Title: Blind Date with a Werewolf Author: Patricia Briggs Publisher: Ace Publication date: October 21, 2025 Length: 288 pages Genre: Fantasy Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
When the deadly werewolf Asil is gifted five blind dates by some anonymous “friends,” his reclusive life will never be the same, in this enthralling novel in stories from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Mercy Thompson series.
Includes two all-new stories as well as three previously published stories.
DearAsil:
We are worried about you. A werewolf alone is a sad thing, especially at Christmastime. So we have a challenge for five dates in three weeks. We have taken the work out of it and connected you with five people from online dating sites. You should also know that we have informed the whole pack and instigated a betting pool. Have fun!
Sincerely, Your Concerned Friends
For fans of the Mercy Thompson and Alpha & Omega series by Patricia Briggs, this new book — a novel composed of five connected stories — is a real treat. For someone who hasn’t read those series, this book might be more of a challenge, but still lots of fun.
Asil Moreno, known among werewolves as the Moor, is a centuries-old werewolf known for his power, violence, and instability. Only his Alpha, the ruler of all werewolves in North America, is dominant enough to keep Asil under control. Asil is deadly, but beautiful, and he knows it. He also has very little interest in other people, and certainly no interest in romance, not since the death of his mate many, many years earlier.
But Asil’s friends think he needs a boost — and, we suspect, also are looking to have a little fun at his expense. Through anonymous emails, they challenge him to go on a series of blind dates that they’ll arrange for him. Asil is not enthusiastic in the slightest, but there’s a pack bet that he won’t succeed in completing the five dates of the challenge, and Asil is not one to ever back down.
Let’s just say that the dates don’t go exactly as planned. Each supposedly romantic set-up turns into a mission involving lots more danger and blood than candlelight and roses. In each case, it’s extremely entertaining to see Asil present himself as a respectable, desirable date… only to have each encounter go entirely sideways.
Blind Date with a Werewolf includes three stories previously published in other anthologies, plus two stories that are original to this book. Taken as a whole, they make a highly enjoyable reading experience, with a great story arc, lots of amusing character moments, and plenty of high stakes and action sequences.
It’ll be interesting to see whether the events of Blind Date with a Werewolf carry over into the greater universe of Patricia Briggs’s series. (The next new book will be #7 in the Alpha & Omega series, tentatively scheduled for release sometime in 2026).
As I mentioned, Blind Date with a Werewolf is perfect for fans of the related series. I do think it could be read on its own even without familiarity with its greater fictional universe, although I think some of the intricacies about pack dynamics and werewolf nature might be harder to unravel.
In any case, this really is a very fun book, and I tore through it in about a day and a half. Asil’s adventures are funny, fast-paced, and have just enough danger in them to keep us readers on the edge of our seats. Of course, now I’m dying for more of this world… I may need to dive back in and do a reread of the Alpha & Omega books, at the very least.
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Title: Installment Immortality Series: Incryptid, #14 Author: Seanan McGuire Publisher: Tor Books Publication date: March 11, 2025 Length: 432 pages Genre: Urban fantasy Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Seanan McGuire’s New York Times-bestselling and Hugo Award-nominated InCryptid series continues with a whirlwind adventure….
After four generations of caring for the Price family, Mary Dunlavy has more than earned a break from the ongoing war with the Covenant of St. George. Instead, what she’s getting is a new employer, in the form of the anima mundi, Earth’s living soul made manifest, and a new assignment: to hunt down the Covenant agents on the East Coast and make them stop imprisoning America’s ghosts.
All in a day’s work for a phantom nanny, even one who’d really rather be teaching her youngest charges how to read.
One ghost can’t take on the entire Covenant without backup, which is how she winds up on a road trip with the still-mourning Elsie and the slowly collapsing Arthur, both of whom are reeling in their own way from the loss of their mother. New allies and new enemies await in Worcester, Massachusetts, where the path of the haunting leads.
With the anima mundi demanding results and Mary’s newfound freedom at stake, it’s down to Mary to make sure that everyone gets out of this adventure alive.
It’s been a long afterlife, but Mary Dunlavy’s not ready to be exorcised quite yet.
When you’re on the 14th book in an ongoing series, it feels practically impossible to talk about it in a way that will make sense to anyone who hasn’t been along for the journey. And in fact, even though I have read every one of these books, I needed a serious refresher before feeling ready to dive in. Um, what happened last time around? The details are a little fuzzy…
Fortunately, the narrator of Installment Immortality, ghost babysitter Mary Dunlavy, is just bouncing back from a major trauma and missed quite a bit, so her opening in the first chapter is quite helpful:
All right, this is where I recap. Because we’re dealing with five generations of family history here, and that’s a lot, even when you’ve been there from the beginning. I can’t count on anyone having been here from the beginning anymore, myself included, so I’ll give you the basic shape of things and hope that will be enough to ground you in this glorious ghost story already in progress.
Thanks, Mary!
The first chapter is Mary giving us a speed-recap, and it was just what I needed. (That, plus keeping the Incryptids wiki page bookmarked for easy reference.)
A brief explanation on the series (from my review of one of the earlier books):
The InCryptid series is a big, sprawling, interconnected story about the varied and sundry members of the Price/Healy clan — humans (mostly) who specialize in cryptozoology, the study and preservation of non-human people who live among us here on Earth. The arch-enemies of the Price gang (and all non-human species) is the Covenant, a powerful organization dedicated to hunting down and eliminating all cryptids — ostensibly to protect humans, but really, at this point, it’s more from deeply ingrained hatred and a desire to rid the world of everything non-human.
The series has had several different narrators, most of whom get a couple of books in a row before we move on to the next. Installment Immortality is Mary’s second book, and she picks up right where she left off in the previous book, Aftermarket Afterlife.
