Title: Married in Green
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.05
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: Slow
Format: Free online short story
Publisher: Seanan McGuire
Year: 2013
5th sentence, 74th page: Turns out being a Healy brings a parcel of problems along for the ride.

After a rocky start and a lot of dangerous adventures, the day everyone has been waiting for has finally arrived: Jonathan Healy and Frances Brown are going to be married, and none too soon, since their first child is set to arrive at any moment. Alexander and Enid couldn’t be happier about their son gaining a wife and a child, while giving them a daughter-in-law. The mice have been celebrating for weeks. If only Jonathan and Fran were so sure…

Marriage is a big step, and Fran is terrified of what her future will bring. Is this her happily ever after, or just one more short-term home in a long string of the same? Help comes in the form of her old circus friends…but that just raises more questions. Will she ever be happy holding still? And what does it mean to be married in green?

You are cordially invited to join the Healys and the members of the Campbell Family Carnival on the joyous event of the marriage of Jonathan Healy and Frances Brown. Assuming they go through with it.

Everything changes today.

This short story opens with a bit of a quote. A saying about marriage that is full of superstition, but one that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was a unique and fun way to set the setting for this short story. The fact that it hints at some possible sadness in the future of Fran and Johnny’s lives doesn’t really make me feel super happy and lighthearted. But it was a good way to start a story about a marriage in the insane Healy clan.

Fran’s family in and her past with the Circus are established fairly early on in this series of short stories. But it isn’t until this tale that you actually get to meet all of the players. I’ve not had the pleasure of reading many stories which feature circus folk. But the few that I have made this one feel something like coming home. Or maybe, that was just because Fran’s emotions and this feeling seemed to just jump from the pages. It was such a beautiful reason for a delay in a wedding and a great way to introduce an extended family.

Even though this story is all about Fran and Johnny’s wedding, the Aeslin Mice still steal the show. There is just something wonderful, funny and completely adorable about these creatures that makes every single moment all about them. Which is, in my mind, exactly how it should be.

Image source: Goodreads

Title: No Place Like Home
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.03
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 11th August 2020
Pace: Slow
Format: eBook, Short story
Publisher: Seanan McGuire
Year: 2012
5th sentence, 74th page: This wasn’t where she belonged.

Road trips are wonderful things, filled with adventure, excitement, and questionable lodgings, but there comes a time in every man’s life where all he wants is the chance to sleep in his own bed, eat at his own table, and reunite his colony of talking pantheistic mice with their fellows, thus making sleep a little bit more likely. With Buckley Township in his sights, Jonathan Healy is finally going home.

The trouble is, home for him isn’t home for Fran, who grew up in the desert, never lived under a fixed roof for more than a week at a time, and has no idea what to expect. To make matters worse, Jonathan’s parents—Enid and Alexander Healy, late of the Covenant of St. George—are right on hand to make things more awkward for everyone.

With her future on the line, it’s time for Frances Brown to make one of the biggest decisions of her life. Does she stay in Buckley Township and try to make a life with the Healys? Or does she saddle up her horse and ride back into the sunset?

Returning home after a while is always difficult. But this story didn’t so much focus on Johnathon’s difficulties in returning home. It focused on Fran’s feelings of not quite belonging. And it also highlights the first indications of the relationship between Fran and Johnny and where that relationship is going to go…

This is the first of the InCryptid stories that actually enters the Healy household. And the madness and insanity that seem to be a part of the outlay for this family. It’s not anything like what I expected (and I had high expectations)… rather, it’s way, way, way more. A great, fun and incredibly unique household.

I love that this story starts out with the feeling that Enid doesn’t quite approve of Fran. But, throughout all of the testing and conversations, you begin to see that that isn’t really the case. And, at the end, you see a whole different light as the different generations find a way to accept one another and move forwards in life.

Image source: Goodreads

Title: One Hell of a Ride
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #0.02
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 11th August 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: eBook, Short story
Publisher: Seanan McGuire
Year: 2012
5th sentence, 74th page: “That’s that, then,” said Clark.

After a rather…eventful…visit to Tempe, Arizona, Jonathan Healy wants nothing more than to return to his home in Buckley Township, Michigan, where at least the threats are generally familiar ones. With the last of the blood mopped up and the locals none the wiser, it seems he’s just a train ride away from getting his wish.

