Title: Loch and Key
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.08
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 19th August 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: Free online short story
Publisher: Seanan McGuire
Year: 2013
5th sentence, 74th page: At least is hadn’t attacked, or slithered back down into the lake; it must have liked what it was seeing.
Daniel Healy has been dead for two years, and his parents are still in the process of healing both themselves and their relationship. When Alexander Healy suggests that it’s finally time for his daughter-in-law to accompany them on their periodic fishing trip to White Otter Lake, it seems like the perfect opportunity for the four surviving members of the family to become reacquainted with one another. Fran is dubious at first, not really understanding what a fishing trip could do for them as a family.
That was before she knew about the monsters in White Otter Lake, of course. The monsters change everything.
Before long, the entire Healy clan is embroiled in a fight for the lives of the creatures that live in White Otter Lake, which may be the last of their kind in the world. If they want to save these majestic plesiosaurs, the family will need to find a way to come together in order to solve the mystery of what the guardian of White Otter Lake has disappeared to.
It’s bullets versus brains as the Healys finally step up to do their jobs, and preserve the crytozoological world. No matter what it takes.
First Fall was a kind of tragic and heart rending short story. It was great for the overall storyline of the series – but it was still something that made my heart very, very sore. Luckily, Loch and Key starts with a lot more hope. For starters, it begins a few years after the advents of First Fall, and there is a sense of moving on and healing that left me feeling really quite hopeful.
Every time I pick up an InCryptid short story (I’m getting my fix at the moment from these amazing short stories while I save some money for the books), I find something fun and intriguing and just a little bit funny. In the case of this short story. It is the fact that the “bad guys” in this tale are dinosaur poachers. It shouldn’t be that funny… but something about the idea of dinosaur poachers seriously hit my humour bone and had me smiling.
I needed the lightness from this story to counteract the last few InCryptid short stories. Now I’m ready to find out more horrible things that I’m sure are going to happen. But for now, this was a nice way to begin to move on from the shadow of Daniel’s death. It may still linger. But at least they are beginning to move forwards.
Earth and Skye 
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