The Price-Healy family has inflicted serious harm on the Covenant, and now the Covenant wants payback. They’re trying to get it by rounding up and either destroying or weaponizing ghosts, and Mary’s new boss — the anima mundi, the living spirit of the world — wants it stopped before irreversible damage is done. Mary is tasked with finding these wannabe ghostbusters and doing whatever it takes to shut them down.
Meanwhile, the family is in tatters, having suffered two devastating losses in the last book. No one is operating at full speed, but Mary recognizes that siblings Elsie and Arthur need both a distraction and a purpose, and the three set off on a road trip to carry out her mission.
As we get into the main action of the story, the pace quickens and the stakes get higher and higher. Without going too far into the details, I’ll just say that the suspense becomes intense, and I was on the edge of my seat! You might think that when a main character is a ghost and therefore already dead, there wouldn’t be much risk… and you’d be wrong. Mary faces incredible danger, but her devotion to her kids (yes, Elsie and Arthur are adults, but once Mary has been someone’s babysitter, they’re always going to be her kids, no matter their age) keeps her focuses on her mission and determined to do whatever it takes to protect them.
Installment Immortality is another terrific addition to a great series. It can feel somewhat dense at times — there is A LOT to keep track of. But it’s worth it. With a series this big and sprawling, the mythology and interconnectedness is intense (and seriously, those wikis are essential!), but the emotional payoff of seeing the latest developments for characters we’ve had this much time to get to know and love is really rewarding.
Obviously, starting an ongoing series at book 14 is not going to be a satisfying reading experience. Each book builds upon the one before — so really, the only way to enjoy it is to start at the beginning (Discount Armageddon)… and then keep going!
As for me, I’m all in, and can’t wait for #15!
As with other books in the Incryptid series, this one includes a novella at the end, Mourner’s Waltz. The story features the same main character as in the previous novella, picking up the story several months later. There are strong emotional beats plus a nifty adventure. I can’t talk about it without major spoilers, but it was engaging and lovely… and makes me hope that the next main Incryptid book will bring this character back to center stage.
Mercy Thompson, car mechanic and shapeshifter, must stop a disaster of world-shattering proportions in this exhilarating entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.
In the supernatural realms, there are creatures who belong to winter. I am not one of them. But like the coyote I can become at will, I am adaptable.
My name is Mercy Thompson Hauptman, and my mate, Adam, is the werewolf who leads the Columbia Basin Pack, the pack charged with keeping the people who live and work in the Tri-Cities of Washington State safe. It’s a hard job, and it doesn’t leave much room for side quests. Which is why when I needed to travel to Montana to help my brother, I intended to go by myself.
But I’m not alone anymore.
Together, Adam and I find ourselves trapped with strangers in a lodge in the heart of the wilderness, in the teeth of a storm of legendary power, only to discover my brother’s issues are a tiny part of a problem much bigger than we could have imagined. Arcane and ancient magics are at work that could, unless we are very careful, bring about the end of the world. . . .
Mercy Thompson has been one of my favorite fictional heroines since the moment I read the very first book in the series, Moon Called. I love this series and the world Patricia Briggs has created, with its complex characters and dynamics, dangerous supernatural beings and mysterious powers, and deep, meaningful personal connections too.
You can imagine how much it pains me to give a Mercy book fewer than four stars. Not that Winter Lost isn’t a good book — it just doesn’t measure up to how great I know this series can be, and it left me feeling uninvolved for far too long of the story.
Probably needless to say, but the 14th book in a series is not a good starting place. I’ll talk about this book, but I’m not going to explain the entire backstory of the series. (But seriously, give yourself a treat and pick up Moon Called, if you haven’t read it yet!)
The events of Winter Lost feel quite separate in many ways from the main through-stories of the series, especially given the way the plot unfolds. The series as a whole is very firmly rooted in the Tri-Cities region of Washington State. Community matters a lot in Mercy’s world. And yet, in Winter Lost, Mercy and her husband Adam spend most of the book away from home, journeying to the wilderness of Montana to remove a curse from Mercy’s brother (and, along the way, try to stop the world from ending).
In “interludes” sprinkled in between the main chapters, we get glimpses of what’s going on back at home, as well as the actions of other (new) characters who have a part to play in the central action of the story. The chapters focus on Mercy and Adam as they travel to the mountain lodge, learn more about what they’re dealing with, and then (of course) save the day.
Beyond the action of this particular quest, Mercy and Adam are also dealing with the fallout from the last book, Soul Taken, which left Mercy with a cosmic sort of damage that’s slowly eating away at her soul and her magic. She has a mystical band-aid of sorts, thanks to the intervention of a fae who cares for her, but long-term, this damage will kill her if they can’t fix it… and fixing it seems like something beyond the skills of anyone in their sphere. This fear underlies every moment, adding a sense of urgency to everything Mercy and Adam do, but especially to their more private moments together.
The plot of Winter Lost just didn’t captivate me the way I’ve come to expect from Mercy books. The plot is an adventure story, but it happens far from home, isolated from much of the ongoing story threads of the series. The adventure concludes at the end of the book, and the pieces are mainly reset — so except for one key element, nothing is all that different from where we picked up at the start of the book. (Keeping it vague… no spoilers here!)
I think one reason I didn’t love Winter Lost quite as much is the distance from Mercy and Adam’s home. I love them as characters and will follow them anywhere, but their stories are always much richer when they’re set amidst the world of their pack, their extended family, and their various and sundry allies and acquaintances. Mercy and Adam can carry the story by themselves, but I missed being around all the rest of the characters we’ve come to know and love.
