While October Daye is my favorite series from Seanan McGuire, I quite enjoy the InCryptid series. The biggest thing with these is that she switches narrators throughout the series – sometimes it is quite fun to get a new perspective but other times, I also wish to go back to other narrators. As a result, these can be a little more hit or miss me for me.
Since Verity was the first narrator, I think she might still be one of my favorites but I do quite enjoy Mary, since as a ghost and family babysitter, she has the ability to jump from location to location. As a result, a Mary book also has the opportunity to include check ins with all the family or at least more characters than we normally see, and we get to hear her memories of some of the previous generations.
The last novel was very high stakes for the Price family. After being relatively fortunate, especially considering their family history, they lost family members, and Mary disappeared for 6 months. Now, she is back (this isn’t a surprise, we knew from the epilogue of the last novel that she was alive) and the impacts of the losses are still lingering. While Mary is back, even that is something the family is figuring out how to deal with since before this, Mary was etched in their minds of an immovable and steady force who would always be there, and now they have realized that even she is vulnerable.
These novels have tended to be more focused on Kevin’s kids, Verity, Alex and Antimony, so far with Jane and her family showing up as secondary and tertiary characters. In that way, this novel feels very much like a transition novel as Mary goes on a mission to explore ghost disappearances and brings along Elsie and Arthur as her side kicks. While we know a version of Arthur from Sarah’s POV novels, this is the most time spent with Elsie and this post-life changing event version of Arthur. I am still not sure I am that interested in either of them as future POVs for novels, though I am sure their time is coming, but I’m sure McGuire will surprise me with how much I end up liking them and this novel does the work to set them up for more.
The plot and the mission are a bit lighter in this one than others though I enjoyed exploring the ghost scene of Massachusetts with Mary. However it worked since it was about checking in on the family after tragic loss and establishing the new status quo. From some of the quotes, I am also hoping that the fate of a long lost extended family member might be explored in the near future. Additionally, I had quite a bit of fun with the accompanying novella (both October Daye and InCryptid novels always have a novella in the end and McGuire knows how to pack a punch in that story format) as we had a chance to check in on Verity and life in New York.