Aftermarket Afterlife, by Seanan McGuire, is the 13th installment in the author's InCryptid series. The InCryptid series is set in a world where parallel evolution and dimensional rifts have resulted in humans sharing the planet with multiple species of cryptids capable of passing for human, among many other differences and divergences. 84 years ago, 16-year-old Mary Grace Dunlavy had an unfortunate accident that would send her to becoming a crossroads ghost. A ghost who would speak for the people with the Crossroads bargains with.

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. Mary has been a babysitter for everyone from Alice Price to Verity's daughter Olivia. The Aeslin Mice even gave her an honorary name as The Phantom Priestess. If you haven't started reading this series yet, get to hopping! Mary is the only person who knows the entire family history. Now that Crossroads is gone thanks to Annie, no spoilers, she can now answer any question the family asks of her.

Mary's position in the Price family means that her novel is uniquely wide-ranging and intimate. Over her 84 years as a caretaker, she has only lost 4 people. So, be forewarned that things are going to get dangerous really quickly and, if you've read this series from the beginning, you may get really sad. While the family is waiting for Alice and Thomas to finally come home after years of Alice trying to find Thomas, the Price family enemies, the Covenant of St. George attack the Campbell Family Circus, and the Dragon lair under Manhattan looking for William.

Ever since Verity publicly 'outed' the family on national television, the family and the Cryptid community as a whole have been holding their collective breaths, and waiting the the Covenant to strike. The Covenant has decided that now is the time to sterilize North America of ungodly abominations and race traitors like the Price family, and while they are at it, why not take a chance at capturing Antimony who is being stalked by Leonard Cunningham even though she's come into her powers as an elemental sorcerer like her grandfather.

The stakes couldn't feel any higher this time, and as I said, people will die. People you have known since the first book in this series. Because of this attack, Mary does what all good caretakers do. She makes a plan. She asks for help from a variety of characters. And, she puts her own existence on the line to stop the war between her family, and the Covenant. I guarantee that you will meet every single member of the family, and the extended family, including Alexander, Shelby Tanner, and Rose Marshall.

Most of the books in this series feature characters like Verity Price (3), Grandmother Alice (2), Sarah Zellaby (2), Antimony Price (3), and Alexander Price (2). After you have taken a breath, take a moment and read the novella at the end of the book called Dreaming of You in Freefall. I can only tell you that it's told from Verity's point of view and it is highly emotional. I can also say that you should not under any circumstances read the novella before the rest of the book.

Aftermarket Afterlife by Seanan McGuire

This book moved me in several ways. I got very mad, and very sad. It’s just that good!

I love Seanan McGuire’s body of work. (Note: I review a bunch of her books so I am copying part of some of my other reviews here to save time.). She has quickly become my favorite living writer and I feel very lucky that she is so prolific. I was first introduced to her work when her book Parasite, written as Mira Grant, was nominated for a Hugo Award. I loved it and quickly devoured the Newsflesh series before I realized that Mira Grant and Seanan McGuire were the same person.

I started reading her works under her own name, starting with Sparrow Hill Road, which is amazing, but I picked it because I was intimidated by her long running October Daye series. When Incryptid was nominated for the Best Series Hugo in 2018, I dove into that and I loved it! It is probably my second favorite series by McGuire (Velveteen Vs. holds a special place in my heart).

I was overjoyed when DAW and NetGalley awarded me an eARC of the latest Incryptid book, Aftermarket Afterlife, in exchange for an honest review. Finally the fight with the Covenant, long promised since the ending of Chaos Choreography when Verity outed the family on national TV, was here! This has been building for so long, and I was happy to get an earthbound narrative after several reality-hopping adventures in previous books.

The problem with long-promised fights is that they come with casualties. I’m not going to spoil things but this is where the mad and the sad will come from. There are some characters for whom I repeatedly thought “how will they go on?” at different points in the book.

We also have a new narrator this time around - Mary the ghost babysitter has a star turn! With her ghostly traveling abilities, Mary is a logical choice for this role in a globetrotting story, and, thanks to being a Patreon supporter, I have already had a chance to read alot of Mary’s backstory, which made this novel even richer.

