Early Review – That Ain’t Witchcraft (InCryptid, Book 8) by Seanan McGuire (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 445 pages
Publisher: DAW
Release Date: March 5, 2019
ISBN-13: 978-0756411793
Stand Alone or Series: 8th book in the InCryptid series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley
Rating: 4/5 stars
“Antimony Price has never done well without a support system. As the youngest of her generation, she has always been able to depend on her parents, siblings, and cousins to help her out when she’s in a pinch—until now. After fleeing from the Covenant of St. George, she’s found herself in debt to the crossroads and running for her life. No family. No mice. No way out.
Lucky for her, she’s always been resourceful, and she’s been gathering allies as she travels: Sam, fūri trapeze artist turned boyfriend; Cylia, jink roller derby captain and designated driver; Fern, sylph friend, confidant, and maker of breakfasts; even Mary, ghost babysitter to the Price family. Annie’s actually starting to feel like they might be able to figure things out—which is probably why things start going wrong again.
New Gravesend, Maine is a nice place to raise a family…or make a binding contract with the crossroads. For James Smith, whose best friend disappeared when she tried to do precisely that, it’s also an excellent place to plot revenge. Now the crossroads want him dead and they want Annie to do the dirty deed. She owes them, after all.
And that’s before Leonard Cunningham, aka, “the next leader of the Covenant,” shows up…
It’s going to take everything Annie has and a little bit more to get out of this one. If she succeeds, she gets to go home. If she fails, she becomes one more cautionary tale about the dangers of bargaining with the crossroads.
But no pressure.”
This is the eighth book in the InCryptid series and features Antimony Price again. I have mentioned I am not a huge fan of Antimony and that continues. However I am a huge fan of the Crossroads and this book deals with the Crossroads a lot. This was a solid addition to the series. It’s a fast-paced read with a great story, wonderful characters, lots of action, and some fun cryptozoology.
Annie and friends have finally found a place to rest. Cylia’s luck has led them to a rental house in New Gravesend, Maine. Everyone is waiting for the bad luck portion of Cylia’s luck to get them though…things just seem too perfect. That’s when another sorcerer shows up, the Crossroads decides it wants its end of the bargain fulfilled, and Leonard Cunningham (of the Covenant) finds Antimony. Yep, everything is a mess and it’s up to Annie to lead her friends in surviving it.
I continue to love the characters in this book. For some reason Annie remains my least favorite of the bunch. I love Sam, Fern, and Cylia and enjoyed the new sorcerer who joins the story. I really enjoyed the interactions between the characters and how they have become their own weird type of family unit.
The book is fast-paced and involves action, mystery, cryptozoology, and magic. Most of the story deals with Annie trying to deliver on her side of the Crossroads bargain she made in the last book.
I absolutely loved the Crossroads storyline, this recurring theme throughout this series has always fascinated me and this book delivers some interesting info around the Crossroads.
The book ends at a good spot and I am guessing we will see at least one more Antimony book in this series. I am hoping soon we will get back to Verity or Alex or even other Prince family members. There is a lot of humor and banter in these books as well and that makes them a lot of fun to read.
There is a bonus novella in here too, a short story that talks about Sarah and some Gorgons. I had already read this somewhere so I started to read it and then remembered I had already read it. It’s a good story and fills in some things about Alex, Sarah, and the Gorgon clan they live near.
Overall this was another spectacular read by McGuire. This book balances out wonderful characters, a great story, action, mystery, fantasy, and magic. I would highly recommend both this series and the October Daye series to those who enjoy urban fantasy. This series is a lot more light-hearted but both are very well done. I personally enjoy the October Daye series more because of all the folklore and mythology in it.
