Hail The Lack Of Shooting, Stabbing And Flame

Hey guess what I got in the mail the other day?!?  My newest Incryptid book  Chaos Choreography by Seanan McGuire!!!!!  This is one of those series that no matter what I'm currently reading I promptly ditch it in favor of devouring the latest series installment and this book was no exception.  Was it worth interrupting my reading cycle?  Let's find out shall we?  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

First off, if you haven't read the first four books this is gonna be confusing as I'm not gonna recap them...so either go read these excellent books or go read my ramblings...go on...ok you all caught up...good.  After a couple of books with Alexander Price we are back with our girl Verity.  While we were away she has married her ex-Covenant boy Dominic in a shot gun Vegas wedding and headed back to the family home in Oregon.  Verity gets a phone call from the producers of a dance show that she was on in her alternate persona of Valerie Pryor.  They are doing a reunion show and want her back.  Surprisingly her family supports her decision to give her ball room dancing shot at normalcy one last go so off she and Dominic go to California.  Verity is reunited with some of her fellow contestants and friends from previous seasons and gets right into the swing of things as Valerie on the dance show Dance or Die which is a very very very thinly disguised homage to the show So You Think You Can Dance (Which on a side note I adore!).  We learn that Brenna is actually a dragon princess and she has a favor to ask Verity.  Brenna's nest of dragon princesses is desperate for a male and wants Verity to help broker a deal with the New York dragons to obtain one.  Verity agrees to help and recruit's a disguised Dominic to help.  More rehearsal, competing and dancing ensue.  The night after the third elimination a very disturbing discovery is made by a couple of Verity's cryptid friends/fellow competitors.  It seems that the eliminated contestants were brutally and ritualistically murdered for some reason.  Verity discovers some very sketchy runes and sends them to her family for some help and they in turn send her, her grandmother Alice Price-Healy...who due to travelling through various dimensions appears to be the same age as her granddaughter Verity.  The rough and tumble Alice, Verity and Dominic along with the various friendly (and not so friendly) cryptids proceed to investigate the murders.  After every elimination, the eliminated pair gets murdered in an ever increasing complicated ritual.  The team discover that the rituals once completed will culminate in s giant snake god/demon/being coming through from another dimension for reasons that are definitely not good.  Most of the rest of the book is a combination of Verity as Valerie attempting to be a normal contestant and Verity with her team trying to save everybody.  We get to the big showdown and find out that Verity as Valerie's partner Ander's is actually the producers son and he along with one of the judges are the the "masterminds" that assembled the snake cult.  The snake comes through the inter dimensional portal after one last brutal murder and blood and chaos ensue.  There is an epic fight...all caught on camera and now Verity is exposed to the Covenant and all the other cryptids who happen to be watching...can't wait for the next book!

World Building - The setting is urban fantasy mostly placed in and around the set of Dance or Die.  The world is built through out the series and continues to build in this installation.  The author does a great job really getting us into the thick of the new setting that we plop our people in.  What I really like about this author is how she gives us plenty of touch stones and frame work through out the series while still managing to give us new and interesting places in each book that are fully realized. The cryptid world is fairly consistent, varied and well thought out.  Love it.

Story - The story was well done.  It combines the ongoing story of the Price family, with the "story of the book" which while being ANOTHER snake cult, was still well done and made sense in the context of this book and the overall series.  We finally got to see Grandma Alice which gave us some glimpses into the overall family story which is at the heart of this series.  Good solid story.

Character - I feel that the characters are the biggest strength in this series and this boo.k does is not any exception.  Verity and Dominic were awesome as always.  I loved Pax and Malena and the weird dichotomy of them being completely "normal" dancing contestants and really weird mythical
creatures.  It is this two sided coin of characterization that makes this book tick.  Alice was just pretty much the awesomest thing ever!  Having her show up and really show us where the Price psychosis comes from was great...also her dedication to her husband is pretty great too.  Yeah pretty much I love every character in the book and how they all have motivation, depth and a sassy sense of humor to boot. The only objection I have is that I want so much more Antimony!  Seriously where is her book?!?