This is a wonderful, wonderful book. A culmination of much that has come before, it lays several avenues open for the future. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

This is one of my all-time favorite series and I was so happy to return to the Incryptid world! I LOVE getting to be in the POV of Mary Dulavy the family babysitter who has been watching over them for generations. I loved all the action, and getting to see where all the Prices are at.
It kept me on the edge of my seat waiting to see what was going to happen next and left me completely heartbroken, The Covenant has decided that it was finally time to take out all the Cryptids and the people who help them, namely the traitorous Prices and they aren't pulling any punches for my favorite family. I went from laughing to on the verge of tears and felt all the emotions in between. So much happened in this book and I felt completely wrung out by the end. and waiting for the next one to come out is going to feel like an eternity!
I cannot wait to see where the story is going to go from here!

I absolutely love the InCryptid books, and this one was no exception.

Getting to see the family from Mary’s point of view for the first time was fascinating, and she was the perfect narrator for this book which was set all across the US, and even further afield.

The stakes were upped even more in this book, and I simultaneously can’t wait to see what happens and also hope the stakes start to go down from here! The poor Price family have suffered enough, surely?

I absolutely adored Aftermarket Afterlife and I can’t wait for the next book in the series!

This series continues to be fascinating, and I love getting to see the world of the series through Mary's eyes in this installment. This is definitely not a series to jump into midway through, but for those who've kept up, you'll won't be able to put the book down.

I'm not sure I've ever reviewed a book from this series before, but that's not because I don't love it. In fact, it's probably in my top 3 favorite series of all time. Seanan McGuire's mind is as methodical and bloody as something from a Saw movie (I assume... I'm too chicken to watch those). It's not uncommon for an offhand comment to pop up as a consequence books and years later. I don't try to keep track, I just enjoy the ride.

That's not to say that the Incryptid series is horror. Not exactly. But Seanan has a way of cracking your heart open like an egg and then leaving something slightly sinister but oh, so delightful to make a nest there. What I'm trying to say is that this series doesn't pull its punches, and I know from prior experience with her other work that neither does this author. Her pledge of no sexual violence in her books is refreshing (and non-traumatizing! Novel! I'm looking at you, George!), but she has never made a pledge against character deaths when it serves the story.

Unfortunately, this is one of those stories. I was sure that I had physical bruises after finishing this one (and the bonus at the end). I felt eviscerated when I finally stopped staring into space and put the book down, and yes, I can still feel something soft and dangerous nestling in my torso, even now weeks after finishing. I need the next book to know whether this blooms into something beautiful or explodes outward, destroying whatever is in it's path. Sadly, I have more than a year to wait. That is the unfortunately consequence of reading advanced copies -- you have to wait even longer than everyone else for the next one.

Seanan McGuire has published close to 100 books under her own name -- more if you count comics, graphic novels, contributions to short story anthologies, her Patreon, the free work available on her website, and her two pen names. If you haven't read anything she's written by now, you've chosen to remain willfully ignorant of this phenomenal author who has won multiple awards. In which case, I can only pity you and hope you rectify the situation soon. Aftermarket Afterlife is book #13 in the series and will be available on March 5th.

Aftermarket Afterlife continues the InCrypid series with the family ghost, Mary, having the lead. Since she connects with the entire Price clan, the reader gets to catch up on everyone’s story, which is great. However, the Covenant has escalated the conflict, and not all goes nearly so well for the Price family as it had in previous books. There are some sad parts, but it’s good reading anyway. The next book can’t get here too soon, though!
Recommended, but not before reading at least some of the preceding books.

Well. That got dark. You all should remember she writes horror as well as fantasy. Not too much else I can say without venturing into spoilers. Obviously for series fans and not a new reader since it’s book 13.

The reviews get harder to keep spoiler free the further into a series we get. But I'll do my best!

Things I liked: This book is from the perspective of Mary Dunlavy, the ghost babysitter who has helped raise 3 generations of the Price family, and that combined with her ability to bounce between family members who call her, means she is uniquely placed to be a very effective narrator for this book and the events unfolding in it. McGuire continues to handle big emotions and hard conversations between her characters with her signature pragmatism and insight that I find to be so effective. And that's especially important since there are a lot of big feelings in this one.

