Title: The Star of New Mexico
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.14
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 25th September 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: Free online short story
Publisher: Seanan Mcguire
Year: 2015
5th sentence, 74th page: “We’re not set up for long term storage,” the funeral home director had said.

Almost twenty years ago, Jonathan Healy rode a train across the country to investigate reports that something was killing people in the wake of a small family circus. Almost twenty years ago, he brought home the woman who would be his wife, the mother of his children, and his partner in the endless quest to protect the cryptids of the world. The time has come for Fabulous Fran, the Flower of Arizona, the Star of New Mexico, to take the stage for the final time, and take her final bow.

Fran touched a lot of lives in her time in Buckley, and the people who loved her are coming to say goodbye. It’s not going to be easy. The things that are most important so very rarely are.

They say she never missed a shot; she was the darling of the west. But now she’s gone, and the ones she’s left behind must figure out what this means for them.

After reading Broken Paper Hearts, I thought McGuire was done with breaking my heart. Boy was I wrong. Oh, so damn wrong. Evil woman managed to do it again. I finished this short story with that same horrid feeling of sadness and confusion that the previous short story left. But, it was somehow even worse because this was actually saying goodbye and dashing all hopes that Fran would be coming back…

This short story most definitely asks the question – how do you say goodbye to the ones that you love? And, more importantly… what would you do if you had to say goodbye? Would you come back from the dead? Or would you stay gone and let your family move on? How do you move on? So many questions and thoughts running through my head right now!

One of the things I love about this is that Alice is obviously a little butt-kicker and I can’t wait to see how she’s going to kick butt into the future. I think the next few InCryptid short stories are all about her… so I look forward to finding out just how tough a woman she is going to become!

Image source: Goodreads

Title: Broken Paper Hearts
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.13
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 10th September 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: Free online short story
Publisher: Seanan McGuire
Year: 2015
5th sentence, 74th page: We have to take her home now.

Valentine’s Day has come to Buckley Township. For Alice, that means cupcakes and paper hearts. For Jonathan, it means sleepless nights and fear, because Fran hasn’t come home.

Everything ends eventually. No matter how much you hope that it won’t.

Everything ends.

This is. My heart. My heart. My heart.

That’s pretty much the entirety of this review – this tiny little, short as, almost non existent short story just completely tore my heart out and then stomped on it. Just for a bit of good measure.

I’ve actually never had a short story make me cry. That was a very new experience… I think this was about seven pages – and they made me weep. Again. My heart.

I get that everything ends, and this had to too. But, without giving anything away. Seriously McGuire! WHY? Did THIS have to end now?

My heart.

Image source: Goodreads

Title: Snakes and Ladders
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.12
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 7th September 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: Free online short story
Publisher: Seanan McGuire
Year: 2014
5th sentence, 74th page: “Damn mice.”

There’s nothing that little girls love more on Halloween than going trick or treating with their mother, a sackful of talking pantheistic mice, and their dead babysitter. All right, maybe there are a lot of things that little girls love more, but for Alice Healy, a nice out with her beloved mama and her favorite ghost is just about perfect.

Right up until someone snatches her off of a porch, that is.

For Alice, this is the most terrifying thing that has ever happened. For Fran, this is the end of the world, and something she may not survive; if she doesn’t get her little girl back, she may be joining Mary in the grave. And for the snake cult that grabbed Alice, this may be the chance that they’ve been waiting for…

It’s tricks and treats on a Buckley Halloween, and this time, there are more than just the usual masked monsters roaming the streets.

Alice is just the cutest character I’ve read in a long time. Alright, she’s going to grow up into a pretty kick ass woman by the time the full-length novels roll around. But in this short story? Yeah. She’s damn cute. And adorable. And just so funny. I love how she pretty much takes everything in her stride and just rolls with all of the insanity which is happening in her life.