Editing - This series is in the dreaded first person, in this case we see it through Verity's eyes.  For the most part this isn't as bad as a lot of first person but even as awesome as she is...we still get stuck in her head on occasion.  Other then the occasional angst and introspection from Verity, the overall story flows.  The book is consistent with the rest of the series and I didn't need to flip back and forth to figure out where I was in the story.  The pacing was great and the ratio of dancing and the cryptid stuff was pretty spot on.  Good job.

Dance or Die - I can tell that the author loves the show So You Think You Can Dance and this book is seriously a direct homage to the production.  Since I also love the show, this book made me happy happy happy.  I liked how much music and dance that was in the book.  Since I have a theatre background which includes dance, all the nuances and details really made this book pop for me.  Verity realizes that both of her loves, dance and the family business are mutually exclusive.  To be a professional dancer would take up so much of her time that it would be the only real thing she could do.  On the flip side, the family business takes up just as much time and dedication.  It was nice to see her get into her dance and for us to see her love for it.  It was also good to contrast her current position with other dancers who have no other concerns and how that affects her decision.  Anyways this book really appealed to many parts of my own self so YAY!

Aslien Mice - I love the mice!!!!  There quotes, rituals, and record keeping make these little dudes essential to each book.  In this book they get to travel with Verity to California and the little guys make the most of it.  One of the things I most look forward to in these books is finding the best quote for the post title.  They also provide a way to catch us readers up on various Price family history.  There is also the most perfect timing of humor with my rodent friends.

Marriage - I like how marriage is treated in this book.  Getting married to Dominic did not in any way shape or form reduce Verity, her strength or her personality.  Dominic also did not completely lose him self to the dominating Price family either.  We see Grandma Alice spend most of her life
traversing the various dimensions to find her husband who was lost.  Verity's parents are both smart, strong and in love with each other.  It's really nice to see an author who does not discount love and marriage as a giving up, or a diminishing, but rather a vibrant part of life.  I truly believe if you find the right person, marriage turns into an adventuring partenership with some really awesome benefits and this book seems to share my views.

Overall Impression - As with the previous books, I devoured this one in a couple of days.  It kept up the energy, the spunk, the adventure and the humor that I have loved so far.  I am ready for an Antimony book, but I still love any book set in this series.  I recommend it for anybody who needs a great read, strong characters and likes a bit of urban fantasy.  I give this book 8 out of 10 barley there fringed dresses and can't wait for the next book.
Happy Reading Everybody!

Thou Shalt Not Denude The Airplane's Cheese Selection

First off, Happy Birthday to L.M. Montgomery, author of the Anne of Green Gables series which has been one of my favorites for years!  Also shout out to Google for their awesome tribute.  Ok on to business.  Today I shall ramble about Pocket Apocalypse the fourth book in the InCryptid series by Seanan McGuire.  I was in the mood for a fun book and this one, like the others did not disappoint.  Let's jump right in, as always SPOILERS AHEAD.

I'm gonna try and get back to the shorter synopsis...but we will see how it goes.  Alex Price's life is finally getting back to normal.  His cuckoo cousin Sarah is recovering nicely, his basilisk project is doing well and his girlfriend Shelby Tanner is as hot and feisty as ever.  Of course our friends the Price kids can never just live a normal life, so after an expedition to show his assistant some migrating screaming yams (yes you read that right) he is asked by Shelby to accompany her to her home in Australia to assist with a pesky werewolf problem.  Now this may not seem to be a big deal for our strong yet studious InCryptid Price boy...but in reality it is a nightmare come true.  Turns out that werewolfism is actually a sort of mutated rabies on steroids and once it takes hold in a population becomes incredibly difficult to stop.  Add this to the fact that Australia is a super fragile and enclosed eco-system and BAM potential devastation all the way around.  All of this is made worse by the duo facts of Alex's previous bad run ins with werewolves and the prospect of meeting Shelby's family.  Alex and Shelby hop a plane (along with a splinter colony of Aeslin Mice ((WOOHOO)) and down under they go.  The Tanner family does not like Alex in any way shape or form and do not even pretend to try and hide it.  After a whole bunch of hoop jumping they finally get down to business.  The Thirty-Six (which is the Cryptid protection group of Australia) is vastly different then Alex's family and it takes him a while to earn even their nominal trust.  This is made even worse, when gathering ingredients for a risky partial cure, he and another 36er by the name of Cooper get attacked and bitten by werewolves.  Cooper is killed and Alex is bitten.  After more fighting and arguing and all kinds of stupid ignorance Alex finally gets back on track hunting down the werewolves.  Shelby is continually torn between standing by Alex and being pressured by her family.  An incident involving weresheep (yep you read that right too) finally convinces the Tanner family that somebody is using the werewolves to get them.  More chaos and confusion and it turns out Cooper (who did not really die) had been turned and was turning other people to try and change the way the 36er's dealt with them (up to this point if you turned you were killed).  Alex is save and the 36er's agree to try and deal with the werewolves AND to also try and be friendlier with the more humanoid Cryptids, which up to this point they had mostly ignored.  Shelby declares her intent to marry Alex...which he is totally ok with.  The book ends with Alex and the Tanner on if not friendly terms, at least better then they were before and Alex and Shelby head back to the US to plan the wedding.

