Before the first book, October was turned into a fish for trying to rescue Luna and Rosalyn from the clutches of Simon and Oleander. But now, Oleander is back. A master illusionist and poisoner and a brilliant assassin, she is hunting October and those she loves.
As people she loves and values are brought down, October has to find a cure for the poison and catch Oleander before more people are lost. Or discover whether Orleander actually exists and isn’t just a figment of her own breaking mind?
As if an arch enemy poisoning people weren’t enough, her rival and other enemy, Rosalyn, ends up with unprecedented power in the Shadowed Halls. And the unstable and dangerous Queen of Northern California has her own vendetta against October – and is determined to settle the score. And here are these murders, ideal for framing.
And in the process, October learns far more about Amandine and herself than she ever imagined
As far as mysteries go, it was an odd one. There wasn’t choice of villains or really choice of methods. From almost the word go we knew it was Oleander, in the Knowe, with the Poison. There’s more detective skill goes into a game of Cluedo than that. However, I don’t think it was a mystery or a detective story per se – though there was a considerable amount of detection involved in finding the exact vector of the poison – so maybe it’s a different kind of detective story.
I think far more it counts as a part action book, part political intrigue. October doesn’t need to find out whodunit so much as howdunnit and how to stab whodunit repeatedly when we have Rosalyn and the Queen on her back and so little of her normal support network. And I liked it. I was curious as to what would happen next, I wanted to see how the political intrigue would developed and I was interested to see how they would actually find their way through the maze and actually resolve everything. I never really knew what was coming next or how the plot would resolve – and it was a fascinating trip to the end as October dodged the obstacles in her way to finally confront the big bad in true heroic fashion.