Winter Lost is a quest story, and I was much more engaged for the last third or so… but still, I can’t wait for the series to move back home and let us see the entire pack back together and back in action.
Despite my 3.5 stars for this particular book, my love for the Mercy-verse remains strong! According to the author’s website, next year will bring a new book in the spin-off Alpha & Omega series (yay!), and so I assume it’ll be 2026 until we see the next Mercy book… and I have a feeling I’ll be doing at least a little rereading between now and then.
Title: Aftermarket Afterlife Series: Incryptid, #13 Author: Seanan McGuire Publisher: DAW Publication date: March 5, 2024 Length: 368 pages Genre: Urban fantasy Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Seanan McGuire’s New York Times -bestselling and Hugo Award-nominated urban fantasy InCryptid series continues with the thirteenth book following the Price family, cryptozoologists who study and protect the creatures living in secret all around us
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: where does a babysitting ghost go when she runs out of people to take care of?
In the 13th installment in the weird and wonderful world of Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid series, the Price-Healy family is back… and things are not going well at all.
My recap from the previous book in the series still holds true:
The InCryptid series is a big, sprawling, interconnected story about the varied and sundry members of the Price/Healy clan — humans (mostly) who specialize in cryptozoology, the study and preservation of non-human people who live among us here on Earth. The arch-enemies of the Price gang (and all non-human species) is the Covenant, a powerful organization dedicated to hunting down and eliminating all cryptids — ostensibly to protect humans, but really, at this point, it’s more from deeply ingrained hatred and a desire to rid the world of everything non-human.
The series covers a lot of ground, and as it’s progressed, different family members have had the starring roles in different books. We’ve had books mainly focused on siblings Verity, Alex, and Antimony, and also their cousin Sarah, and their grandparents Alice and Thomas, but Aftermarket Afterlife is the first book where the family babysitter, Mary Dunlavy, is in the central role.
Up to now, Mary has been a featured side character, always present one way or another in the family’s lives, but usually never in more than a few key scenes from book to book. In Aftermarket Afterlife, we’re finally able to experience the Price-Healy clan through Mary’s eyes, and it’s a fascinating journey.
Mary died about a hundred years earlier, but that hasn’t stopped her from carrying out her duties as the family’s babysitter. She may be a ghost, but she’s good at her job! By appearance, she’s a teen girl (with startling white hair and eerie eyes), and her afterlife’s purpose is caring for the children of the Price family… even when those children are now fully grown and have children of their own. Mary can assume solid form (so she can tend the children in her care), but can also discorporate to pass through other dimensions. Most important among her ghostly abilities, she can hear when one of her children calls for her no matter where they are, and can instantly blink out from wherever she is and appear by their side.
In Aftermarket Afterlife, the Covenant is amping up their attacks on cryptid locations in North America, zeroing in on known and suspected allies of the Price clan. It’s only a matter of time before they find the family’s secret compound outside of Portland. The Prices are seemingly outnumbered, but they don’t give up easily, and soon Mary becomes essential to the family’s plan to take the fight to the Covenant.
“Hi. I’m the babysitter. And you scared my kids.”
This book starts a bit slowly, as Mary blips from one point to another, gathering intel and figuring out where everyone is. Pretty much all the family members we’ve come to know over the course of the series show up in this one, so there’s a lot of setting the scene before the action before more sharply focused. By the midpoint, however, it’s full speed ahead. The family suffers some tragic losses, and as they’re left reeling, Mary’s role as caregiver becomes even more important.
I do love this series, although thirteen books in, there is a LOT to remember and keep track of. As the various characters have changed and evolved over the series, and different higher powers have come and gone, the underlying mythology has gotten even more complicated.
“I liked it better when we weren’t all wrapped up in gods and weird divinities,” said Sam.
Honestly, same. There are more godly beings affecting the world of the Incryptid series, and it can be a little mind-boggling at times.
Aftermarket Afterlife is a particularly entertaining outing — I really enjoyed Mary as narrator. Her worldview, as a ghost, is of course quite different from that of the living family members.
You might think being dead would make death easier for me to deal with. You would be so very wrong.
I won’t go too far into plot details. For those who’ve kept up with the series, you’ll want to see it unfold without knowing much in advance. For those unfamiliar with the series, this is all likely sounding like gibberish anyway!
Aftermarket Afterlife is another terrific adventure with the Price-Healy family. I loved getting to see so many of my favorite characters once again, and really enjoyed getting to know Mary so much more through this story. The book ends with the family essentially in the middle of a war against the Covenant, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
As with other books in the Incryptid series, this one includes a novella at the end, Dreaming of You in Freefall, which takes place shortly after the events of Aftermarket Afterlife. There’s absolutely nothing I can say about it without divulging a major spoiler from the main book — but trust me, it’s a really good one, and you’ll want to read it right away.
The Incryptid series is not one to jump into at a random point. There’s so much backstory to learn, so many family members, and so many types of cryptids, as well as an overarching plot that’s been building from the beginning of the series. I do hope more people will read the Incryptid books… but if you do decide to give them a try, start with book #1, Discount Armageddon.
Title: Backpacking Through Bedlam Series: Incryptid, #12 Author: Seanan McGuire Publisher: DAW Publication date: March 7, 2023 Length: 352 pages Genre: Urban fantasy Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Seanan McGuire’s New York Times-bestselling and Hugo Award-nominated urban fantasy InCryptid series continues with the twelfth book following the Price family, cryptozoologists who study and protect the creatures living in secret all around us.
Reunion, noun: 1. The state of being united again.
Reconciliation, noun: 1. An act of reconciling, as when former enemies agree to an amiable truce. 2. The process of making consistent or compatible. 3. See also “impossible.”