Hey that wasn't too long, yay me!  Anyways, as with every book in this series so far I loved it.  Alex is still  no Verity, but he is still an awesomely written character who I enjoy reading about.  Let's see, stuff I liked specific to this book.  I loved the trip to Australia and getting to see how another InCryptid group works, seeing the history, challenges and differences reminds me that no matter what story I read, there is always another perspective.  This story really showed us in the character of Alex how somebody can be capable and trained and still prefer a different lifestyle...what do I mean by that?  Alex grew up in a home where training to stay alive was paramount, and by his own admission, while he was good (even amazing by lay people standards) his sisters where the true pro's.  This was mostly because his interest lay more in the studious scientific side of things.  This however does not make him a weakling, as several episodes in this book show him holding his own, just that violence or physicalness is not his preferred method.  This author is very good at writing characters that show a person can be more then one thing, Shelby can be hot, flirty, take charge, a bit cowed by her family, and have a great sense of humor all at the same time.  Alex can have his nose in his books, prefer to avoid drama, roll his eyes at his girlfriends impulsiveness and still kick major hinney.  The other books in this series have also shown how adept miss McGuire is at these sort of characters which I LOVE!  I was super worried when Alex and Shelby went to Australia 'cause I thought we might have to leave the Aeslin Mice behind, and they are my absolute favorites in all the books.  Happily for me, the Aeslin Mice not only got to come, but they played a pretty significant part in the book.  As with the earlier books, I like how the Cryptids, and in this case Outsiders (non Thirty-Sixers) were used as a bit of a metaphor for prejudice and fear.  In this book we saw how even the subtle "polite ignorance" of a fellow being can lead to very huge consequences...something we all need to remember.  Things I didn't like so much.  I missed the rest of the Price family (though we did get to hear family stories and also had the Price/Healy family quote at the start of each chapter) I absolutely adore their sense of humor which was soley carried by Alex in this book.  I also had a hard time at the sheer meaness and bossiness of the Tanner family, that they thought it was ok to essentially hold Alex as an enemy with useful information and that regardless of their daughters happiness their continual efforts to drive them apart.  I get what was happening, but it got a bit tedious and I wanted either/or Alex and Shelby to put up more of a fuss, or walk away...thought eventually they both kind of do.  While I understood the Thirty-Sixers initial distrust of outsiders, the fact that Alex had a proven track record and had actually successfully dealt with werewolves before made me feel like at least some of the group would have gotten on board with what he was saying, especially after he did some good work in Australia.  Also the next book is about Verity again, which while I am totally excited to see my dancing girl again...I was sort of hoping we could get to know Antimony better...she seems like my type of girl.  Overall I very much enjoyed the book, finishing it in just a few days and looking forward to the next one.  I recommend it to any urban fantasy, sci fi fans, people who like myths and legends that can kill them, or really enjoy a migrating screaming yam.  I give it 7 out of 10 binyips and can't wait for the next one.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Hitchhiking Ghost

Usually I like to save my ghosts stories for Halloween, but sometimes, a ghost story falls into the campfire ghost story category and therefore must be read in the summer/camping season.  Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire is just such a book and thus has been read in heat of summer.  How did I like it?  I'll tell you, but first, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

