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

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