Title: Target Practice
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.22
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 5th October 2020
Pace: Medium
Format: Free online short story
Publisher: Seanan McGuire
Year: 2017
5th sentence, 74th page: It was a rare moment of absolute calm – at least until the blonde blur broke through the blueberry bushes, running hell-bent for the border.

Buckley Township is starting to grow on Thomas Price, rather like a particularly aggressive strain of moss. He still has a lot to learn about his new environs, and about the people they bring him into contact with. People like Alice Healy, whose talent for getting herself into trouble is only exceeded by her inexplicable ability to get out of it again. Luck is not a dependable survival mechanism. And hers is running out.

When Alice stumbles over something that even the ecologically unusual Buckley woods shouldn’t be able to sustain, it’s anyone’s guess whether she’ll be able to handle it on her own–and if she can’t, whether she’ll be able to find the help she needs to stop an invasive species from damaging the town and people she cares about. Thomas, meanwhile, just wants to avoid being shot by her father.

Tensions are high and stakes are higher as Alice and Thomas both begin taking aim on what they want, and where they want to be when they get it.

The first dot point that I wrote in my notes on this short story sums it up perfectly:

• Naw. Alice finally broke Jonathan!

That’s pretty much it. There was something that became steadily more irritating about Jonathan as these short stories unfolded. Don’t get me wrong, it’s understandable. But it was still dang annoying. So when Alice finally manages to “break” him… it left me feeling happy. Nothing like a rebellious teen having a point to make me love a story.

As with the other short stories so far in this collection, now all I want is to get the next books in this series and stick my nose into them! But I’m trying so hard not to buy anymore until I finish some from my teetering TBR… I may actually get buried under an avalanche soon.

But I digress… this was a fun story and showed how well Alice’s grandmother knows her, and how the scars of the past and worries for the future can have the exact opposite effect to what you desire. Luckily, things will steadily get more interesting (I’m sure) as the rest of the series about Alice’s children unfolds…

Image source: Goodreads

Title: The Way Home
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.20
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 30th September 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: Free online short story
Publisher: Seanan McGuire
Year: 2015
5th sentence, 74th page: And about that time, pigs would fly.

Alice Healy is sixteen years old and chafing at the yoke of her father’s regard. His overprotective streak has blossomed in the absence of his wife, leaving his teenage daughter sneaking out at every opportunity, trying to find herself and her place in the world without any parental support. But she knows the woods, and she knows what she wants to do with her life; it’s just a question of whether she can keep herself alive long enough to actually accomplish her planned future.

Thomas Price is a man still paying for his past. He’s smart enough to understand that his assignment is essentially an exile, and has enough of a sense of self-preservation not to argue. Those who vex the Covenant of St. George rarely live long enough to explain themselves. At least in Buckley Township, he’ll be far away from danger…unless you’re counting Alice Healy.

Worlds will collide and a new story will begin as Thomas Price arrives in his new home, and Alice Healy does her best to stay alive long enough to say hello for the first time.

Oh, HELL YES!!! A story of Alice as a teenager, man I’ve been hanging for this ever since Snakes and Ladders. And it was everything that I expected – Alice is sassy, accident prone and wonderfully independent, just like her mother. The fact that she also seems to like knives a little… wow.

This story is not only Alice’s first appearance as a teenager, but it also has Thomas and Alice’s first meeting. Which, again, I fell completely in love with. I can now completely understand how they had Verity as a daughter, and I can’t wait to meet the rest of their children and get to know the family even more (when I have the money to buy the books anyway…).

I was intrigued to see how Thomas truly left the Convent. You get to understand the rationale for the Healys throughout the rest of the short stories, but I wanted something at least slightly different for the next deserter. And I got it. It was great, fun and I can’t wait to keep sticking my nose into this fantastic series!

Image source: Goodreads