I'm gonna try and get back go shorter synopsis 'cause if you want that many details, I'm gonna assume your gonna go read the book.  Rose Marshall is dead and has been dead since 1952.  Her manner of death (car accident) has led to her becoming a hitchhiking ghost. She is able to gain a measure of "life" if a person voluntarily gives her the equivalent of a jacket and she is able to use/taste/feel, anything given to her willingly.  She travels the dayside world thumbing for rides and either helping people avoid accidents, or when unavoidable, she helps guide people where they need to be after they die (almost always in a car accident).  When she isn't dayside, she inhabits the twilight side of life/death, hanging out with her bean sidhe friend Emma (who can act as a human to let her taste food) at the Last Dance Diner.  We learn that Rose was killed when she was run off the road by a man by the name of Bobby Cross. Bobby Cross made a deal at the crossroads which allows him eternal youth as long as he feeds his cars souls that he can take as long as they fit certain criteria (I never understood exactly who he could and couldn't take).  Rose's spirit got away from him and now she spends her time avoiding him and hitchhiking.  Since she has been doing the hitchhiking ghost thing for so long and all around the country, several legends have grown up around her, she is called The Girl in the Diner, the Phantom Prom Date, or the girl in the Green Silk Gown.  Most of the book is little snippets and stories of her time in the dayside, interspersed with her battle (or lack of) with Bobby Cross.  The book ends with Rose challenging Bobby for her friend Emma's life, which she wins, with the understanding that he can keep chasing her.  Rose gets Emma back to the Last Chance Diner and she end by telling us she will continue hitchhiking on the dayside.

Let's start with the good.  I liked the stories of Rose's time hitchhiking the best.  I enjoyed the different people and situations she encountered and I liked how she had to work within the confines of the rules of her ghosthood, and how she also used them to her advantage.  I liked how the various stories and legends about her death and subsequent hauntings/appearances grew and changed and spread.  The vibe was neat as well as it was very North American road inspired...almost like a cross country road trip with a ghost.  I always like it when North America gets it own shot at making mythical history.  On to what I didn't like so much.  The overall vibe of the ghost world was a weird mix of confusing and complicated, and overly angsty.  The book was written in first person, which we all know is not my favorite, and this is an example of why.  I felt (and this is strictly my opinion) that we got stuck in Rose's head way to much as she would wax philosophical about life, death and the afterworld.   It got very repetitive, using the exact same phrases over and over.  It's possible that since the book was broken up into different time period snippets that the author was trying to create the feeling of being in that moment, and that other moments were being written at different times, but to me the result was a lot of repetition that wasn't needed.  Rose would also allude to other types of ghosts, and types of living that touched to varying degrees into the twilight...but we never really got a whole lot of solid info on these beings.  Take routewitches for example.  They play a pretty significant role in this story, but I never really got a clear picture into who or what they were, what there actual role (other then moving the story along) was, or what the rules for their existence was.  Overall it made for a bit of an uneven read that I would have liked better if it had either stuck with mostly "ghost" stories, or a more cohesive world.  I give the book 6 out of 10 malted milkshakes and would recommend it to people who like a good ghost story with heart. Happy Reading Everybody!
What type of ghost would you be?  How far would you go to obtain eternal life?  Is it bad that the idea of being able to change my clothes at will makes it almost cool to be a ghost>

All Hail To The Science Rules Of Science

Who's ready for a bit of a break from all of the holiday cheer?   Me too, lets talk about a book instead shall we?  Let's talk about Half-Off Ragnarok by Seanan McGuire, the third book in the InCryptid series.  Even though I'm still not 100% sure what a Ragnarok is, this was still a pretty cool book.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