Alice Price-Healy gave up her life for fifty years to focus completely on the search for her missing husband. The danger of focus like that is that it leaves little room for thinking about what happens after…and now that she’s finally managed to find Thomas, she has no idea what she’s supposed to do next. The fact that he comes with a surrogate daughter who may or may not have some connection to Alice’s recently adopted grandson is just icing on the complicated cake.
So the three of them are heading for the most complicated place in the universe: they’re going home.
But things on Earth have changed while Alice, Thomas, and Sally have been away. The Covenant of St. George, antagonized by Verity’s declaration of war and Sarah’s temporary relocation of an entire college campus, is trying to retake North America from the cryptids and cryptozoologists who’ve been keeping the peace for the past hundred years. And they’re starting in New York.
Alice and company have barely been back for an hour before the Ocean Lady and the Queen of the Routewitches are sending them to New York to help, and they find themselves embroiled in the politics of dragons, kidnappings, and of course, the most dangerous people of all: family.
Getting “back to normal” may be the hardest task Alice has undertaken yet.
The InCryptid series is a big, sprawling, interconnected story about the varied and sundry members of the Price/Healy clan — humans (mostly) who specialize in cryptozoology, the study and preservation of non-human people who live among us here on Earth. The arch-enemies of the Price gang (and all non-human species) is the Covenant, a powerful organization dedicated to hunting down and eliminating all cryptids — ostensibly to protect humans, but really, at this point, it’s more from deeply ingrained hatred and a desire to rid the world of everything non-human.
The InCryptid series unfolds in waves, sort of, with different books in the series focusing on different family members — including siblings Verity, Alex, and Antimony, their wild adventures, and also their love lives. By book 12 in the series, we’ve shifted focus a few more times, and Backpacking Through Bedlam is the second book in a row starring Alice, the family’s grandmother (who appears to be about 20, not her actual 80-something years).
Backpacking Through Bedlam picks up the story where it left off in book #11, Spelunking Through Hell. Alice has spent the past 50 years searching alternate dimensions to find her beloved husband Thomas, who was stolen away from her after a disastrous deal with the crossroads. In book #11, the pair was finally reunited, and here in #12, the story continues with their journey home.
It’s not all smooth, and they have a humanitarian sort of mission to accomplish first, but they do eventually make it back to their secluded home in Michigan… only to be summoned moments after arrival to come help their granddaughter Verity in New York.
Alice and Thomas and their surrogate daughter Sally are immediately shoved into danger, as Verity and her family are busy trying to protect a nest of dragons from very persistent and deadly field agents sent by the Covenant. There’s no time for a family reunion — Alice is forced to pretty much instantly start fighting her way through the tunnels of New York to save the day.
All this to say, it’s another fun adventure in the InCryptid world, with the Price family protecting those in need and taking the fight to the bad guys.
It’s entertaining and also moving to see Alice and Thomas reunited with their grandchildren. The family as a whole has mixed feelings about their long-lost grandparents, since Alice essentially abandoned her own children 50 years early, leaving them to be raised by trusted friends, in order to pursue what everyone believed to be a hopeless quest to find her husband.
Now they’re back, but it’ll be a while before they can truly be part of the family again, and maybe even longer before Alice and Thomas can let one another out of arm’s reach without feeling the awful fear of another impossible separation. I love the family and relationship dynamics in these books even more than the action sequences — although those are great too.
Backpacking Through Bedlam has a bit of a slow start, but once the travelers land back in our own dimension, the story and pace pick up quite a bit.
In the previous book, it was a little jarring to focus on Alice, since we’d barely spent time with her up to that point. Now she feels more like a main character, and I enjoyed seeing her and Thomas reestablishing their lives together.
I have the same complaint about Backpacking Through Bedlam as I did with Splelunking Through Hell — there’s a lot of assumed knowledge about the characters’ backstories and the family history. Here’s what I mentioned in my review of #11, and it still holds true:
Side note on InCryptids: This is a huge expanded world, and it’s supported by many, many short stories available through the author’s website and via Patreon. That’s nice… but also frustrating. Apparently, if I’d been keeping up with all the Price short stories, I would be very invested in Alice and Thomas and would know pretty much everything about their courtship, romance, and early years together. But I haven’t! And that feels problematic for me. Yes, I can make an effort to go get caught up (and I probably will, once I figure out the order the stories should be read in) — but I do think the books alone should tell a complete story, and in this case, I felt like I was always missing key pieces of information.
There are SO many short stories that the author has written about Alice’s parents and grandparents. In Backpacking Through Bedlam, Alice refers quite often to her parents’ marriage, her own youth, and earlier generations too — but those aren’t details we have any way of knowing just from the main series. It’s frustrating, and I don’t particularly have the patience to go read every story on Patreon. Here’s hoping Seanan McGuire will some day collect all of these tales and put them into an all-in-one edition — that would be something I’d happily pick up.
Overall, though, Backpacking Through Bedlam continues the InCryptid series with the author’s signature quirky writing, funny dialogue, and plenty of hidden weaponry. I do love these characters, and will keep reading books about the Price family for as long as the author keeps writing them.
Title: Be the Serpent Series: October Daye, #16 Author: Seanan McGuire Publisher: DAW Publication date: August 30, 2022 Print length: 384 pages Genre: Urban fantasy Source: Purchased Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
October Daye is finally something she never expected to be: married. All the trials and turmoils and terrors of a hero’s life have done very little to prepare her for the expectation that she will actually share her life with someone else, the good parts and the bad ones alike, not just allow them to dabble around the edges in the things she wants to share. But with an official break from hero duties from the Queen in the Mists, and her family wholly on board with this new version of “normal,” she’s doing her best to adjust.
