closet (okay, scratch the “glorified” part, because it wasn’t), painstakingly wading through roll after roll of grainy, eye-numbing microfilm, trying my best to decipher shakily-handwritten copies of wills, bills of lading, and other documents from the late 1600s and early 1700s, cataloguing each and every single possession of the individual (down to the mended sock or mismatched set of spoons) bequeathed, inventoried, and otherwise mentioned therein... all in the name of research. And the kicker? I. Loved. That. Job. Fortunately for those not so-inclined...

Revenge and retribution, regret and recriminations. Not an ideal mix... but it’s really no more and no less than Changeling (half-fae, half-human) October Daye--fearless knight and reluctant hero--has become accustomed to dealing with on a daily basis.  Let’s take stock, shall we? (Note: If you haven't read the first three books in this series-- Rosemary and Rue , A Local Habitation , and An Artificial Night --yet, why?? Hie yourself over to my reviews of each of them, first. Here , here , and  here . Then go find each book and read it. Then come back here. You'll thank me, really.)  Anyway, back to the recap... First, Toby endured being turned into a fish and left for dead-- and would have died, were it not for the kindness of a human passerby who happened to notice the floundering fish and scooped it off the pavement and into a nearby pond. (That pond, by the way, was her home for the next fourteen years... during which time, she lost the human husband and daughter w...