In this third book in the InCryptid series, we move away from my favored Verity's storyline and take a peek at her brother Alex.  Alex is a Herpetologist, who when not working at the local zoo, is busy tracking and tagging local cryptid species.  He is busy trying to figure out how to introduce the fricken, a feathered frog that is displacing the native frog population, into the mainstream science world.  As he is doing this, he is also working on a basilisk breeding program, sneaking in a young local lamia to see her cobra fiancee, and trying to keep his kind of sort of Big Cat keeper girlfriend Shelby from finding out about any of this.  All of this is not enough for our friend Alex, he must also solve a spate of murders that are carried out by turning a person to stone.  Alex is concerned that somebody in the local Gorgon community may be to blame.  Eventually we, and Alex learn that Shelby is not a stranger to cryptids, and adds her own Aussie perspective to the game.  She reveals herself after she discovers that Alex's cousin is what is known as a cuckoo, a potentially dangerous and destructive creature that Alex is helping to watch while she recovers from a psychic injury gotten when she helped save Alex's sister Verity.  Many cool things and stuff happen, including lives in danger, history revealed, and a lot of various creatures being introduced.  In the end a twisted gorgon with mixed parentage is to blame for the deaths, he is caught and neutralized.  The gorgon community is shaken, but endures.  Alex and Shelby hang out for hopefully another adventure.

This book is pretty cool, I loved the first two InCryptid books, I loved Verity and was very hopeful I would love the series as it moved on to Alex, and I did.  In spite of the bare bones synopsis there is a ton of really great stuff in this book.  To start with Alex is very much not Verity.  You can tell he was raised in the same family, but his personality is all his own.  His chosen profession is pretty cool all on its own, but when you add the cryptid element, it just is awesome.  Shelby is ok, she is not my favorite character to grace this series, but she is tolerable.  I ADORE Alex's grandparents, and the way they deal with life.  I also very much enjoyed seeing what happened to their cuckoo cousin Sarah and watching her strange road to recovery.  It was cool to see a bit of a community relationship between a sapient cryptid group and the Price family, the tenuousness, the interpersonal and inter species issues, all asked some great questions of society as a whole.  I did not completely understand the mistrust that the gorgon community had for Alex as he and his family have done nothing but help them survive and thrive, so that was a bit frustrating.  The series continues to explore what is considered mainstream and what is considered "not normal" and the implications when one crosses over to the other. The need for certain species to live in hiding, while others can live in the open, the necessity to hide certain attributes, the difference between animal and sentient is all explored and questioned in these books and I love it.  The Aeslin mice keep me entertained as always and I hope they continue to make appearances in every book.  I am liking this moving on to the various Price family members and cannot wait until I get to read Antimony's story, 'cause even though we have never officially met, she is my favorite.  In case you can't tell I really enjoyed this book and will continue happily reading this series.  I give it 8 out of 10 church griffins.
What kind of cryptid do you wish was real?  Who gets to choose what is "normal"?  Am I getting really lazy with my synopsis's?

It's A Fine October Daye

One of my favorite joys in life is discovering a new author to love.  Recently (this past year) I have discovered Seanan McGuire (who also writes under the pen name Mira Grant).  Most of her work is in the urban fantasy round, straying into horror on occasion.  I like her work because she adds a plausibility element to all of this "make-believe" that a lot of fantasy and horror authors are missing.  For me this is a big deal because if I cannot at least try and believe the premise of the book, it takes me out of the world and makes for a much harder read (I'm looking at you Divergent).  I have read several of Ms. McGuire's books and decided to start on her October Daye series starting with the first one Rosemary and Rue.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

We start with a prologue in which we meet our heroine the changeling (half faerie, half human) private investigator October Daye.  We learn that October (or Toby as most people call her) has a fiance and young daughter at home. Toby is on a case to find the missing wife and daughter of her liege lord in the faerie realm the Duke Sylvester Torquill.  For her trouble Toby ends up being transformed into a koi by the bad guys and spends the next 14 years in a pond.  Flash forward 14 years and 6 months and Toby is trying to put her life back together.  She feels burned by her faerie side, doing her best to avoid all things fae and just focus on holding down a job long enough to pay rent.  Her fiance and daughter want nothing to do with her, having moved on in the 14 years of her absence.  This all changes when the Countess Evening Winterrose is murdered and lays a deadly curse on Toby, compelling her to find her killer or die trying. Toby starts her search by visiting the crime scene and "riding" the blood of Evening, a skill she inherited from her faerie mother.  By tasting the blood, Toby not only makes the binding of the curse stronger, but gets some clues on where to head next. She also finds out that Evening was killed by iron, a cruel and specific way to torture or kill someone with any faerie blood in them.  She starts by telling the Queen, who reacts in what can only be described as an insane way and is ordered to leave with no help.  Next Toby goes Home, a place run by a changeling named Devin who takes in wayward half-bloods and essentially owns them until they find a way to break free.  Toby spent some time there in her youth before being knighted by the Duke and has a

