An unusual entry in the long running InCryptid series is narrated from the viewpoint of the Price family's dead babysitter Mary. There are a whole lot of characters to keep track of, which can get confusing, and Mary's narration seems to ramble on at times, but overall an interesting and enjoyable read.

Aftermarket Afterlife by Seanan McGuire is the thirteenth book in the InCryptid, and the first focusing on Mary- the family's babysitting ghost. For those that enjoy audiobooks, the audiobook editions of this series are very well done (including this title).

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: what happens to a babysitting ghost if she loses the people she's promised to protect?

Aftermarket Afterlife offers readers exactly what they want and expect from the continuation of this series. I really enjoyed getting to see the characters and plot points of the last twelve books come together here. We get Mary's history and huge movements in the larger story lines. There is so much going on here- and fair warning for very attached readers- not everything turns out the way you want or are prepared for. This is very much for fans of the series- for whom this is an absolute much read (or listen), but I do not recommend to newcomers to the series because there are just so many threads coming together here that they would be beyond lost.

Obviously not an unbiased review since I represent this title, but NetGalley needs me to leave feedback to keep my ratio up so five stars it is! And pleased to say the series will be continuing strong and moving to Tor for future books.

Seanan McGuire never disappoints and this is another exciting, entertaining and well plotted addition to this series.
Great world building and excellent storytelling as usual.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Seanan McGuire continues her In Cryptid series with Aftermarket Afterlife. Mary is a ghost and a permanent babysitter for the entire Price family and their relatives. The Prices protect the North American cryptids aka dragons, harpies and other supernatural beings, from the attacking Covenant forces. What happens if Mary loses the people she babysits? How can the Prices get the attackers to back off. The cost in lives lost is high and growing. Also Mary has been cheating with her babysitter duties by extending her reach beyond the family and t he spirit of Earth is concerned. Read this great fantasy.

TW/CW: Violence, death, fantasy violence, discussion of grief and loss

REVIEW: I received a free copy of this book NetGalley and DAW and am voluntarily writing an honest review.

Aftermarket Afterlife is the 13th book in Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid series, which follows a family of cryptozoologists and the creatures they fight and protect.

This book is a solid entry in that series, following the Prices’ long time ghost!babysitter Mary Dunleavy.

Compared to the other books in the series, this book is pretty dark. There are some shocking moments that I definitely didn’t see coming, and some losses that really hit hard. Because Mary is a ghost, there’s a lot of talk of death and the book deals a great deal with grief and loss. Like all the rest of McGuire’s books, though, this book is very well written and keeps the reader enthralled. This is a great addition to the series and I definitely recommend it to fans of urban fiction!

Aftermarket Afterlife is the thirteenth book in the Incryptid series and I'd like to say it was lucky number thirteen but I struggled to finish it. I will say I have read so many of Seanan McGuire's books and short stories (somewhere in the realm of 60ish stories) and usually they are a great read for me. They are normally full of cool creatures and concepts and imagination that I wrap myself up in them and don't come out until I'm to the other side. But Aftermarket Afterlife is a lot darker and gloomier than most of the books of this series and as such I felt weighed down and depressed most of the story and started looking for reasons not to get back to reading. I just wasn't in a good place in my life to enjoy the type of story this turned out to be. I seem to be very alone in my assessment of this story, almost every other review sings this books praises, so take this all with a grain of salt - it could just be me. This cannot be read as a stand-alone, the entire series should be read in order.

Mary Dunlavy has haunted the Price family for generations as a babysitter or caretaker ghost. She died on a crossroads and she made a deal. Mary would broker deals for the crossroads IF she could still be there for any of her family when they needed her and her family would always come first. It had originally just been her father that she meant to be there for but when they placed little toddler Alice in her arms, something happened and she became attached to the Price/Healy families as a babysitter ghost.

Now the crossroads are gone and Mary only has her duties as babysitter to the Price/Healy families. When they call she hears and she can pop into where ever her charge is. It doesn't matter it they are grown up now, they will always be her kids. She is just preparing to help them through a reunion that seems to have a lot of charged emotional baggage associated to it with Alice and her long, lost in another dimension, husband Thomas when everything changes and the Covenant of St. George brings the attack fully to the Americas to flush out the cryptozoologist family that has helped hide or protect the "monsters" living here.

Mary will be instrumental in helping the family as distance really doesn't matter to a ghost. If one of the family calls her she can be there. Sarah too will play a big role since spacetime are currently just playthings to her and she is one of the only members of the family who will be able to travel to where ever she is needed to assist. We will get to see almost every main member of the family who has had a place in the series as they fight off the Covenant and figure out a way to make the cost too high to focus on them.

My issues with this book is it was far more depressing than others I've read from Seanan McGuire. Maybe after the 'events' the racked the Price/Healy families when The Covenant attacked various friends and family members I was supposed to feel rage and just want revenge. But, there are causalities in this book that hit so close to home and some brutal fallout, that the story got lost in the grief I was feeling. There was so much fallout and grief that it was so hard to climb out of to even start to focus on the story and continue. I guess in one way it is great the McGuire made me feel so much for these characters and the mice after twelve other books and numerous short stories, but also bad that I couldn't let any of that feeling go throughout the rest of the story. After feeling like the last book was a kind of happy ending in this one we see how not all of our characters are doing okay and then we lose some of them making it even worse.

Let me state that I have loved almost every book in this series. The writing for Aftermarket Afterlife could have been edited a little better as Mary talks about her bond to her charges and how they will always be her kids so many times. I get it, she is tied to all of the family and sees the family tree branches in her mind. She discussed how some of the family is blood, some marries in and some is adopted in. Mary goes through so many times why Sarah who is adopted in shows up to her as family. Same with other members, it was really repetitive and could have been streamlined a bit better.

