BACKPACKING THROUGH BEDLAM - Seanan McGuire

 Alice Price-Healy (of the Price family) has spent 50 years looking for her husband.  Now she's got him, along with Sally - a young girl who's been trapped in the other dimension with Thomas - and life hasn't simply returned to where it was when he went missing.  Alice and Sally don't bond well, each suspicious of the other, but they have Thomas as a common interest.  Nothing is the same for Thomas, though he's glad to be out of the strange dimension where he'd been trapped.

Together, the only thing for them to do now is to return home.  But 'home' isn't particularly safe - there's a war going on between the Price Family and The Covenant of St. George.  

The Price Family are part of a group of cryptozoologists who are dedicated to protecting all supernatural creatures from being discovered by humanity.  The Covenant of St. George is a group of people who are dedicated to upholding one ideal - anything that was not present on the Ark with Noah is an unnatural creature (ie "monster") and must be destroyed.

The bad news is that Alice needs to jump in on this call to action.  The good news is that Alice is not good at planning but very good at acting on impulse.

I haven't been on the InCryptid journey since the beginning, but I have begun to really take a shine to this series. In general, I really like this concept of a few humans trying to do good by the supernatural/unnatural world.  We've been following Alice for a while but things are likely to take a turn now that she's achieved her long-time goal of getting her husband back. 

But author Seanan McGuire has created a world that doesn't just revolve around a small handful of characters. There's a whole world of fascinating characters worthy of taking on a storyline. I think the Aeslin Colony - talking mice - could be a fascinating central character (though perhaps too much like the Redwall series).

It's hard to recommend a book like this as a stand-alone book.  The series and characters are so intricately intertwined that even though McGuire is quite expert at giving you all the information you need to enjoy a book, there's enough history that you will WANT to be familiar with what came before.  I'm beginning to like this series more than McGuire's October Daye series. It was too confusing when I first started reading it, but as I've begun to piece together past events, it's become much more interesting to me.

Looking for a good book? If you like urban fantasy and haven't tried the InCryptid series, you really should give it a read.  You can start with this book, Backpacking Through Bedlam by Seanan McGuire,the 12th book in the InCryptid series, and you might be a little confused, but hopefully it will just make you want to read more.

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

4 stars

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Backpacking Through Bedlam

author: Seanan McGuire

series: InCryptid #12

publisher: Daw Books

ISBN: 9780756418571

paperback, 352 pages