love/hate relationship with Devin. Devin agrees to help her for a future unnamed price and has two of his kids, the siblings Dare and Manuel act as body guards/escorts.  Toby follows the clues and finds a legendary hope chest hidden in Evenings things.  This hope chest supposedly holds wonders that are only spoke about in stories, one of them being the power to transform a changling into a full human or full faerie, just by holding the box, Toby can feel a strange power flowing through her.  Knowing how dangerous this box could be, she leaves it in the possession of Tybalt called King of Cats, the leader of the Cait Sidhe or cat faeries.  Toby knows it will be safe with him 'cause they really don't like each other and he will not want to be in her debt. Toby finally goes to see Sylvester and his court, finding a warm welcome by not only him, but his wife, who was returned to him along with their daughter 10 years after they vanished. Nobody knows what happened to them, Luna (the wife) won't say and Rayseline went a bit cuckoo and is now a bit of a sadistic freak.  More talking and blah blah blahing and we find out that Rayseline's Selkie husband Conner and Toby had a thing back in the day, making it a bit awkward.  Toby continues hunting around despite everybody telling her it is to dangerous, but the curse will kill her if she doesn't find the answer so off she goes.  She gets shot by iron multiple times, gets patched up by various people multiple times and finally figures out that the killer was Devin.  Devin killed Evening to try and procure the hope chest, made bitter by the fact that he feels he deserves the immortality of the fae and it wasn't given to him.  In the ensuing fight Dare is killed, as is the young lover of Julie another Cait Sidhe, causing all sorts of inter faerie court problems.  The curse is lifted and Toby is reinstated as a PI to continue her work as a faerie/human detective/knight.  Also she gets to keep this weird rose thorn cat goblin thingy.

A synopsis will never capture what I really love about this book and that is the complex, yet follow-able world building that is done, especially on the faerie side.  The author spends a lot of time making sure we know that faerie is not just a willowy little creature with wings and rose petal slippers, they come in all shapes and sizes and varieties and they are well represented here.  I love that not only are various types of faeries represented, but different cultures as well.  We have the Japanese Kitsune, the Undine which is a bit more of a Greek concept, Selkies from Irish/Scottish myth, the Persian Manticore, and of course all of your more typical Fair Folk type denizens.  All of this is further enhanced by the author clearly defining the various types of faeries and how the various mixes of blood produce different reactions and abilities.  For one example Toby's ability to "ride" blood comes from her Daoine Sidhe mother, while another character combines the sadisticness of the reclusive Peri (another Persian myth) and the socialness of  the Tuatha de Dannan (Gaelic myth) to make a being who not only enjoys people, but really enjoys inflicting pain on them.  The author has taken artistic liberties with the strictly old school myths, turning them into a world that is both completely new and familiar at the same time.  The hierarchy, politics, rules, traditions and class structure are fairly well explained and add a layer of authenticness and the feeling that these beings have been here for centuries.  The magic is well thought out and has rules and restrictions that feel authentic which again helps with the plausibility factor. I especially love that most magic users have a specific taste and smell that helps identify who the use is, for example Toby's magic manifests as copper and grass cuttings.  There were a couple things that did bug me.  I was not feeling the actual character of October Daye, especially compared to the main character Verity in her one of her other urban fantasy series (InCryptid).  Toby seems a lot more of a reactionary character, a bit of a blank slate for the other characters to act against.  She is a changeling who

