Seanan McGuire Continues to Steal My Heart [Review]

In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

Format/source: ARC/NetGalley
Series: Wayward Children #4
Published: January 8, 2019
Publisher: Tor Dot Com
Length: 208 pages
Genre: Speculative fiction
★★★★½
I received a free copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

This is the story of a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should. When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she’s found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well. For anyone…

My Thoughts

Although In an Absent Dream is the fourth title in the Wayward Children series, each title can technically be read as a stand alone. Beneath the Sugar Sky (#3) builds on Every Heart a Doorway (#1), with narratives set in the present day and in our world. Down Among the Sticks and Bones (#2) and In An Absent Dream (#4) take place in other worlds, sharing the backstories of characters introduced in book one. Somehow, miraculously, I have adored each and every Wayward Children title, in a way that I’ve not enjoyed any other series.

Yesterday, my sister devoured Beneath the Sugar Sky and is now blazing through In an Absent Dream. She just said to me, “Oh my gosh, this bit about meat pies, you must have loved that”. YES I DID LOVE THAT. If I had a good warm meat pie every day of my life, I would be happy. A simple yet delicious pleasure. My eyes were saucers as I read how Lundy trades pencils for unicorn-centaur Vincent’s pies (he sells fruit pies as well as meat!).

These wonderful pies are a small example of how personal I find the Wayward Children stories. When I first read Every Heart a Doorway, I was alarmed at how the story came so close to my heart. It had been years since I found a book that I so deeply connected with. Somehow, McGuire has sustained that sensation through four books. In an Absent Dream feels like it was written just for me. I adore Nancy, but Lundy is perhaps the most like me out of all the Wayward Children. Reading these books is a personal experience that few authors have been able to give me.

This, then, was Katherine Victoria Lundy: pretty and patient and practical. Not lonely, because she had never really considered any way of being other than alone. Not gregarious, nor sullen, but somewhere in the middle, happy to speak when spoken to, happy also to carry on in silence, keeping her thoughts tucked quietly away. She was ordinary. She was remarkable.

In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire, loc 117

Lundy’s story differs from others in the series, as she visits and leaves her world multiple times. Her time spent at the Goblin Market cuts her family – she goes missing for months. Lundy has a younger sister who she barely knows because she keeps going away. To add another complex dynamic, Lundy’s father had also visited the Goblin Market as a child. He knows and understands to some extent what she is up to. Lundy’s family has an even greater significance in her story than Jack and Jill’s family did in Down Among the Sticks and Bones. The tension Lundy experiences between adventuring in fantastic lands and finding comfort in home and family is something I’ve experienced often over the past five years. Upon returning home for the first time:

And Lundy, brave Lundy, who had ridden alongside her friends Moon and Mockery to fight the wicked Wasp Queen for the safety of the pomegranate groves, who had seen that sometimes fair value wasn’t enough to prevent blood on the ground and a little girl with silver feathers in her hair lying broken in the leaves, never to mock or tease or mercilessly barter again, burst into tears.

“I’m sorry,” she wailed. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I won’t go back, I won’t.” She was lying, of course. But she wouldn’t understand that for two more years.

In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire, loc 570

The Bottom Line

If you are a Wayward Children fan, then fear no disappointment – In an Absent Dream surpasses the standard. If you’ve yet to tackle these books, then why not dive in with this volume – enchantment awaits!

Further Reading

• Seanan McGuire’s website
• Read the first two chapters
• Review by Destiny @ Howling Libraries
• Review by Annemieke @ A Dance with Books