It isn’t always easy, but she’s a hero, right? She’s done harder. Until an old friend and ally turns out to have been an enemy in disguise for this entire time, and October’s brief respite turns into a battle for her life, her community, and everything she has ever believed to be true.
The debts of the Broken Ride are coming due, and whether she incurred them or not, she’s going to be the one who has to pay.
Includes an all-new bonus novella!
Some long-term ongoing fantasy series overstay their welcome. And then there’s October Daye, a series that 100% proves that there’s no such thing as too much or too long, so long as the writing and the plot make it worthwhile.
And in the name of Oberon himself, I’m here to declare that the 16th October Daye book blew me away, caught me in its spell, and will haunt me for the coming year (until #17 comes along).
In Be the Serpent, we pick up two months after the events of the previous book, When Sorrows Come. That book brought the long-awaited wedding of Toby and Tybalt — and being a book about October Daye, hero of the realm and a total bad-ass knight, it also brought plenty of bloodshed, mayhem, attempted overthrow of a kingdom, and an assortment of awful bad guys.
But hey, it ended with happiness! Toby and Tybalt are married — and in book #16, Be the Serpent, they’re living together in wedded bliss. I’m a little peeved that we didn’t actually get to see them enjoying their Disneyland honeymoon (I’d pay good money to see Tybalt on the Dumbo ride), but they had fun, and that’s what counts.
Happiness doesn’t last long, however. As the story opens, a hearing in the Kingdom of the Mists is just concluding when the children of Toby’s closest childhood friend begin to scream as if in dire pain. Rushing to their family home, Toby discovers a scene of blood and heartbreak. It’s almost too much to bear, and how can Toby share such terrible news with her dearest friend?
As the plot unfolds, true terror is revealed. And I really can’t say much more about the plot than that, because it’s a doozy and it took my breath away. What I will say is that events occur that upend Faerie as we know it, and that tie together storylines that go all the way back to the first book in the series.
The ending is a total gutpunch as well, and I can’t think of another book in the series that ended without our heroes being (at least temporarily) in a fairly good or at least safe place. The ending here is upsetting and nightmare-inducing, and I think I’m going to spend the next year really mad at Seanan McGuire for leaving me in such an upset state!
The book includes a bonus novella, Such Dangerous Seas, which is also deeply dark and sorrowful. (As opposed to the novella at the end of When Sorrows Come, which was basically a fun romp through Toby and Tybalt’s wedding reception — which now feels like a brief shining moment of joy before the horrors of Faerie came crashing back down). Such Dangerous Seas features the sea witch, the Luidaeg, one of my favorite characters — but it’s a terribly sad story about her earlier years and the awful things that happened to her.
Be the Serpent is shocking, heart-breaking, and scary as hell. It’s also yet another brilliant showcase for our hero Toby and her chosen family, who band together no matter what. Whatever happens to these characters, they love one another unreservedly, and their family ties, commitment, and loyalty are big pieces of what makes this series so special.
Having to wait a year for the next book is going to be terrible for my well-being! And I guess that’s a pretty clear indication of just how great Be the Serpent is. If you’re an October Daye fan, you’re probably already reading it!
And I’ll say, yet again, that if you haven’t read the October Daye series yet, you’re missing out on something special. Start from the beginning (Rosemary and Rue) — you won’t be able to stop!
Title: Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson, #13) Author: Patricia Briggs Publisher: Ace Publication date: August 23, 2022 Length: 352 pages Genre: Urban fantasy Source: Purchased Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Mercy Thompson, car mechanic and shapeshifter, must face her greatest fears in this chilling entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.
The vampire Wulfe is missing. Since he’s deadly, possibly insane, and his current idea of “fun” is stalking me, some may see it as no great loss. But, warned that his disappearance might bring down the carefully constructed alliances that keep our pack safe, my mate and I must find Wulfe—and hope he’s still alive. As alive as a vampire can be, anyway.
But Wulfe isn’t the only one who has disappeared. And now there are bodies, too. Has the Harvester returned to the Tri-Cities, reaping souls with his cursed sickle? Or is he just a character from a B horror movie and our enemy is someone else?
The farther I follow Wulfe’s trail, the more twisted—and darker—the path becomes. I need to figure out what’s going on before the next body on the ground is mine.
The Mercy Thompson series is one of my very favorites, and Mercy herself is one of my all-time favorite characters! As you can imagine, waiting 2 1/2 years for a new release felt like torture. But never fear, our long wait is over — a new Mercy book is here, and it was very much worth the wait.
Mercy is brave, strong, and fiercely devoted to her mate Adam, to their werewolf pack, and to anyone she sees as under her protection… which, as of several books ago, now extends to anyone (human or supernatural) living in the Tri-Cities area of Washington.
The pack has a sometimes smooth, sometimes uneasy pact with the local vampire seethe, and when their most dangerous vampire goes missing, it’s a sign that great evil is potentially at play. The fact that this vampire also has an unhealthy obsession with Mercy just makes it that much more important that he be found before very bad things start to happen to the people Mercy loves.
As in the rest of the series, there’s plenty of action and danger, and of course, Mercy and Adam end up with their lives in peril… repeatedly. The specifics of this book’s plot won’t make a ton of sense to someone who hasn’t read the rest of the series, so let’s just say that high points include a big reveal about a secret identity, some questioning about the trustworthiness of an old ally, and the reappearance of a deadly foe.
I love Mercy, always, and I especially love her in her quieter moments with Adam, when we see the depth of their connection. I also love every opportunity to see the pack spending time together, whether in battle or playing silly video games (and we get both in this book).
