The Reading Jackalope

This book has quite a bit of emotional impact. McGuire enjoys nothing more then ripping Toby’s heart out of her chest, shredding said heart to pieces, and then displaying the shattered remains to the reader like so much art. Once Broken Faith is no exception to this rule. While I was certain that Toby would come out of this alive, seeing as she’s the main character, she’s the only one who I felt had that protection and boy does McGuire like her characters bloody. I was reminded again in this book that Toby is essentially a vampire (which is super amusing given that Tybalt is a were-cat, so you’ve basically got the vampire/werewolf dynamic going on here without ever using those terms.)

Despite the emotional impact of the book, now that I’m thinking of various plot lines I do have one minor quibble. There is one specific plot line, involving the sea-witch, another changeling, and an old enemy of Toby’s that didn’t really have any relevance to this particular story though it will likely play out in future novels. In fact, it felt very much like that plot line originally had a stronger influence on the A plot but the ties were dropped as the novel developed and now it’s little more then a C, or even D, plot. However, despite that one complaint, the rest of the novel is furiously plotted and McGuire’s pacing is pretty much flawless.