Ashes of Honor: An October Daye Novel

Praise for the
October Daye
Novels

“
Rosemary and Rue
will surely appeal to readers who enjoy my books, or those of Patricia Briggs.”

—Charlaine Harris

“
One Salt Sea
is the best October Daye book to date; everything that’s great about the series comes together in one book. The plot is strong, the characterization is terrific, the tragedies hurt…and McGuire’s usual beautiful writing and dark humor are present and accounted for. This has become one of my favorite urban fantasy series, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next.”

—FantasyLiterature.com

“…urban fantasy that really stands out from the crowd because of the completeness of the world and its characters who could step from the pages and walk down the road in our own world.”

—SFRevu

“McGuire seems to have fun with
One Salt Sea
, exploring her protagonist’s personality and revealing some great origin stories for the world of the fae. Fans of the series will be swept up in this story, hooked to the very end where they get some answers and a sense of satisfaction that few books deliver this well.”

—San Francisco Book Review

“Second in an urban fantasy detective series featuring a resourceful female detective, this sequel to
Rosemary and Rue
should appeal to fans of Jim Butcher’s
Dresden File
s as well as the novels of Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, and similar authors.”

—
Library Journal

“It’s fun watching [Toby] stick doggedly to the case as the killer picks off more victims and the tension mounts.”

—Locus

“An Artificial Night
…is wildly and beautifully descriptive, with scenes that will simply take your breath away. If Hollywood doesn’t snatch up the rights to this book, they are even crazier than Johnny Depp in
Pirates of the Caribbean III
. That being said, the third installment in the October (Toby) Day series is even better (if that could be believed) than the prior two. Author Seanan McGuire seems to have hit her stride and should enjoy a long career.”

—Sacramentobookreview.com

“Wow! is the first thing that comes to mind when reading this fifth installment of the October Daye series. Emotional, action-packed, funny, and just a great story from start to finish,
One Salt Sea
will take readers into a world combining reality and fantasy and have them begging for more even as the story progresses from triumph to loss, fae to mortal, and everything in between!…this book was phenomenal!”

—Nocturne Reads

^*
Coming in 2013 from DAW Books

SEANAN M
C
GUIRE

ASHES
OF
HONOR

AN OCTOBER DAYE NOVEL

For Deborah,
and all the red-cloaked girls
who ever left the safest path.

Book six. Wow.
Ashes of Honor
has been a delight every step along the way, and a lot of that is due to the people who were there to help me with the process of making it the best book it could be. My first and deepest thanks go to the ever-changing membership of the Machete Squad, whose keen eyes and keener pens have forced me to keep improving, whether I wanted to or not. Special thanks to Michelle Dockrey, Amy McNally, Brooke Lunderville, my mom and sister, and Amy’s friend Patty, who tolerated Toby’s intrusions on our trip to Disney World. I couldn’t have done it without you guys.

My solemn gratitude goes to my agent, Diana Fox, my editor, Sheila Gilbert, my cover artist, Chris McGrath, and my website design and maintenance team of Tara O’Shea and Christopher Mangum. Thanks also to Joshua Starr, for administrative awesome on the DAW side, and to Deborah Brannon, for administrative awesome here at home.

Thank you to you, for coming with me this far, for reading, for being a part of this adventure. It has been, and will continue to be, amazing. I’m so glad you’re here.

My soundtrack while writing
Ashes of Honor
consisted mostly of
Little Blue Egg
, by Dave and Tracy,
Ceremonials
, by Florence and the Machine,
Queen of
Spindles
, by Talis Kimberley, endless live concert recordings of the Counting Crows, and
Enchant
, by Emilie Autumn. Any errors in this book are entirely my own. The errors that aren’t here are the ones that all these people helped me fix.

Thank you for reading. Welcome back to Faerie.

THROUGH ASHES OF HONOR

All pronunciations are given phonetically. This only covers races explicitly named in the first six books, omitting Undersea races not appearing in, or mentioned in, book six.