There’s also a brief mention of a continuing plot point from the Mercy-verse’s other series (Alpha & Omega), because these two series take place in the same world and there are characters who appear in both. (Just FYI, if you’re wondering why it’s been 2.5 years since the last Mercy book, it’s because there was an A&O book released in between). It’s only a small scene, one that doesn’t impact this book’s plot significantly, but it’s tantalizing enough to make me eager to see that story pick up again too.
A new Mercy book is always a treat, and Soul Taken made me incredibly happy, except for the moments when I was quaking with fear when a beloved character was at risk (which, let’s face it, is on and off throughout the entire book).
The plot was perhaps a little slighter and/or more opaque than some of the others in the series, but it does move certain characters and situations into interesting new positions for whatever comes next… and whatever comes next, I am absolutely here for it!
And now, it’s back to waiting for the next new release, hopefully in no more than a year… and meanwhile, I can always go back and re-read my favorite moments from the rest of the series!
PS – As always, a note of love for the awesome cover art by Daniel Dos Santos, whose work is just always so beautiful!
Title: The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy Author: Megan Bannen Publisher: Orbit Publication date: August 23, 2022 Print length: 336 pages Genre: Fantasy Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Hart is a marshal, tasked with patrolling the strange and magical wilds of Tanria. It’s an unforgiving job, and Hart’s got nothing but time to ponder his loneliness.
Mercy never has a moment to herself. She’s been single-handedly keeping Birdsall & Son Undertakers afloat in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart, who seems to have a gift for showing up right when her patience is thinnest.
After yet another exasperating run-in with Mercy, Hart finds himself penning a letter addressed simply to “A Friend”. Much to his surprise, an anonymous letter comes back in return, and a tentative friendship is born.
If only Hart knew he’s been baring his soul to the person who infuriates him most – Mercy. As the dangers from Tanria grow closer, so do the unlikely correspondents. But can their blossoming romance survive the fated discovery that their pen pals are their worst nightmares – each other?
This Western-tinged fantasy novel about undertakers, marshals, and drudges (the undead) includes romance, the classic enemies-to-lovers trope, old and new gods, and so much more. The biggest surprise for me? It actually brought me to tears at one point! (And this is not an easy feat… I’m afraid I’m more of a hard-hearted cynic when it comes to tugging-on-the-heartstrings moments, as a general rule).
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy is set in the town of Bushong, on the border of the sealed, people-less area known as Tanria. In this frontier town, undertakers do a booming business, as more and more people attempt to cross into the forbidden Tanrian wilds for profiteering opportunities — and often come back as corpses.
Within Tanria, untethered souls look for human bodies to inhabit, turning them into drudges, highly dangerous creatures that exist to kill. The marshals patrol Tanria and take down drudges when they find them, stabbing them through the appendix to release their souls, then bringing the bodies back to a border-town undertaker for death rituals (pre-paid, of course).
Fun fact: The human soul resides in the appendix. Now we know what that weird little body part is for!
Mercy’s family undertaking business is in dire straits when the story opens. After suffering a heart attack the previous year, her father is supposed to be taking it easy. Her younger brother Zeddie is expected to take on the mantle of running Birdsall and Son once he graduates from his training program… but Zeddie definitely has other ideas about what his future should look like. Mercy, on the other hand, loves the work and values the importance of carrying out the rituals and sending people on their way to their final rest with honor and dignity. But the undertaking business is a men-only affair, and despite having done the work for years, no one considers Mercy as the heir to the family business.
Meanwhile, there’s Hart Ralston, a demigod marshal who lives a lonely life, carrying out his grim trade and never allowing himself to get close to anyone. Four years earlier, when he and Mercy first met, they took an instant and deep dislike to one another (although I had a hard time understanding why, exactly), and nothing has changed in that regard in the years since then.
But things take a big turn when Hart writes a letter addressed to a “friend”, assuming it’ll just get lost out in the world somewhere. Due to magical mail deliverers (it’s a thing), however, the letter ends up with Mercy, who writes back. As their anonymous correspondence continues, Hart and Mercy unknowingly forge a connection that’s honest and deep, never realizing that they’re writing to their self-proclaimed enemy rather than their “dear friend”.
Eventually, though, Hart and Mercy are propelled past their hatred and discover it’s a cover for strong attraction, chemistry, even love (although still without sharing the truth about their secret correspondence). They fall passionately and emotionally for one another, but since this is a bordertown and there are drudges to slay, life doesn’t give them much room to savor their new-found love before danger strikes and threatens to separate them… permanently.
There’s so much to like about The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy! I enjoyed the banter, the Western vibes, Mercy as a strong, talented, professional woman determined to save the business she loves, and the various friends and family members who create the background community for the main characters. (And don’t get me started on the talking, hard-drinking bunny and owl who deliver the mail…) Hart and Mercy are terrific together, and even though we’ve all read a gazillion versions of the enemies-to-lovers story, somehow it still manages to feel fresh here.
I do have quibbles when it comes to this book, and the biggest for me is the incomplete and confusing world-building. With its Western vibe, I pictured a dusty, dry setting originally, but the location actually seems to be water-based and set amidst an island nation. The marshals ride equimares (singular: equimaris), which appear to be some sort of amphibian horse… maybe? They’re not really described, although there are references to webbed feet and they seem to be very good in water. For vehicles, people drive autoducks, which (I think) are some sort of amphibious truck… maybe?
The undertaking business has its own mysteries. Bodies must be salted and wrapped in sailcloth, and undertakers also build boats for the remains (which I assume are kind of like coffins) — which are usually then cremated or sent to the burial grounds… I think?
There’s a lot of exposition about old gods and new gods, who they are, where they’ve gone, why Tanria exists, etc… but honestly, the information seems to get dumped in big chunks and it’s too much to really keep track of — although I did like the incantation describing the death gods, which we hear from Mercy as she prepares a body:
From water you came, and to water you shall return.