has lots of friends (and enemies and frenemies) in convenient places. While I like the idea that she is not
super woman, that she can (and does) get truly injured in a very believable fashion (finally a recovery that takes more then 10 minutes, even with her super faerie healing powers) I feel she too often wanted to prove her self, got hurt, needed rescuing, then promptly went out and did the same thing with the same results several times over...for no real reason.  I understood the whole attraction/maybe love thing with Devin, but then the author tossed in some possible thing between Toby and Conner that felt...hmm...I'm not sure how to describe what bugged my about it.  I guess the fact that the vast majority of Toby's history is given to us in a few vague, moody, wisps, but we yet all of her motivations are based on her past.  I guess it is difficult to empathize or identify with Toby because we don't know why or how or what is really motivating her. So she tells us that her and Conner may at one time in the very distant past have possibly maybe been able to fall in love, but didn't and that is why she is now a zillion years later so attracted to him...even though...well we don't know because that is all we have to go on, some nebulous maybe feeling from her unknown past, we don't even get to know Conner enough to see his appeal.  In the end the world building trumps the story and most definitely outshines the main character.  Any time I want to read about one of the other characters instead of the main one, it throws up a bit of a red flag. Oh one other thing I liked was all of the subtle references to Shakespeare. Ophelia from Hamlet is mentioned in perfect context and Tybalt King of the Cats is such a wonderfully direct reference to my favorite character in Romeo and Juliet that I must admit I squealed out loud.  Overall I enjoyed the world Ms. McGuire has built and will probably be back to visit it again in her further books, but not until I have exhausted the InCryptid novels with my sassy spunky not so vague Verity.  I give this book 6 out of 10 rose goblins.
Do you like your cultural fairy tales all mixed up or do your prefer them separate and pure? Do you love it as much as I do when an author sneaks in some Shakespeare?  What does your magic smell like?  Do people give you funny looks when you squeal out loud when you read?

The Holy Feast Of I Swear Daddy I Will Kiss The Next Man Who Walks In The Door

We all know that I usually have multiple books going at the same time, this week two of them have been Deadline and Discount Armageddon two very different books, but I noticed they seemed very similar in style.  Ha then I realized they are by the same author Seanan McGuire and her pen name Mira Grant, apparently I like her writing :-) Discount Armageddon was a really fun read, I enjoyed it thoroughly and laughed out loud at several parts.  It is in the dreaded first person narrative, but not a whole lot of angst so it worked. As always SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!

Verity Price is the middle daughter in the infamous Price family...well infamous if you run in cryptid circles.  What is a cryptid?  I'm glad you asked, because it is crucial to the story.  Cryptids are what we humans would consider creatures from fantasy, everything from the bogeyman to the tooth fairy.  There are also less well known creatures such as the religious Aeslin mice that have been known to make a Holy Feast out of just about anything.  Anyways the sheer variety of cryptids of every shape and size keep our intrepid heroine busy.  Verity is part of group/family that does there best to protect the balance of cryptids/humans.  She protects humans from the nastier cryptids who prey on them, and also protects the more vulnerable of the harmless cryptids from discovery and harm.  She also helps protect them from the Covenant, an organization that shows no mercy when it comes to cryptids, pretty much using the line of thinking that no cryptid is a good cryptid.  Her family is considered traitors for not only leaving the Covenant when they discovered that most cryptids were not only sentient, but harmless as well; but for also intermarrying with the occasional
incubus. Verity lives in New York City with her own little colony of Aeslin mice, keeping the humor factor at a maximum.  She is trying to become a professional ball room dancer and in between keeps an eye on the resident cryptid population.  To help her attempts at keeping the cryptid balance, she works as a waitress and Dave's Fish and Strips.  Yep our girl works at a strip joint, but not just any strip joint, a cryptid strip joint.  The place is owned by Dave the bogeyman and he employs mostly cryptids such as Candy the dragon princess who is impervious to fire, Carol the lesser gorgon who has to wear a wig so her snakes don't bite customers and Ryan a smoking hot Tanuki who can become quit animalistic when the need arises.  Going about her business of Tangoing, waitressing, and patrolling Verity runs into Dominic De Luca a Covenant member who has been sent to the New York area to see if they need to do a purge.  After a bit of a fight Verity escapes to inform her family of his very unwelcome presence in her city.  Later at a ballroom competition she runs into Dominic again, this time he asks her if she has been helping cryptids leave, as he has noticed a marked drop in the population. Verity is confused as she attributed the disappearances to Dominic's Covenant cleansing.  Together, along with Verity's psychic cuckoo of a cousin discover a sleeping dragon.  This is exciting and a wee bit terrifying as dragons were thought to be extinct, long ago exterminated by the Covenant.  Verity uses her contacts in the cryptid community to find out more information. Dominic tags along, shocked to find out that most cryptids are not only sentient, but posses personalities, feelings, and other traits only attributed to humans.  Apparently in their quest to exterminate all non-humans the Covenant keeps up a pretty hard line of propaganda dwelling only on the potential cryptid danger to humans.  After a narrow escape from a new type of lizard man monster that neither of the two had seen before, Verity and Dominic get it on.  Afterwords they get into a huge argument, both of them realizing they will never agree on the way cryptid/human interactions should be dealt with.  Verity tells Candy, the dragon princess about the

