Today is the conclusion of our Rosemary and Rue readalong arranged by Lisa from Over the Effing Rainbow.  This week Lisa is our lovely host and coming up with the questions.

The schedule is as follows, feel free to dive in with the comments:

Week 1: Saturday 9th January, Chapters 1-6, hosted by Lisa at Over the Effing Rainbow
Week 2: Saturday 16th January, Chapters 7-14, hosted by moi at Lynn’s Books
Week 3: Saturday 23rd January, Chapters 15-20, hosted by Anya at On Starships and Dragonwings
Week 4: Saturday 30th January, Chapters 21-End, hosted by Over the Effing Rainbow (still me!)

We’re going to be picking up book No.2 (A Local Habitation) during March so if you’re interested in reading this series details will follow shortly.  There’s a discussion page over on Goodreads if that makes it easier to join.  Without further ado here are the questions and answers with a word of warning that spoilers will be lurking, nay positively running amok, below:

1. On the way to finding Evening’s killer at last, we get to meet the Luidaeg in person. What are your impressions of her, and what do you think of the sneaky ‘deal’ Toby managed to make with her?

I actually like her – which is probably weird because she’s this terrifying creature – but I just didn’t have any bad feelings about her – for now.  I mean, I’m not saying I’d like to get on her wrong side but overall she came across as sort of fair!  I thought Toby was very crafty coming up with that deal – I think the Luidaeg will appreciate that sort of intelligence though.  Yeah, it was cheeky but it shows that Toby is thinking sensibly about things.

2. Next stop is the Court of Cats, where we see Tybalt in his role as a king, followed by another visit to Lily to finally learn the truth. We get some more evidence of the regard they both have for Toby; in light of previous discussions about Toby’s friendships, what do you make of this new evidence?

I loved the Court of Cats and definitely want to go back and see more!  I think Toby has a lot of powerful friends, she’s been in a sort of denial about her life – post fish – and at the start of the book she felt very alone but clearly that was self imposed while she came to terms with things. What this tells me is that Toby is the sort of person who can make and keep good friends, which speaks volumes of her own character.

3. Now for the final reveal! Devin ‘fesses up, and Dare is killed defending Toby… Was any of this finale what you’d expected? What do you make of Devin’s reasons for killing Evening?

This wasn’t what I expected, in fact, to be honest, I didn’t really have any expectations as I just didn’t have any clue and I was simply enjoying the read and waiting to see what the outcome was – basically no second guessing from me at this point.  Obviously Devin was a sleazy character – I think part of me didn’t want him to be the culprit, not because I wanted to like him but more because I suppose on the face of it he was one of the most obvious choice (along with the Queen).  That being said, no, I didn’t see it coming – I almost thought he was a red herring.  He’s mad as a box of spiders though.  And Dare – OMG, why!  Just why!!

4. The hope chest is given over to the Queen at the end of the story. In light of what we’ve seen of her and the potential power that the hope chest has (regardless of what it does), do you think this was the right thing for Toby to do?

I think it was the only thing she could do.  There’s a lot of court politics going on here and Toby couldn’t very well just stick her tongue out and say ‘finders keepers’.  Plus, she couldn’t really keep the Chest herself as it was too dangerous for her.  We still really don’t know what the real power of the Chest is but we can see it had an impact on Toby.  I don’t like it though – I think the Queen herself also came across as a bit unstable so it feels like giving something quite powerful to somebody a bit unhinged.  It’s got an ‘inmates running the asylum’ feel.  Let’s see!

That’s it for now folks – it’s going to feel like a long wait for A Local Habitation – check out the creepy cover!