You shall sail into the arms of the Salt Sea, and Grandfather Bones shall relieve your body of your spirit.
The Warden shall open the door unto you, and the Unknown God shall welcome you into their home, where you shall know peace.
I should note here that I read this book as an e-ARC (via NetGalley), and it indicates that a map will be included in the finished book. Perhaps if I’d had access to the map while reading this book, I might have had a better grasp of the setting, at the very least, even if the terminology and gods/religion remained unclear. I hesitate to criticize the book based on something that may be better in the final version, but at the same time, I’m writing to express how I experienced this book, and for what it’s worth, the world-building was incomplete and confusing from my perspective.
I initially found the book slow and didn’t feel absorbed right away, but by midway through, this definitely changed. Hart and Mercy’s breakthrough from enemies to lovers is the turning point of the story, and from that point onward, I was hooked! Their dynamic is sweet, funny, and lovely, and I became very invested in their individual well-being and happiness as well as in their relationship.
There were moments when I thought my heart would break (remember, I did say earlier that this book brought me to tears!), but also moments of joy and delight. Overall, I’m very glad I spent time with Hart and Mercy, and enjoyed the book and its characters very much. If you’re looking for a very different sort of fantasy, this is one to check out.
Title: Book of Night Author: Holly Black Publisher: Tor Books Publication date: May 3, 2022 Print length: 320 pages Genre: Urban fantasy Source: Purchased Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
In Charlie Hall’s world, shadows can be altered, for entertainment and cosmetic preferences—but also to increase power and influence. You can alter someone’s feelings—and memories—but manipulating shadows has a cost, with the potential to take hours or days from your life. Your shadow holds all the parts of you that you want to keep hidden—a second self, standing just to your left, walking behind you into lit rooms. And sometimes, it has a life of its own.
Charlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires. But when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie’s present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear—and at worst, non-existent. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgängers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister—all desperate to control the magic of the shadows.
Holly Black makes her adult debut with Book of Night, a modern dark fantasy of shadowy thieves and secret societies.
I’m going to keep this brief and to the point: Holly Black’s YA faerie-world trilogy The Folk of the Air is one of my favorite fantasy trilogies. I love the characters, the setting, the writing, the plot. So as you can imagine, I was thrilled to hear that this author would be releasing her first adult book this year.
Sadly, it didn’t quite work out for me — although some elements are very good.
In the world of Book of Night, shadow magic has become a fashion trend and a sought-after talent, but there’s a much darker side too. Yes, it’s fun to have your shadow altered to reflect your real self — but shadows have a tendency to get out of control or to become dangerous, especially when fed blood and strengthened with a person’s life force. And then there’s the whole seedy world of stolen shadows, as well as the black market in books of magic — each gloamist (people who work with shadows) wants the best secrets, and they’re fiercely competitive and protective when it comes to books that might reveal even more essential secrets of shadow manipulation.
Main character Charlie Hall is a highly skilled con-woman and thief who left behind her life of crime after a particularly nasty incident endangered not only her own life but that of her sister as well. Still, she can’t ever seem to completely walk away. There are those who know of her skills and want her on their side, and Charlie can’t avoid her old life forever.
The world of Book of Night is dark and grim. Everything is seedy and run-down, with dark bars and pawnshops and danger lurking down every alley. Shadow magic itself seems terrifying, with skilled gloamists being able to “puppet” people via shadows or even choke them to death by sending their shadows down their throats.
There’s a lot that’s fascinating about this world, but at the same time, I found myself utterly confused at times. There are some key people and positions whose roles aren’t fully explained. An entire ruling body is introduced in about a paragraph, and how they work and who they are remains murky at best. The magical system isn’t well enough explained — I found myself confused by the rules, the power structure, and the purpose of some of the magical items introduced throughout the story.
Charlie as a character is fun to ride along with. She’s absolutely a criminal and a bad-ass, but we get chapters from her past that show us how she became what she is. Criminal with a heart of gold, I guess — she’s fiercely loyal to those she loves and wants to keep them safe, but just can’t get away from her past life or find a way to stay on the straight and narrow.
I won’t go too far into further details. For some reason, this book took me a lot longer to read than I expected — maybe because of other factors in my life, but also because I never got to a place where I absolutely couldn’t put the book down. As a result, I never felt truly immersed.
I will say that the ending has some pretty unexpected and cool twists, which raised my overall impression of the book by a lot. Again, no details — you definitely don’t want spoilers! But the final chapters offer a great payoff and some really good surprises (although the pieces of the world that seemed unclear to me remain unclear all the way to the end — there are some things that I just don’t get).
The ending of the book leaves a lot of questions hanging about what’s next for Charlie, so it certainly seems like there will be a sequel. And despite my issues with the world-building, I’m intrigued enough by how the story ended that I’ll want to read that sequel, whenever it shows up!
Title: Spelunking Through Hell Series: Incryptid, #11 Author: Seanan McGuire Publisher: DAW Publication date: March 1, 2022 Length: 352 pages Genre: Urban fantasy Source: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Now in trade paperback, the eleventh book in the fast-paced InCryptid urban fantasy series returns to the mishaps of the Price family, eccentric cryptozoologists who safeguard the world of magical creatures living in secret among humans.
Love, noun:
1. An intense feeling of deep affection; may be romantic, filial or platonic.
Passion, noun:
1. A strong or barely controllable emotion.
2. Enthusiasm, interest, desire.
3. See also “obsession.”
It’s been fifty years since the crossroads caused the disappearance of Thomas Price, and his wife, Alice, has been trying to find him and bring him home ever since, despite the increasing probability that he’s no longer alive for her to find. Now that the crossroads have been destroyed, she’s redoubling her efforts. It’s time to bring him home, dead or alive.
