The Innocent Sleep

October Daye Series, Book 18

By: Seanan McGuire

Narrated by: Raphael Corkhill

The 18th novel of the Hugo-nominated, New York Times best-selling October Daye urban fantasy series.

For one bright, shining moment, Tybalt, King of Cats, had everything he had ever wanted. He was soon to set his crown aside; he had married the woman he loved; he was going to be a father. After centuries of searching for a family of his own, he had finally found a way to construct the life of his dreams, and was looking forward to a period of peace—or at least as much peace as is ever in the offing for the husband of a hero.

Alas for Tybalt and his domestic aspirations, fate—and Titania—had other ideas. His perfect world had been complete for only a moment when it was ripped away, to be replaced by hers. Titania, Faerie’s Summer Queen, Mother of Illusions and enemy of so many he holds dear, has seized control of the Kingdom, remaking it in her own image. An image that does not include meddlesome shape-shifters getting in her way. Tybalt quickly finds himself banished from her reality, along with the Undersea and the rest of the Court of Cats.

To protect his people and his future, Tybalt must find the woman he loves in a world designed to keep her from him, convince her that he’s not a stranger trying to ruin her life for no apparent reason, and get her to unmake the illusion she’s been firmly enmeshed in. And he’ll have to do it all while she doesn’t know him, and every unrecognizing look is a knife to his heart.

For Tybalt, King of Cats, the happily ever after was just the beginning.

©2023 Seanan McGuire (P)2023 Audible, Inc.

Horrible narration

I was delighted to hear we were getting Tybalt’s perspective of events as they unfolded in Sleep No More with The Innocent Sleep. It allowed us to see what Toby’s love and friends were doing to restore Faerie and get her back.

I was shocked when I began listening and was greeted not by Mary Robinette Kowal, but by another narrator. Fine, fine, I’ve listened to him before. I’ll roll with it.

Dear reader, I did not roll with it. I hated it. With a fiery rage. Now, to be fair, Raphael Corkhill is a good narrator. I’ve enjoyed other works by him, including his pseudonym. But I am sure he did not even listen to previous audio sample in this collection. Audible Studios blew it when they changed narrators. Yes, I get that it’s from the male’s perspective, but Mary has done ALL the voices since the beginning, and Corkhill didn’t even get Tybalt’s accent right.

I felt like Toby must have felt in the pond. Like a fish out of water. Mispronounced words and no one sounded liked themselves. It absolutely ruined the story for me. I ended up buying the book, so that I could hear the characters as they should sound in my head. I highly recommend that those who listened to the entire series do the same. So disappointing.

Now, the story once read was brilliant, and I loved seeing the other side of things. McGuire is clever. I appreciated the gift of this perspective giving us a wonderful, complete story. Just don’t listen to it!

A wonderful surprise

Tybalt’s view of this story now seems absolutely necessary and, like the rest of this series, heart-wrenchingly wonderful.

Excellent addition to my favorite series

Seanan has outdone herself with this one. I loved getting to know some characters better than we do from Tony’s pov. I can’t wait for the next book!

I am generally not a fan of having a new narrator and was afraid that would ruin the experience for me. I was very pleasantly surprised with the narration.

Fantastic

I loved having Tybalt’s side of the story. also This is how Tybalt is supposed to sound. The narrator did great with the male voices but some of the female voices were kind of funny. I look forward to the next one!

Tybalt's POV + Whining

This could have been so much better without Tybalt's whining. It would have been nice to go a few paragraphs without him whining and pouting about not being able to save October, rescue October, find October, just being able to be in the same room as October. I definitely get it that he wants to protect Toby and keep her safe, especially after his own related personal trauma but damn, dude. Eat a Snickers, you're whiny.

Other than that the story was very good. I liked seeing how everything came together to make one cohesive unit in the end which made Toby's version much more detail. I see why the stories were split instead of mashed together into one book. The timeline discrepancies would have been too hard to deal with

There were a couple of production snafus where the narrator went back and redid a line but other than that, he nailed Tybalt's voice and vocal affectations given us by Mary Robinette Kowall.

Overall: 4.5
Performance: 5
Story: 4