Things I didn't like as much: Mostly that this was just a heavier book. Things ramp up with the Covenant in a big way, and this read was definitely not as fun or light-hearted as some other Incryptid books have felt. That doesn't mean it's not an excellent book, because I do think it's all very well written. It was just a much more emotional read. The other thing that was a little difficult is that bouncing back and forth between the ENTIRE family the way Mary is able to had me wishing I had reread some of the earlier books first, because I couldn't remember a few characters very well. That said, McGuire does a good job with building quick reminders of who and what her characters are into the narrative, so you always have enough info so as not to be completely lost.

I have always admired McGuire's ability to pull long plot arcs and threads together, and she's absolutely doing that in this book. If you've followed Incryptid this far, this book is what the last few books have been leading to, so buckle up! If you haven't read any Incryptid books, I might recommend starting somewhere earlier in the series first.

<i>First off...<b>DISCLAIMER:</b> I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to DAW for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.</i>

I may be biased because I love all things ghosts/afterlife, but regardless, the 13th InCryptid installment is a step above Alice's books in a number of ways. Mary's POV as a hundred y.o. ghost in a 16 y.o. body is fascinating (while completely different from Rose's, the Price's honorary dead aunt, protagonist of the Ghost Roads series); so is the afterlife she inhabits when she isn't sitting for her charges (or helping her now adult former ones); and seeing her interact with the Price family and friends gives us a fresh and more cohesive perspective on them (plus we get her backstory!). Also, Aftermarket Afterlife is once again proof of the long game McGuire has been playing since she started the series: all the events occurring in the previous 12 books finally fall into place in a larger framework, with Mary at their center - no longer bound to the crossroads (which Antimony destroyed), but still technically limited in her assistance to the family during the worst crisis ever...except she always finds new ways to stretch those limits, consequences be damned 😅.
This installment is the first one to feature each and every family member and most of their allies in some capacity (even ever-elusive Drew)...but mind you, after 12 books, and in the wake of the best engineered, most destructive Covenant attack ever, something's got to give. You might think that McGuire was especially unfair towards a certain character, because what befalls them happens offscreen, but there's a rhyme and reason to it. And frankly? I do like how everything, and everyone, can change in this series - even the dead, and even if it comes at a...price 😉. If the latest InCryptid books have let you down somehow, I bet this is the one that will make you fall in love with the series all over again - and it sounds like the Price saga has still a lot to offer...

<i><b>Please note:</b> contrary to the rest of the series, at the end of this book there isn't a bridge novella that loosely ties in the previous installment with this one, but one that takes place after a certain event in the main story, from Verity's POV. DON'T read it before Aftermarket Afterlife if you want to avoid a huge spoiler.</i>

Another excellent installment of Seanan McGuire’s Incryptid series. I love the changes narrators and this time around, we get to know Mary, who has been babysitting generations of Prices.

Another fun mystery and more to add to the overall themes and mysteries. Very fun’

Its the book I didn't know I wanted and I'm so glad the author realised that her readers needed this book. Yep it's Mary who is our unexpected protagonist, full time babysitter/caregiver but also a ghost who knows and understands more about the Price family than anyone living or ahem dead !
This simply pulled me back into this world but in ways I hadn't expected. The fight to survive has never been more real and this book pulls no punches. If you have followed this amazing series you will find yourself devastated as there are casualties that leave so many shaken and adrift. Mary is a linchpin in so many ways but even she finds herself struggling to simply survive and protect those she cares for. That right there is what binds this together as Mary is such an overlooked but amazing character. Dead at sixteen and yet surely the most mature character in the whole series. Just don't start here because there's so much that's gone before that impacts this story and why would anyone want to miss such a unique and twisting adventure. This is fast paced, amazing and emotional and already I want more !
This voluntary take is of a copy I requested from Netgalley and my thoughts and comments are honest and I believe fair

Review posts on 2/28/2024

*This is the thirteenth book in an ongoing series, and by necessity commenting on this book spoils the events of some previous books. If you're interested in the idea of a family of cryptozoologists working to understand the cryptids around them and to defend them from a single-minded xenophobic organization (with more than a few ghosts and some dimension-hopping woven in for good measure), then stop here and go read DISCOUNT ARMAGEDDON, the first book in the series.