Preferably alive, of course, but she’s tired, and at this point, she’s not that picky. It’s a pan-dimensional crash course in chaos, as Alice tries to find the rabbit hole she’s been missing for all these decades—the one that will take her to the man she loves.
Who are her allies? Who are her enemies? And if she manages to find him, will he even remember her at this point?
It’s a lot for one cryptozoologist to handle.
It’s almost spring, and that means it’s time for another installment in the ongoing adventures of the Price-Healy family… yes, another InCryptid book is here! (Annoying some fans by switching to trade paperback size rather than sticking with mass market… so now my paperback editions won’t match??? But that’s beside the point when it comes to a review, so onward we go.)
The InCryptid series follows the adventures of the sprawling Price and Healy clan, a large extended family dedicated to studying and preserving the lives of cryptids — non-human beings who (usually) live peacefully among the humans, but who are hunted by the merciless and powerful Covenant simply for existing. Yes, there are also cryptids who do unpleasant things like eating humans, and in those cases, the Prices are a force to be feared… hence their very murdery reputation.
Up to now in the series, the books have focused on members of the current young adult family members — siblings Verity, Alexander, and Antimony (Annie), as well as their cousin Sarah. There are plenty of references to other relatives, and their parents and other cousins and family-by-extension pop in and play different roles as well. One of the more mythological members of the family, whom we’ve seen in action really just once so far, is grandmother Alice.
Now look at the book cover image again. That’s Alice! Does she look like a grandma to you?
Alice was a young woman in the 1950s, which is when she lost her beloved husband Thomas to a bad bargain with the crossroads. Granted, he made the bargain to save Alice’s life, so he deserves a little slack for having made it. From the time of Thomas’s disappearance, Alice has been obsessed with finding him — so much so that she’s spent over fifty years as an interdimensional traveler, tracking down every clue and random hint that could possibly lead her to her husband.
Of course, to do so, she’s had to leave her family behind, so her two children resent the hell out of her and her grandchildren know her more from the family legends than from actual relationships… but she can’t give up. Along the way, she has used whatever means necessary to preserve her youth and health so that she could keep going, which is why she looks and feels more or less like a 19-year-old.
All that is backstory. Here, in Spelunking Through Hell, Alice is the main character, and we join her on her desperate journey to find Thomas. It’s been 50 years, and her hope is starting to wear thin. At this point, she’d even accept proof of his death — she’s just about ready to stop. But then a new clue from an unexpected source gives her one more angle to try, and so she sets out one last time to travel to a dying dimension that’s supposedly inaccessible… but Alice is nothing but persistent.
And so what if she doesn’t have an exit strategy? So long as she finds Thomas — even if he is about 80 years old by now — they can figure out what comes next together.
Spelunking Through Hell is yet another fun romp with the Price clan, although we really don’t see many members of the family other than Alice. This makes the tale fresh, but also feels somewhat less engaging, since Alice has never been a main character before and there isn’t a ton to build on in terms of what we know about her or what it’s like to see the world through her eyes.
Like the rest of the Prices, Alice is always fully armed, ready for a fight, and full of quips. She’s funny, fierce, and reckless, and also has no problem pushing herself past injury and excruciating pain, so long as it’s in service of her obsession with finding Thomas.
The plot occasionally feels a little draggy — it does take quite a while to get to the target world — and while I enjoyed the book, I have to say that my lack of familiarity with Alice as an individual made this book slightly less wonderful as a reading experience as compared to earlier books in the series.
Side note on InCryptids: This is a huge expanded world, and it’s supported by many, many short stories available through the author’s website and via Patreon. That’s nice… but also frustrating. Apparently, if I’d been keeping up with all the Price short stories, I would be very invested in Alice and Thomas and would know pretty much everything about their courtship, romance, and early years together. But I haven’t! And that feels problematic for me. Yes, I can make an effort to go get caught up (and I probably will, once I figure out the order the stories should be read in) — but I do think the books alone should tell a complete story, and in this case, I felt like I was always missing key pieces of information.
That said, I did enjoy the book overall, and Seanan McGuire’s writing keeps it fun even while the blood is flowing:
And I, an asshole, had done enough woolgathering for one… day? Evening? Afternoon? There were no windows, and massive blood loss always throws off my sense of time.
I’d rather be married to a man fifty years older than I am than see him go through what I’ve willingly done to myself for his sake, what he never would have asked or expected me to do. It’s always easier to set yourself on fire than to allow someone else to burn for you.
I wanted to avoid being caught at any cost, since one solid snap of those claws could have me down a limb, or possibly down an entire torso. I like my torso. It’s where I keep my lungs.
The Haspers not currently engaged began to run in my direction, forming a nicely unified pack. I like a unified pack. I like the way is splashes when you lob a grenade into the middle of it, and I like it even better when none of its component parts knows what a grenade is, so they react like you’ve just thrown a rock or something. To be nonspecific.
Spelunking Through Hell includes the bonus novella And Sweep Up the Wood, which tells the story of a key turning point in the early years of Alice and Thomas’s relationship. It’s very good and very emotional (plus, you know, plenty of guns and explosives — after all, Alice in involved), and it’s a great way to wrap up this installment of the series.
The InCryptid series itself is going strong, and overall, I love it! I do wish this one had drawn me in a bit more, but I can’t really complain. The Price-Healy clan is amazing (and there are religious mice, who make every scene they’re in 1000% better), and I can’t wait for more of the story. The big question is — who will #12 be about?
As I’ve said in pretty much every review of this series, definitely start at the beginning with with Discount Armageddon. This series is full of great characters and terrific world-building. It’s easy to get hooked!
Bookshelf Fantasies 