Of course, there are a few small complications. Like the lovely and occasionally violent Miss Frances Brown, former star of the Campbell Family Circus, who seems to have become his new traveling companion. And then there’s the matter of the train having driven through a dimensional gateway into Hell…

Maybe Jonathan shouldn’t be quite so worried about getting back to Michigan. Maybe his time would be better spent in worrying about how to get off the train while he, and Fran, are still among the living.

Following The Flower of Arizona, and Fran and Johnathon’s meeting… it was nice to see how their relationship began and was likely to develop. Partly I loved the fact that this story involved a train ride and an adventure that had me giggling and smiling all the way through. Even if I now don’t necessarily want to ride a train…

I love that this story is literally what the title suggests – one hell of a ride. A train ride that passes through hell and all of the fun complications that that entails. The fact that it also highlights the evilness of corporate companies and capitalism… it just makes it all that much better.

Not only was this a fun adventure, but it showed a new aspect to the crypto world that I hadn’t expected. There was a mention of a Hell dimension in Discount Armageddon, but not really much beyond that. This provided that bit of extra information that helped make that much more sense…

Image source: Goodreads

Title: Discount Armageddon
Author: Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #1
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 2nd – 11th June 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: Novel
Publisher: Daw Fantasy
Year: 2012
5th sentence, 74th page: I yawned, not bothering to cover my mouth.

Cryptid, noun: Any creature whose existence has not yet been proven by science. See also “monster.”

Cryptozoologist, noun: Any person who thinks hunting for cryptids is a good idea. See also “idiot.”

Ghoulies. Ghosties. Long-legged beasties. Things that go bump in the night… and that’s just the beginning. The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity – and to protect humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she’d rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and is spending a year in Manhattan while she pursues her career in professional ballroom dance.

Sounds pretty simple, right? It would be, if it weren’t for the talking mice, the telepathic mathematicians, the asbestos supermodels, and the trained monster-hunter sent by the Price family’s old enemies, the Covenant of St. George. To complicate matters further, local cryptids are disappearing, strange lizard-men are appearing in the sewers, and someone’s spreading rumors about a dragon sleeping underneath the city…

A lifetime of training isn’t enough to prepare Verity for what’s ahead – especially not for Dominic De Luca, the Covenant’s newest operative. When a Price girl meets a Covenant boy, high stakes, high heels, and a lot of collateral damage are almost guaranteed.

I absolutely adored this story. It was fun, engaging and an absolute riot. I laughed frequently while reading it. And, although it did take me a bit over a week to read… I basically read the whole story cover to cover in one night… I stayed up until 3am and ALMOST finished it… but the words started getting blurry so I figured that I had to stop…

After finishing this novel, I seriously can’t wait for the rest of the InCryptid stories. The Price family seems like a hoot and a half from their brief moments in this story, and I’m sure they will continue to be entertaining and kind of hilarious as the series develops. Luckily, there are a number of short stories that I’m hoping to be able to read in the meantime…

As much as I enjoy the whole “opposites attract” mentality, it doesn’t always work in a story. Let alone the enemies-to-lovers trope. But Dominic and Verity do manage to pull that whole thing off perfectly throughout this novel. For sure, you do kind of guess that they will end up in these roles from the very beginning, but the journey that isn’t quite complete at the end of this novel is what makes it so much fun. And kind of hilarious if I’m being honest. I’m REALLY hoping that at a later point in the series he has to meet the rest of the Price clan… that’ll be incredibly entertaining.

The whole scientific enquiry tone of the Price family and monster hunting makes this feel much more plausible. Alright, it’s fantasy. But making an urban fantasy series which talks about evolution, physiology, species… I love that the “monsters” are constantly discussed like this. It was such a fun, unique and engaging way to talk about the paranormal creatures and things that go bump in the night…

My last favourite aspect of this story is the fact that the ass-kicking, somewhat terrifying monster hunter is also a ballroom dancer. It’s not a mix of professions that I would have thought of… but it somehow manages to work so seamlessly. Especially when she starts explaining how dancing is a fantastic way to train for monster hunting…

Image source: Goodreads