AFTERMARKET AFTERLIFE is the first Incryptid book narrated by Mary Dunlavy, the babysitting ghost who has been around longer than any one member of the Price-Healy family still living, surpassing even Thomas and Alice. Mary is a babysitting ghost, but she never really lets go of her charges (not even when they're grown and having kids of their own). What was supposed to be Alice and Thomas's long-awaited return to the family is disrupted by violence when the dragon Nest in New York is attacked and Mary is pulled to the scene by the call of Verity and Dominic's child's distress. As the war with the Covenant of Saint George turns violent in a burst of coordinated attacks, only a dimension-hopping ghost could keep up with all the action spread over North America between roughly a dozen family members and involving even more allies, cryptid and human alike.

I like Mary as a narrator. She's a great choice for narrating Alice and Thomas's return since she was part of his disappearance. Also, she's ideal for allowing the story to play out with so many important characters and geographically dispersed events on a timescale which doesn't allow for mundane travel methods. The first few chapters focus on her version of the recap, but, for me, one of the joys of this series is reading how different characters recollect earlier events.

I don't know yet if this is an okay place to start for someone who wanted to jump into the series midway. I won't have a good answer for that until I know where the next book picks things up. It's either an all-right entry point because of how well things are summarized by Mary's recounting of the events that got them here, or a terrible one because so many plot threads from the first twelve books converge very suddenly and much of the emotional impact would be missing for a reader who treated this as a starting point. Such a reader would be in a position much closer to Arthur than anyone else, but I'm too immersed in the series to be certain how that would pan out. As always, I recommend starting from the beginning. So many important things were introduced there, and if the blurb grabbed you, it'll be even better if you follow the whole journey. Failing that, either SPELUNKING THROUGH HELL (#11) for TRICKS FOR FREE (#7) would be good options for a midway start, given how important Alice and Annie are to AFTERMARKET AFTERLIFE.

AFTERMARKET AFTERLIFE is an important step in putting an end to the war between the Covenant and the Prices, or at least stopping one particular Covenant member's obsession with Annie that fuels this sudden round of violence. The newest storyline focuses on the attacks which begin in New York but quickly spread elsewhere as it becomes clear that the Covenant won't stop so quickly in their goal of wiping out the Prices. It was supposed to be a chance for Thomas to get to know his family after so long kept away, and for Alice to get to know her kids now that she had a shot at sticking around. Unfortunately, any slice of time interesting enough to be an Incryptid book had no shot at remaining as dubiously idyllic as this reunion ought to be. Several plot threads were moved forward, mostly related to particular interpersonal conflicts and reunions between various family members and newly-family adoptees, but it remains to be seen how much was actually resolved amidst so much chaos. There is a distinct sense of finality in the ending. It has just enough emotional closure to avoid being a cliffhanger, but it leaves room for the next book to go in many directions (depending on how well the strike against the Covenant worked out). No matter what happens next, several things have changed for Mary and the Prices, and there's no going back. I'll follow wherever the next book takes me, this was great and I'm ready for more.

Series Info/Source: This is the 13th book in the InCryptid series. I got an eGalley for this for review through NetGalley.

Thoughts: I was really hoping for another book from Alice's POV but this time around we get to hear from Mary. In general this was slow and I was pretty disappointed. In this installment of the InCryptid series things are coming to a head between the Price family and the Covenant. This book is told from Mary (the ghost babysitter's) POV.

My main issue with this book is that it spends way too much time with Mary jumping between characters and trying to assuage their feelings, moods, etc. A lot of book is just dealing with all of the interpersonal relationships in the extended Price family. The actual plot involving the Covenant makes very little progress.

All of the members of the Price family are in here and it is hard to remember who is who because of the sheer plethora of characters. Yes, there is a family tree located at the beginning of the book. No, I couldn't remember all the minutia of who was involved with who and what they had done in previous books. This made what happened with Jane fairly low impact to me as a reader, even though it had a huge impact on her family.

If weird supernatural/paranormal soap opera is your thing this is a good book for that. I personally got into this series because I enjoyed the action, humor, and fun cryptozoology. I think the best part of the book was that we do get to learn more about the dragon under New York City, but that was a fairly small part of the story. There is a short story after the main book ends that spends more time with the dragons.