Being an Aussie, I’ve never been too involved in the whole Trick or Treating thing… but this short story definitely gave me a whole new dimension of understanding. Alright, I get that this isn’t what is normally meant by trick or treating. But I still loved that the Halloween spirit was bought into this story in the typical, slightly insane InCryptid manner.

In Discount Armageddon, snake cults are mentioned a few times. This was a much better introduction to the cults – so it might have been useful to read this before actually reading the novel. I love how McGuire has been able to construct a world in which each of the short stories are introducing a new cryptid and drawing you further and further into her fantastic world building.

Image source: Goodreads

Title: Bury Me In Satin
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.11
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 30th August 2020
Pace: Medium
Format: Free online short story
Publisher: Seanan McGuire
Year: 2013
5th sentence, 74th page: Alice would have pursued her amphibious quarry, but was stopped by her mother’s arm being suddenly wrapped around her waist, lifting her off the ground.

Things are starting to hit an easy sort of groove at the Healy house. Alice is growing up, a little spitfire of a girl who adores her father and idolizes her mother. Johnny and Fran have mostly put their ghosts behind them, and are focusing on the future, which has never seemed brighter, or more guaranteed.

Sadly, for some people, the future has already ended.

Mary Dunlavy has been Alice’s babysitter almost since the girl was born. When her father stops showing up for work, it falls to Fran to go and see what’s going on. What she finds changes everything.

There is no right and there is no wrong in some situations: there’s only the way things should have been, and the way things are.

Not everyone gets out alive.

It was pretty obvious that this story was going to feature Mary a little more… after all, her unique condition is hinted at in Oh Pretty Bird. But I didn’t quite expect her condition to be what it was. It was great. And I’m hoping that we get more of her as the story unfolds.

I love how even though a few curveballs are thrown Fran’s way, she just continues to take it all in stride. There is something seriously loveable and adorable about how she just goes yup… Mary’s not quite human. Cool. We’ll help her. She can continue taking care of my infant. I want ot be this unflappable in my life…

Alice is just steadily getting so, so, much bigger throughout this whole series. I can’t wait to start reading stories in which she’s an adult (or a teenager) and beginning to take the world by storm. Plus, the Healy household is just plain nuts. So I love how they can’t even find a “normal” babysitter.

Image source: Goodreads

Title: Oh Pretty Bird
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.10
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 25th August 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: Free online short story
Publisher: Seanan McGuire
Year: 2014
5th sentence, 74th page: Well, all right.

It’s been years since the death of their first child, Daniel, but Jonathan and Frances Healy have never been able to catch the person responsible…until now. When word comes that the Apraxis hives are moving strangely, and that a familiar woman with black hair and no history has appeared, it seems like things may finally come to fruition.

And it’s not like they won’t have backup: Enid and Alexander Healy have not forgiven the woman who cost them their first grandchild, and they’re not about to let Johnny and Fran ride out alone. They don’t know much about the situation that they’re walking into. They know enough to be afraid, to be on their guards, and to stay together at all times.

Can they avenge their own without paying more than they can afford? Old questions are finally answered, and old debts are paid as the Healys walk into the most dangerous situation they have faced thus far. It’s for Daniel. There’s no question of whether they’ll go. There’s only a question of whether they’ll come back.

This short story features the first interaction between the Healys and Cuckoos and it is kind of brilliant. I wonder if the child in this is the child that we get to know throughout Discount Armageddon.  But it’ll be interesting to find out. I loved the way that this story not only built on the previous short stories, but gave even more background into a new discovery which will feature in the future stories.

This story is violent, blood thirsty and just a little bit angry. Although there are plenty of moments throughout that acknowledge this, and somehow help to diminish the power of the blood thirst and revenge that drives this storyline. I really loved that balance between the two forms.

The biggest thing that intrigues me about this short story is what in the heck happens to the baby after both the parent Cuckoos are removed. I’m not sure whether I feel hopeful or scared…

Image source: Goodreads

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