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OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Hi! I'm Seanan McGuire, author of the Toby Daye series (Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, Late Eclipses), as well as a lot of other things. I'm also Mira Grant (www.miragrant.com), author of Feed and Deadline.

Born and raised in Northern California, I fear weather and am remarkably laid-back about rattlesnakes. I watch too many horror movies, read too many comic books, and own too many My Little Ponies. I, and my clowder of cats, live in the Seattle area in the Pacific Northwest.

Visit her at http://www.seananmcguire.com, or as @seananmcguire on Twitter and Instagram.

FORMAT/INFO: Mislaid in Parts Half-Known was published by Tordotcom on 9th January 2024. It is available in ebook, hardback, and audiobook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Mislaid in Parts Half-Known is the ninth installment in the Wayward Children series, and it’s at this point I have to ask an unfortunate question: Maybe it’s time for this strange and beautiful series to end?

So, I’ve been a massive fan of the series, so much that I’d look forward to every January to devour the newly released entry. There was a real high point at book four, and another decent uptick in the entry before this. This is a series of urban portal fantasies, each that focus on a different character, or a set of characters, with common themes of identity and acceptance. They are strange, beautiful, one sitting reads that are thought provoking, yet read easy.

I’m not sure what happened here. It definitely reads like a Seanan McGuire book, but doesn’t have the usual charm. Neither is it an absolute standalone like the rest. One of the reasons I loved these entries was because while they were so beautiful and easy to read, they had a certain doozy thematic depth. Here, it seems the opposite. Plus, you’ll need to be familiar with the previous, Lost in the Moment and Found to be able to make some progress with this. It also reads like part of that book, and a bit of a transition into something else.

CONCLUSION: I wanted to write a longer, gush review for this when I got the review copy, but I’m afraid I’m a bit too disappointed with this one, and might not pick up book ten. Still, I’d absolutely recommend you start with book one and work your way upto four.