IMHO both this series and the October Daye series need to be wrapped up soon. They are both starting to feel tired and aimless. I would prefer to end things on a high note my favorite two series rather than end up stopping reading them because the story quality has been gradually going downhill.

The writing throughout is still well done and easy to read. The story just feels very fractured and the overall story around the Covenant vs the Price family is moving at a glacial pace.

My Summary (3.5/5): Overall I was disappointed in this Incryptid book. Seeing Mary's POV was interesting but she is pulled in too many directions at once and it made the story feel chaotic and fractured. This installment is very soap opera like, Mary basically provides mental and physical support to the whole Price family at this point. It's also hard to follow who all the characters are and what their relationship to each other is (yes, we get the family tree at the beginning of the book but that's not enough). Very little progress is made with the over-arching story about the Covenant. I will read the next book in the series and withhold judgment for now. However, both this and the October Daye series feel very tired to me; it's time to wrap them up and move on to something new.

what a great book and i loved reading this author. . loved the romance and how the couple came to be. Loved that they worked through their issues and found love. Loved this mystery

In this installment of the InCryptid series, a whole lot of things come to a head all at once. And it’s not pretty. If you’ve been waiting for a shoe to drop on an inevitable plot development or a fraught conversation, you’ll probably find it here. The family takes some staggering losses and has to make some hard, morally dubious choices in order to survive.

Mary was the perfect POV for this story, and really, logistically, the only one that makes sense. It was also nice to finally get some more background on her story, and what exactly she is now that the crossroads are gone. Mary’s love for the family is palpable – they are literally the reason she exists.

The novella at the end... I can’t say whose POV it is and what it’s about without giving too much away, so I’ll just say that it takes place during Aftermarket Afterlife, and that you might need tissues.

Five stars! And very much wondering whose narration the next book is going to be.

Representation: LGBTQ+ characters, POC characters, disability rep

CW: mention of eating disorder, death and mourning, children in danger, mention of child death

My Thoughts

Told from Mary Dunlavy’s POV this story was quite an undertaking on behalf of an author whose series I have grown extremely fond of reading.

After the last books triumphs this one’s tragedies were as upsetting to me as they were to the characters themselves.

Characters who over the course of these 13 stories have become more dear to me than I had expected them too.

Now certain events from past stories are coming back to cause even more problems for the Cryptid populations in North America as Price family members and their allies find themselves under siege by Covenant of St. George strike teams.

Casualties on both sides mount up and the measures it will take to survive for those left alive hinge on a hail mary plan that Mary Dunlavy comes up with.

The resulting execution leaves readers with a true cliffhanger ending that has opened up several new avenues that our author can now take this series toward.

Avenues I am eager to explore in the future releases.

DREAMING OF YOU IN FREEFALL Novella

Verity has a short novella that is twofold in that it follows up after the full length book then it also gives us another small glimpse of the dragon William and his Nest under Manhatten.

This also ends on a cliffhanger with hints at the future.

[EArc from Netgalley]

On every book read as soon as it is done and written up for review it is posted on Goodreads and Netgalley, once released then posted on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles as well.

Every time I read a new book in Seanan McGuire's Incryptid series I think, "this is the best one yet!" But Aftermarket Afterlife really IS the best one yet. This series is fast, fun, and funny; it follows a family dedicated to studying and preserving Cryptids - magical and mythical creatures that live around us but hidden, trying to survive in our modern world. Complicating that is the Covenant of St. George, an organization dedicated to their extermination.

Aftermarket Afterlife is the 13th book in the series, and is told from the POV of Mary Dunlavy, the ghost who's been the babysitter for the Price family for 80 years. It's a time of upheaval for the family, as members are reunited for the first time in decades, at the same time as the Covenant makes a huge offensive strike. Mary's only purpose for 80 years has been to protect the children of her adopted family and keep them all safe, and now she's being truly tested. What's a ghost to do?

I couldn’t put this book down. I loved finally getting a story from Mary's perspective, and I loved how things that have been building for 12 books have just exploded all over everything. There are STAKES. There are CONSEQUENCES. And some of them are heartbreaking and earth shattering. You can't say that Seanan McGuire doesn't deliver. Sometimes with series that go this long, you feel like the author starts to have difficulty upping the stakes but still trying to keep a status quo, where there never end up being consequences. As a result, as a reader you start to feel less invested. Why get emotionally invested, you know everything will be fine? That is absolutely not a problem with McGuire and this series. We are seeing the payoff for every action these characters have taken in this series, in an explosive way. The chickens are coming home to roost, and it's effective. I was biting my nails.

