Early Review – Aftermarket Afterlife (InCryptid, Book 13) by Seanan McGuire (3.5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: DAW
Release Date: March 5, 2024
ASIN: B0CHVB51TD
Stand Alone or Series: 13th book in the InCryptid Series
Source: eBook through NetGalley for Review
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
“Mary Dunlavy didn’t intend to become a professional babysitter. Of course, she didn’t intend to die, either, or to become a crossroads ghost. As a babysitting ghost, she’s been caring for the Price family for four generations, and she’s planning to keep doing the job for the better part of forever.
With her first charge finally back from her decades-long cross-dimensional field trip, with a long-lost husband and adopted daughter in tow, it’s time for Mary to oversee the world’s most chaotic family reunion. And that’s before the Covenant of St. George launches a full scale strike against the cryptids of Manhattan, followed quickly by an attack on the Campbell Family Carnival.
It’s going to take every advantage and every ally they have for the Prices to survive what’s coming—and for Mary, to avoid finding out the answer to a question she’s never wanted to know: what happens to a babysitting ghost if she loses the people she’s promised to protect?”
Series Info/Source: This is the 13th book in the InCryptid series. I got an eGalley for this for review through NetGalley.
Thoughts: I was really hoping for another book from Alice’s POV but this time around we get to hear from Mary. In general this was slow and I was pretty disappointed. In this installment of the InCryptid series things are coming to a head between the Price family and the Covenant. This book is told from Mary (the ghost babysitter’s) POV.
My main issue with this book is that it spends way too much time with Mary jumping between characters and trying to assuage their feelings, moods, etc. A lot of book is just dealing with all of the interpersonal relationships in the extended Price family. The actual plot involving the Covenant makes very little progress.
All of the members of the Price family are in here and it is hard to remember who is who because of the sheer plethora of characters. Yes, there is a family tree located at the beginning of the book. No, I couldn’t remember all the minutia of who was involved with who and what they had done in previous books. This made what happened with Jane fairly low impact to me as a reader, even though it had a huge impact on her family.
If weird supernatural/paranormal soap opera is your thing this is a good book for that. I personally got into this series because I enjoyed the action, humor, and fun cryptozoology. I think the best part of the book was that we do get to learn more about the dragon under New York City, but that was a fairly small part of the story. There is a short story after the main book ends that spends more time with the dragons.
IMHO both this series and the October Daye series need to be wrapped up soon. They are both starting to feel tired and aimless. I would prefer to end things on a high note my favorite two series rather than end up stopping reading them because the story quality has been gradually going downhill.
The writing throughout is still well done and easy to read. The story just feels very fractured and the overall story around the Covenant vs the Price family is moving at a glacial pace.
My Summary (3.5/5): Overall I was disappointed in this Incryptid book. Seeing Mary’s POV was interesting but she is pulled in too many directions at once and it made the story feel chaotic and fractured. This installment is very soap opera like, Mary basically provides mental and physical support to the whole Price family at this point. It’s also hard to follow who all the characters are and what their relationship to each other is (yes, we get the family tree at the beginning of the book but that’s not enough). Very little progress is made with the over-arching story about the Covenant. I will read the next book in the series and withhold judgment for now. However, both this and the October Daye series feel very tired to me; it’s time to wrap them up and move on to something new.
