While I usually end up staying up too late whenever Seanan McGuire releases a new novel because I need to know what will happen, this novel took me longer to read than any other of her previous books (a whole 3 days so nothing drastic). However, while this one took longer than normal to truly pull me in, I ultimately quite enjoyed it and how McGuire managed to bring together and resolve threads that had been pending for several novels, changing the status quo of the family yet again.
After 15 novels, the extended Price family has gone through a lot, and, especially in the last few novels, experienced a lot of loss, grief, drama and trauma. Sarah, a member of an invasive alien species, especially has been through a lot and some things that were done to her led to her doing things that harmed/hurt her family. She wiped herself from her cousin Antigone’s memory, and even a few years later hasn’t reforged the bond, and she completely wiped Artie’s mind, basically killing her love interest. She tried to bring him back with everyone’s memories of him but instead created an amalgamation of memories that didn’t quite fit into Artie’s role, and was just different enough to be upsetting- both for his family and himself, with the new person quickly preferring to be called Arthur to distinguish himself from the ghost he was meant to be.
Basically, it’s awkward and messy and everyone has lots of guilt and angst. So naturally, that’s the best perfect time for Sarah and Arthur to get kidnapped by members of her species from her home planet to stand trial for her crimes, with Arthur being evidence of her guilt.
Since this is the Price family, they can’t easily let their family go, and Alice, Thomas, Annie and Sam are soon doing their own inter-dimensional travel to save their grandchildren/cousins.
While I quite enjoy the series, the cuckoos, Annie and Sarah have never been my favorite parts of it. Maybe it’s because she was the first narrator in the series but I have a soft spot for Verity and her in-comparison more grounded challenges. However, I don’t dislike the characters, it just meant it took me a little bit longer to get invested, and as always, I left the series already wondering what the next one might be. While I wouldn’t swear to it, I think this is the first of the InCryptid novels to have dual narrators, switching back and forth between Sarah understanding more about her species and origins, and Annie’s perspective as part of the rescue mission.