My only criticism is that I need the next book. Right now. Immediately. What happens next?!

Beautiful book, and beautiful cover art by Lee Moyer.

I was incredibly excited to get the chance to read this book early, but was surprised by the choice of narrator. I would have assumed Mary would be a narrator of a Ghost Roads novel, if anything, but after her change in status, she is more entwined than ever with the Price family and their assorted branches, so it does make sense for her to get a book for herself. She is also one of the few people that could have narrated this book without a lot of people recounting exciting things that happen off page, though this book is so full of huge developments that a certain amount of that is inevitable.
When I say huge developments, I do mean that. I finished this book a week ago and I’ve been waiting for my thoughts on it to develop into anything other than !!!!! before I reviewed it, but even now I’m struggling to remember any generalities past the huge shocks that occurred in this book. While what happened was shocking, it wasn’t poorly foreshadowed. Neither was it predictable. I had an idea for how this book would resolve, but boy was I wrong. If you haven’t read the preceding twelve books you really shouldn’t read this one, you won’t follow it and you’ll spoil a great series for yourself. Actually, don’t even read this review. The blurb above already has some pretty major series spoilers, start at Discount Armageddon instead. I’ll stop saying how surprised I am now and try and give some actual analysis.
This book was similar to some of the Ghost Roads book in that Mary’s abilities did feature throughout, including several pivotal moments that occurred in the various levels of the afterlife. It was absolutely an InCryptid novel in the focus on the Price family, their mission to study and protect cryptids, and their struggles against the Covenant. I was surprised that Alice, Thomas and Sally returning didn’t actually get explored much in this book, but I do prefer the emotional-confrontations-interspersed-with-action that this series has always featured, so I’m not mad that we didn’t get more of Mary staying carefully neutral while other people emoted at each other.
I suppose that brings us to one of the only things I didn’t really enjoy about this book. Mary seemed to attached to everyone, but not truly close to anyone. This makes sense, she’s been dead for a long time, and unable to share much about herself for the entire time she’s known the family. That being said, it did make some very emotional parts of the book seem more told than shown.
I liked that Mary’s chapter-quotes drew from different sources than most of the other books up to this point, it makes sense that she would be more likely to quote people whose diapers she never changed, it was also a good way to hint at the future exploration of what happened to Laura Campbell, which I was surprised didn’t come up, but then again, there really wasn’t room for it to get the time I’m sure a decades long disappearance not related to the crossroads will need.
There was also a lot of drama surrounding Elsie in this book (hinted at in the very end of Calculated Risks, but very much added to in this novel), and I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a book from her point of view soon. Of course, there’s also a very good argument to be made for Alice, Verity, Arthur or maybe even some wildcard characters that Mary’s point of view firmly cemented as family in this novel.
The action in Aftermarket Afterlife is fairly non-stop, and some threats that may have seemed underpowered or inept in previous books really ramp up in this novel, and we get to see some of the inevitable consequences that have been foreshadowed for a long time in this series. The Prices have always been conservationists and scientists and also fighters in a guerilla war, and their role as combatants comes to the forefront in Aftermarket Afterlife.
The Healy luck, which has been getting explored a lot—especially with Alice as a narrator—is proved flawed in a fairly definite way. There are also hints at happier things to come, very tragic things to come, and some things to come that I suppose are bittersweet. The confirmation for one of my suspicions comes in the accompanying short story, Dreaming of You in Freefall that is so tied in with a major spoiler that I don’t really know what to say. It is a very sad story, but a satisfying one, with more hints at future books to come.
Which leads me to another point, this book really did seem like the InCryptid series may be wrapping up soon. Some definitely end stage things happened, so if the series doesn’t end, I would expect at least a big shift in tactics or focus soon. That’s already begun to happen, with the Price children marrying, having children, or adopting siblings in Antimony’s case. With everything that happened in this book, I expect the next InCryptid novel to be a big change in the status quo, as much as Verity revealing the family’s survival to the world in Chaos Choreography, Antimony infiltrating the covenant in Magic for Nothing (and defeating the crossroads in That Ain’t Witchcraft), Sarah becoming a full-blown superhero in Imaginary Numbers, or Alice finding Thomas in Spelunking Through Hell.

