By Seanan McGuire.
Sleep No More here. The Innocent Sleep here.
Previous book here.
I read these books month ago. Unfortunately, this was around the time of My Big Ol' Work-Incited Mental Breakdown, and frankly, my brain wasn't up to writing up stuff in detail that I'd normally want to write. I'm trying to do it today since I'm recovered and working (ELSEWHERE!) again and not doing much, but it's been awhile since I read them, and thus they'll be probably more vaguely reviewed than I'd like. But I want them off my to-do list of life, so here we go. I'm writing the reviews together under the circumstances.
These two books take place about four months after the last book and are taking place about the same time, with October narrating Sleep No More and Tybalt narrating The Innocent Sleep. October, for plot-related reasons, isn't privy to everything Tybalt may be, and thus we have companion books. Were they needed, though? In all honesty, I don't know. I tend to think that if you're going to do companion books, they need to fill in enough holes and details and be different enough from the first book for it to work, and in this case, there's just not all that much differentiation in what goes on between the two characters, especially once the four months that Tybalt experienced before October's narration starts are covered and they are both at the same time progression again. I sort of think doing a novella of Tybalt's experiences would have covered it. (I note by comparison that the novella at the end of "Sleep No More" does a good job of covering someone else's different experience/location during that time.) So I was a little less into the second book because it felt like a rehash book. I'd give Sleep No More about four stars and The Innocent Sleep about three for those reasons.
And now, on to the spoiler space and review.