History Literature / OctoberDaye

* BittersweetEnding: ''Sleep No More''. [[spoiler:Toby and company sucessfully stop Titania from making her reality warping permanent, restoring Faerie to what it should be (and with it Toby's pregnancy). With Titania's Ride broken, she's claimed by the Heart of Faerie as the sacrifice (instead of Quentin and Simon) and taken off the board. But the characters have all come out of Titania's Faerie having seem glimpses of what they could've become or at their very worst. Quentin and Simon in particular get it bad and are left dealing with signigicant PTSD. Worse, as one of the First and a child of the Heart, Titania can't actually be sacrificed. The Heart will throw her back eventually (given the mechanics of the Ride, Luidaeg figures they've got at least 7 years) -- and Titania's gonna be *pissed* and coming for all their heads. And while she still can't directly harm Toby and company because of Oberon's bindings, this entire incident proved she can and will find a way around it. The only upside is that Titania pumped so much juice into the reality warping that with the spell broken, she won't be able to do this again.]]

* SpeakOfTheDevil: Before they travel into an elf-shot Dianda's dreams in ''Once Broken Faith'', Karen warns Toby to not speak of anything related to Evening/Eira, since it will indirectly get her attention through Karen's oneiromancer powers. Unfortunately, neither of them warn Dianda, who name-drops Goldengreen (Evening's former knowe), causing Evening to hijack their meeting.

* OutOfTheJobIntoThePlot: After being turned into a fish for 14 years, Toby wants nothing to do with the fairy world, and works a SoulSuckingRetailJob at a Safeway. Then she finds out TheCallLeftAMessage (literally, a {{geas}} through her answering machine) and gets involved. Due to circumstances, she gets fired from the Safeway after she fails to show up, and never looks back.

* FantasticUnderclass: Changelings are this, they're even called a "born underclass" in Chimes at Midnight. They're stuck between the world of mortals and that of immortals. Discriminated against and treated as lesser by pur bloods. Many of the things in fairy can hurt and outright kill them and their relatives and parents can treat them as children family or even LivingProps for them.

* ImmortalsFearDeath: If a pure blood dies it accepted practice not to speak their name in Faerie society afterword. Disease and old age are neigh impossible for pure bloods but dispair and violence are possibilites, so the cleverest of them take a lot of time setting up countermeasures.

* TheOneWhoMadeItOut: Toby is this for Home.

* HurtingHero: Toby, often. If she's not getting put through the wringer physically ([[BloodMagic frequently by her own hand!]]), she's probably getting smacked down emotionally. Sometimes it's both.

** Treasa Riordan's current residence in Annwn does not appear to have begun responding to her one way or another yet.
* FlowerMotifs:

* {{Gaslighting}}: In ''Late Eclipses,'' [[spoiler: Oleander and Rayseline conspire to murder a number of Toby's friends and pin the murders on Toby herself. Part of their plan is to use drugs and illusions to make Toby herself think she's nuts. They almost succeed.]]

* StealthPun: So the story proper of book #1 starts when Toby escapes the koi pond where she was a fish in for 14 years... or we could say it's truly a [[spoiler:FishOutOfWater]] tale. You can [[LamePunReaction groan]] now.

* SelkiesAndWereseals: Dear God, their OriginStory...

* SheCleansUpNicely: Toby, with help from Stacy, May and Luna

** Toby references Franchise/SpiderMan directly.

** Sylvester and Luna Torquill of Shadowed Hills. The Torquills have a HundredPercentAdorationRating and are very active in running their Duchy.

** ''The Innocent Sleep'' (2023) - the events of Sleep No More from Tybalt's point of view

* "Strangers In Court", included in the 10th anniversary hardcover reprinting of Rosemary and Rue
* "Dreams and Slumbers", included with Once Broke Faith, in which Arden struggles with balancing her new life as [[spoiler:"Queen in the Mists"]] with her old life as a bookseller. While dealing with her decision to wake her brother Nolan from his cursed sleep.
* "Of Things Unknown", included with The Brightest Fell
* "Suffer A Sea-Change", included with Night and Silence
* "Hope Is Swift", included with The Unkindest Tide
* "Shine In Pearl", included with A Killing Frost
* "And With Reveling", included with When Sorrows Come
* "Such Dangerous Seas", included with Be The Serpent

** ''Of Things Unknown'' novella packaged with TBF.

* "Dreams and Slumbers", in which Arden struggles with balancing her new life as [[spoiler:"Queen in the Mists"]] with her old life as a bookseller. While dealing with her decision to wake her brother Nolan from his cursed sleep.

* TriangRelations: Type 7, with Connor, Rayseline, and Toby. [[spoiler: Not so much anymore, now that Raysel is out of the picture.]]
** And then there's the Connor-Toby-Tybalt triangle, [[spoiler: though Connor's death removes one side of it]].

* NoBisexuals:
** Averted- Liz, Tybalt, and Quentin have all had relationships with both sexes.
*** WordOfGod is that every character except for Toby (who had a 1950s upbringing) should be considered bisexual. Fae are flexible like that.

* ApeShallNeverKillApe: Codified by Oberon's Law. No pureblood shall kill another pureblood. Of course, this led to the creation of Elfshot so war could still be waged (it's not killing if your foe sleeps for a hundred years). The Law itself doesn't protect changelings or humans, and many a Fae has found ways around it [[spoiler:like Rhys, former King of Silences, who kept the usurped royal family under elfshot and carved pieces of them for alchemical potions.]]

* TakeCover: Toby has to say this a lot

* "Dreams and Slumbers", in which Arden struggles with balancing her new life as "Queen in the Mists" with her old life as a bookseller. While dealing with her decision to wake her brother Nolan from his cursed sleep.

%%* AcquittedTooLate: [[spoiler: Raysel's]] plan for Toby in ''Late Eclipses''.

* UnequalPairing: January's parents, the Lordens
* UnholyMatrimony: Oleander and Simon seem to have this, even without the actual matrimony
* UnusualEars: All of the fae

* WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife: The Wild Hunt.

%%* WillTalkForAPrice: Bucer O'Malley in One Salt Sea.

* AsskickingEqualsAuthority: Undersea nobility are expected to be warriors; their culture is a bit bloodier than that of the land fae. Dianda Lorden and her "[[TheAllSolvingHammer punch your problems until they're no longer problems]]" attitude are no exception. In fact, her husband Patrick says that by Undersea standards, Dianda is a ''pacifist''.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Sylvester, Duke of Shadowed Hills and hero of the realm; Toby, knight, hero and [[spoiler:briefly Countess of Goldengreen]]; the aforementioned Duchess Dianda; and others.

* OfferedTheCrown: [[spoiler: Toby gets AnOfferYouCantRefuse]] to become Countess of Goldengreen. Sounds awesome, but it puts her life way at risk. [[spoiler: She passes it off to Dean in "One Salt Sea."]]

* ShapeshiftingLover: Pureblooded [[HornyDevils Gean-Cannah.]]