I'm excited to see how things change in whatever book comes next, and for the relationships forged in this book and the preceding twelve to continue to develop. I loved Antimony and Sally's interactions in this book (and Sally and everyone's to be honest, Sally is great, a Sally book would be awesome), and Greg was another bright spot. I also liked hearing a little about the Jorhlac children Sarah and Mark rescued in Calculated Risks.
All in all, Aftermarket Afterlife has some huge developments, as well as the action-packed plot and complicated family relationships the InCryptid series excels at, I’d recommend it to people who have read the series and can understand the book, fans of Rob Thurman’s Trickster series, Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid novels, Lisa Shearin’s Raine Benares series or just those who enjoy urban fantasy and series that have complicated family dynamics, and funny, clever and principled main characters.

Where previous novels were (mostly) focused on a single character and a relative discrete story that gradually expands the scope of this Incryptid world (which is our world, only there are magical creatures living around us and with us and hiding from us), Aftermarket Afterlife starts to blow up that formula. The novel is focused on Mary Dunlavy, a sometimes corporeal ghost and family babysitter (with a somewhat complicated backstory that is really changed by the Antimony novels).

Here’s what you need to know: There has been an ongoing and building fallout over the last few novels with The Covenant of St George (an organization of humans dedicated to eradicating the aforementioned supernatural creatures) after Antimony really pissed them off. This is after her older sister Verity let the Covenant know there were still Prices still around. Aftermarket Afterlife is an explosive novel - and that’s not even counting the return of Alice and Thomas to the family (see Backpacking Through Bedlam) after decades of Thomas being presumed dead. McGuire seldom lets her characters just sit in a moment without blowing something up. Or maybe it’s the readers who want more - but Seanan McGuire is a propulsive writer.

Seanan McGuire has been building to the Price family finally going to war with the Covenant. Or, more specifically, the Covenant is going to war with the cryptids of North America and with the Price family. Aftermarket Afterlife is for the long time readers (this is book thirteen in the series) who have been wondering when all of that mess is going to come to a head.

The choice of Mary as the focus is an interesting one as it continues the trend of the last four novels of allowing a small sense of distance from the core family while, at the same time, allowing for a wider breadth of family interaction. From Discount Armageddon through That Ain’t Witchcraft each novel has focused on one of the siblings of the youngest generation of Price children and their interaction with this world. That narrow focus would, perhaps, only mention the actions or existence of that character’s siblings. So - if this is an Antimony novel, there would be limited mention of Verity or Alex. Same with Verity or Alex’s novels, respectively. Even the Sarah Zellaby or Alice novels were limited in scope to the perspective of that character in that particular place.

Mary Dunlavy is necessarily different because she can ghost-travel to whichever family member calls for her (and sometimes if they don’t) - so even with a slight emotional distance, which is a statement that isn’t entirely accurate but is the best that I have to work with, we get so much more of the Price family than we have at any other time in the series. Mary can and does bounce between Verity in New York, Alex in Ohio. and Antimony in Oregon. The scope of the war with the Covenant can be shown beyond phone calls of an action that we don’t get to see because it’s somewhere else. Functionally, Mary can be everywhere and McGuire makes good use of Mary as plot device.

If most of this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, that is because McGuire is pulling a LOT of threads together and really assumes that readers are well familiar with the first twelve books of the series. I have no idea what it looks like jumping into this fresh to the Incryptid series and even though Seanan McGuire is frequently very good at introducing and reintroducing characters and story beats and dropping exposition, Aftermarket Afterlife truly requires the emotional equity of having been on this Price Family Journey.

With all of that said, for those readers who have been on this Price Family Journey, Aftermarket Afterlife absolutely delivers the goods. The awkward and painful reunions are earned, the desire to take the fight to the Covenant is earned, and the ultimate resolution of the novel is absolutely earned. Seanan McGuire has been building to all of this and she truly pays it off - and there is certainly going to be more, which makes me incredibly anxious and I cannot wait to read what’s next.