Title: We Both Go Down Together
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.09
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 22nd August 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: Free online short story
Publisher: Seanan McGuire
Year: 2013
5th sentence, 74th page: Minutes passed.

With their second child due to arrive any day, it would be reasonable for Jonathan and Frances Healy to stay safe at home. Unfortunately, the world has other ideas. A postcard from the mysterious coastal town of Gentling, Maine has Jonathan packing his bags and preparing for an adventure—and when did Fran ever pass up an adventure?

But the people of Gentling aren’t just ordinary fishermen and sailors: they’re the descendants of finfolk who fell in love with the humans who pulled them from the sea, and they have long since settled into a gentle rhythm of a life lived between the wet and the dry. Only now, someone or something is stealing their babies from the shore, endangering the next generation.

Old obligations and new obligations will collide, and the newest member of the Healy family will join the fight…or will she? Because it’s not just the babies of the finfolk who are in danger, and unless they’re careful, Johnny and Fran might find themselves losing another child…

I was kind of worried about how this story was going to go. After the events of The First Fall, I was expecting something equally tragic to happen to the next child born to Fran and Jonathan. It was a little bit tense and not so great. But I really didn’t have to worry as much as I thought I did.

As with many of the prequel short story stories that I’ve read in the InCryptid series thus far, We Both Go Down Together introduces a whole new group of cryptids. In the case of the Finfolk, I actually found their plight to be incredibly heart wrenching and sad. It was seriously tragic and made my heart hurt a little. It reminded me a lot of tales of the Selkies too…

Although the Finfolk have a bit of a tragic back story, there was something about this story that was really lovely. It provided a little hope for the future and left me wanting to know how Alice was likely to grow up after her auspicious welcome into the world.

Image source: Goodreads

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.

Image source: Goodreads

Title: The First Fall
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.07
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 16th August 2020
Pace: Medium
Format: Free online short story
Publisher: Seanan McGuire
Year: 2013
5th sentence, 74th page: “Yes, sweetheart,” she said.

It has been three years since the marriage of Jonathan and Frances Healy; three years since the birth of their son, Daniel, who has been the light of their lives for that entire time. And now, due to circumstances beyond their control, the family has come together to do the one thing that none of them has ever wanted to do.

They have come together to bury Daniel.

Shattered by the death of their little boy, Jonathan and Frances set out to find the Campbell Family Carnival, where Fran’s old friend Juniper’s talent for talking to ghosts may allow her to believe that her child is truly at rest. Jonathan has no such hopes; he just wants to there’s a chance his wife will survive the labyrinth of her grief.

This is not a happy story, and it does not chronicle a happy time in the annals of the Price family. But this is what happened, and when it happened, and it shaped so very much of what came after.

Rest well, Daniel Healy. You never had a chance.

This short story kind of hurt my poor heart. It even made me cry a little. Nothing too intense, just a few spots on my cheeks and a little brightness in my eyes. This was also just at the very beginning of the story. So you can imagine that it just went downhill from there for my poor emotions…

I seriously can’t believe that the beautiful child that you barely get to meet dies. And the way that he dies. It’s truly horrible. It seriously made me rethink my love for McGuire for a little while. But it didn’t take me long to feel more comfortable with her writing again. Even when she kills off a small child, she manages to do so in a way that is both serious and heart rending and kind of beautiful.

I also loved how Juniper is able to start the process of healing in this story. Sometimes we need to lean on the people that we love the most and find our way towards healing. Even if it is a little difficult to find the words…

Image source: Goodreads

Title: Sweet Poison Wine
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.06
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 12th August 2020
Pace: Medium
Format: eBook, Short story
Publisher: Seanan McGuire
Year: 2013
5th sentence, 74th page: The three men he’d brought along to assist in proving his point climbed out on his signal, following him inside.

Jonathan and Frances Healy are beginning their new lives together with that most traditional of celebrations: the honeymoon. Leaving their infant son with Jonathan’s parents, the Healys are leaving Buckley Township, Michigan for the cosmopolitan wonders of the city of Chicago, where they can properly celebrate the fact that they managed to have a wedding without anybody winding up dead.

Of course, these are the Healys we’re talking about, and nothing in Chicago is exactly fitting the description provided by the Bureau of Tourism. From the gorgon-run hotel where they’ll be staying to the swamp hags in the Chicago River, things are definitely business as usual, at least by the family definition of “usual.”

Bootlegger Arturo Gucciard has only just been introduced to the Healy definition of “usual,” but he’s going to need to get awfully familiar with it if he wants to live long enough to have a honeymoon of his own. And Jonathan, well. Jonathan just wants to have a normal honeymoon.

Good luck with that.

This is the longest Fran and Johnathan short story yet. Which, of course, pulled me in fairly quickly – I wanted to know what was going to happen after their wedding that would take longer than everything before. And I really wasn’t disappointed. This is exactly the kind of honeymoon that I would have imagined for these two. A perfect, fun and kind of quirky journey.

I love that this story features wine… of the supernatural variety. Each cryptid in this series has its own culture and needs (much like humans) and McGuire’s talent at seamlessly integrating this into her works is not only fun, but incredibly potent and powerful. Particularly when you think about the fact that part of culture is also food and wine. And in the case of this short story, it’s the wine that is an integral aspect of Gorgon culture.

One of the things I think I love the most about Fran is that she just gets bored seriously easy. Luckily for me, I mostly find my entertainment in books, rather than in fights. But there is still that same sense of adventure and need to try something new that I find completely relatable. The fact that in this case it leads to an adventure that delivers wine and justice… she’s definitely my kind of lady.

Image source: Goodreads