The October Daye series by Seanan McGuire

I am in love with Tybalt, King of Cats. I just thought I should make that clear. The October Daye series, written by Seanan McGuire, could be written off as yet another of those urban faerie series, where all the protagonists are pointy-eared and foul-mouthed, all the swearing is botanic, and every character does weird things with technology. And it is, and it isn't. It is--and is filled with--as much grit and blood and whimsy and treachery as you would expect, but the characters are so very vivid, and the pain is in perfect balance with reality. People die, people fail, and people make jokes because that's what they have to do to survive. The lovely thing about Toby Daye herself is that she is very much Kinsey Millhone displaced into urban fantasy. She is grumpy, isolated, competent, honorable, and much hotter than she realizes. This might be frustrating to those of us who know how romance works when in the background of urban fantasy novels--seriously, if you're reading this, you will be able to forecast romantic turns very easily--but it is in the background, because Toby has more important things to worry about than romance. Many of those important things involve the case at hand, but they also include lost family ties, and complicated friendships, and loyalty, and morality, and a society crumbling at the edges, and maybe the heart. Toby is a knight errant and a detective, and she is amazing. I read Rosemary and Rue a few months ago, gobbled up A Local Habitation in half a day, and now I am a bit horrified that I have to wait until September until the next book arrives. Woe!