sleeping dragon, causing Verity to be "invited" to the Nest. There Verity discovers the dragon princesses are actually the female of the dragon species, evolved and adapted to fit in with humans.  The supposedly extinct dragons were only the male of the species.  The females have been able to reproduce and keep at least the female side of the species alive by parthenogenesis, but they can't keep it up forever.  They eventually figure out that it is all unmarried females disappearing and that a snake cult is trying to wake and control the dragon through virgin sacrifices (note that this is not the way to wake a dragon up, but silly stupid humans don't know that).  When one of the cryptid girls that Verity and Dominic had talked to goes missing Verity takes to the sewers to find her.  Unfortunately the girl is dead, and Verity herself makes a very narrow escape.  She runs into Dominic who takes the death of the cryptid girl to heart, realizing that he cannot just blindly kill all cryptids he offers to go get the body while Verity goes to work to warn the other girls.  At the club Verity, Candy and Istas a Waheela get ambushed by the lizard men.  Candy gets away but Istas and Verity are taken to become virgin sacra fices to the sleeping dragon.  After a bloody battle won with the help of Dominic and Sarah (Verity's cousin) who had been summoned by Candy the dragon wakes up.  He and Candy have a moment and the dragon turns out to be very nice.  Dominic and the dragon make a deal that as long as they leave each other alone, one will not hunt the other.  Dominic agrees to keep Verity's presence in New York a secret and not hunt harmless cryptids.  Verity goes back to dancing, waitressing and cryptid keeping and the start of a new series is born.

I really enjoyed this book, it was funny, the pacing was good, the characters were all well written, just a good book overall.  Verity is how you write a kick-ass girl.  I know sometimes I complain about the trope of a kick-ass girl, but that is because that seems to be all there is to them.  With Verity it works for a couple of reasons a) She was raised to be a kick-ass girl, so she has a reason to be, it's what keeps her alive. b) She is not a perfect kick-ass girl, she has her believable weaknesses, the biggest being that sometimes she believes to much in her own kick-assness and forgets that other people/cryptids are capable of kicking her ass. c) There is a lot more to her then just her kick-assness. I like how this is written in a kind of classic, almost comic book style, there is fighting, supernatural creatures, and even the occasional skimpy clothing...ok there is a lot of skimpy clothing, but even that serves a purpose.  I think one of my favorite things in the whole book (besides the Aeslin mice), which I have noticed in the authors other books as well is that there is a good bit of actual science in the story.  Now a lot of books would either skip this part, or get really bogged

down in the details, but Ms. McGuire manages to stuff a lot of it in without once slowing down the pace of the book.  I also liked how she used science to point out some of the problems with the hard line Covenant thinking.  In science what makes a gorilla a protected animal, but a Sasquatch a cryptid in need of extermination?  A Madhura who for all intents and purposes is a sweet loving human who just happens to be able to slow decay and bleed sweet smelling blood needs to be killed, but a homicidal human is to be protected?  I also like how Dominic does not have an instant change of heart...not even after he sleeps with Verity.  His change is gradual and comes about as he learns about real life away from the sheltered, propaganda ridden walls of the Covenant.  He also does not come all the way around to Verity's way of thinking, just becomes a bit more tolerant of it, also he call her insufferable woman a lot, which for some reason reminds me of Pride and Prejudice, which is always a good thing. The only things I didn't like are super nit picky.  I wanted to see more of Verity's dancing, she talks about it a lot, but we only really get to see her do it twice.  I want to know more about Verity's family, they seem fascinating, but I think that we will get more of that in later books.  I am definitely looking forward to reading the next books in the series!
Why do tropes sometimes work and sometimes suck patootie?  What cryptid most intrigues you?  What do you think defines a cryptid versus "normal" nature?  Do you sometimes just love a kick-ass book?  Do you think that I really like to type kick-ass?