SPELUNKING THROUGH HELL - Seanan McGuire

I've read a lot of Seanan McGuire's books (under her name and under the name Mira Grant) and I've really liked most of them, but the InCryptid series is possibly my favorite, and this particular book really turns up the heat.

This is Alice's story.

Alice Price-Healy once fell in love with a man named Thomas Price. Thomas was a member of the Covenant (and organization that wants to get rid of Cryptids). But love is strange and Thomas and Alice fell in love and Thomas made a bargain with this ... what...?  'being?' 'thing?' 'entity?' ... known as the Crossroads (oh ... those Crossroads books are good, too!). But part of that bargain was that Thomas couldn't ever leave his house and that they (the powers that be) could come and take him at any time.

Alice and Thomas have a child together and they are expecting their second child when Thomas is taken away without any warning.  Once she has the baby, Alice then goes looking for Thomas.

For fifty years.

This is the story of that search, through other worlds and other dimensions, Alice will stop at nothing and let nothing stand in her way so that she can be reunited with her only true love.

This is a wild adventure. This is sort of like going through all of McGuire's Crossroads series, InCryptid series, and October Daye series books in one sitting. We get so much here it's almost hard to digest. And on top of it all, there's a love story that works.

I also appreciate that underneath everything we read, there's some angst and some energy ready to burst. There could, and should, be another Alice story in the InCryptid series. 

In some ways, those who've been reading the series for awhile already know the basic Alice story, but being there to see her in action bring her story to another level. We also know the kind of trouble Alice is likely to get into, and we know the fierceness to which she'll fight anything that attempts to hold her back.

Like all the books in the series, this book contains a novella or novelette at the back of the book. It is very possible that I liked this story ("And Sweep Up the Wood...") even more than the novel.   This is a story of a very young Alice with her father and an InCryptid encounter that .... well, I don't want to give anything away.  This is a must read.

Looking for a good book? Spelunking Through Hell by Seanan McGuire is the book we've been waiting for (even if we didn't know it) in the InCryptid series. Read it; tell your friends about it; read it again.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

5 stars

* * * * * *

Spelunking Through Hell

author: Seanan McGuire

series: InCryptid #11

publisher: DAW

ISBN: 0756411831

paperback, 352 pages

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MURDLE VOLUME 1 - G. T. Karber

Image
 I enjoy puzzles of many different varieties. I had not heard of 'Murdle' before this but essentially this is a combination of the game of Clue and a Sherlock Holmes micro story. With suspects, possible murder weapons, potential locations, and/or motives plus some very brief hints, readers are meant to combine the logic of what's know with deductive reasoning to identify the killer (or killers?) in 100 different mystery word puzzles. I will admit right off the bat that I did not do all 100.  I didn't even do half of these, but I did so some random sampling through all the categories (Elementary, Occult Medium, Hard Boiled, and Impossible). I did not get any correct in the Impossible category (of course not ... they were impossible!) and only one correct in the Hard Boiled (of five). The Elementary puzzles were, as expected, pretty easy and the Hard Boiled only a little bit more difficult. Each mini mystery comes with a grid printed in the book to help the reader-detecti
Read more

VINYL RESTING PLACE - Olivia Blacke

Image
 Juni Jessup and her two sister, Tansy and Maggie, have gone into business together in their hometown of Cedar River, Texas, opening a combination record store and coffee shop. Vinyl LPs are making a comeback after all, despite critics thinking the medium was dead.  But speaking of 'dead' ... finding a dead body in the supply closet just as they are looking to have a grand opening is not part of the plan.  Juni's life gets more complicated when their uncle, Calvin, already a suspect in the murder, disappears. And the police officer leading the investigation is Juni's EX-boyfriend (who passive-aggressively keeps putting himself back into her life). Convinced that her uncle would never murder anyone, Juni sets out to prove his innocence - which isn't easy since he's making himself look guilty - because Calvin is family and family is EVERYthing to Juni. As readers of my blog know, I'm not a big fan of most cozy mysteries, but the setting caught my eye and my in
Read more

THE RAVEN THIEF - Gigi Pandian

Image
 With Tempest Raj now a member of the company, Secret Staircase Construction (a company who, as their title suggests, builds mystery-themed, secret rooms inside homes) has finished their first job. Their client now wants to celebrate to kick off her new beginning - new home and new life now that she's divorced from her cheating ex-husband, famous mystery author Corbin Colt. First up, a mock séance to remove any trace of Corbin from the property, led by Tempest's friend, Sanjay.   But during that séance, while all those gathered sat in a dark room holding hands, Corbin's dead body crashes the party, falling across the table in front of everyone. There were eight people in the room, and they were all holding hands, but all the evidence points to one of them being the murderer.  Suspicions point to Ash, Tempest's grandfather, because he was the only one with Corbin's blood on him. Of course, as a doctor, he was also the only one who checked on the body - wherein he acq
Read more