Mary is the a lynchpin to the family. She tried to protect them from the crossroads, themselves and the covenant of St. George. Now she will help to join the fight to make coming for her family cost too much to the Covenant and get revenge for what they have done.

Overall I have loved this series and this is one book that just didn't work for me. I still highly recommend the entire series though as it is completely interesting, unique and full of wonderful moments.

For those looking for a long running fantasy series to binge, than you will want to pick up Seanan McGuire's excellent Incryptid series about an extended biological and found family of cryptozoologist that study and protect everything from boogeymen to dragons. The series has followed various members of the extended Price clan which includes a ballroom dancer/parkour enthusiast, a circus performer/fire sorcerer, a wasplike human mimic who can travel through time and dimensions using the power of math, and more quirky and yet endearing characters. 

Thanks to some supernatural blood being mixed into their lineage the family is known for their quirky luck in previous novels. Aftermarket Afterlife is the story of Mary, a ghost who once worked for the Crossroads brokering losing deals with desperate people, but now has made babysitting for the Price family her sole focus. Readers of previous novel will enjoy seeing the Price family from Mary's unique perspective of both perpetual teen and caregiver to the generations. 

This installment is an action packed, climactic one focusing on the battle between the Price family and the Covenant of St. George who believe that all incryptids, even the peaceful ones, should be exterminated. Like previous volumes it includes a short story at the end, that gives another perspective to events taking place in the main novel. This novel had some tough losses that showed even those who can manipulate luck may not always win every fight.

One of the many things I love about Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid series is the consistent change in first person narrators. Within the context of a multigenerational family saga that just happens to also be a wonderfully original urban fantasy series, McGuire works to find the most appropriate narrator for each stage of the story. Throw-caution-to-the-wind sibling Verity Price started the series off, followed by her calm-and-cool brother Alex. When the narratorial duties shifted to youngest sibling Antimony for three books, we started to get a sense of the burdens of being a Price. Two books narrated by cousin Sarah moved the series from straight-up urban fantasy to multidimensional adventure, which set the stage for two books narrated by family matriarch Alice during her hunt for long-missing patriarch Thomas. Now, it’s family babysitter (and resident ghost) Mary Dunlavy’s turn. Mary is one of my favorite characters in the series so when she was announced as the next narrator, I was extremely excited. I was not disappointed in the story Mary had to tell, and she is the perfect narrator for this part of the family’s story.

As a ghost, Mary has guided each generation of the Price-Healy clan to adulthood successfully (if not always harm-free) starting with Alice, while at the same time juggling her responsibilities as negotiator and advocate for humans making deals with the otherworldly Crossroads. While each narrator of the series so far has mentioned the difficult position Mary was in balancing these two roles, and while the family understands how Mary’s existence has changed since the Crossroads were destroyed, we as readers have never really been fully privy to Mary’s own thoughts on the matter before now. There are a number of heartbreaking scenes where Mary comes to terms with her own trauma (including, I believe, our first real detailed look at Mary’s death and subsequent first encounter with the Crossroads), as well as scenes in which we are reminded just how much Mary loves her adopted family and how much the knowledge that she will “outlive” (for lack of a better term) her charges pains her. At the same time, Mary is exploring her new freedom from the Crossroads and learning what new limits she may have. Given that her current crop of infant and toddler charges are scattered across the country (Verity’s family is in New York City, Alex’s is in Ohio, while most of the rest of the adults in the family are in the Portland Oregon area), Mary definitely needs to know what these new limits may be, and how far she can stretch the concept of “family.” She does get answers to these questions, although they may not necessarily be the answers she wants.

Of course, the book is not just about Mary and her new existence, as important as that may be to readers like me who absolutely love the character. The war between the Prices (protectors of North America’s Cryptid population) and The Covenant of St. George (looking to purge said population out of existence) is heating up. The Covenant is on the offensive, seeking to vanquish the Prices and their allies once and for all. Which makes Mary the perfect narrator for this volume, as she is one of the few family members who can move cross-country almost instantaneously – which she is called upon to do more than once or twice, pushing up against those potential new limits.

Fair warning: this is a book about war, and Seanan McGuire is an author who understands that no one (individual or family or organization) who experiences war emerges from it unscathed. There is tragedy in this book (no, I won’t spoil exactly what that tragedy is) but I feel that long-time readers should be warned that terrible things happen. I cried. Multiple times. (New readers really should not be starting the series with this book – it’s number 13 for crying out loud and this isn’t the type of series where the characters reset to the status quo at the end of each adventure. Go read the books in order!)

As usual, there is a bonus novella included. I can’t say much about it without spoiling events of the main novel. Suffice to say, it continues the novel’s ruminations on trauma and grief and the way we process and begin healing from both, and it is both heartbreaking and beautiful.



I received an electronic advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Wonderful addition to the Incryptid series that allowed us to catch up with our favorite cryptozoologist family. I recommend re-reading the entire series (not that you have to) before reading this book!!!

The InCryptid series has twice been a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Series, and Aftermarket Afterlife proves why this is still one of the best and most popular series running.
Mary Dunlavy has been the Price family babysitter for generations. She doesn't have trouble keeping up with her charges even though they are scattered across the country (and sometimes across dimensions) because, well, she's a ghost. Just as the Price family is all back together, including Alice and her decades-lost husband, the Covenant of St. George launches an all out attack on the Prices and the cryptid community in North America.

The Price family and allies are outmanned and very much in danger. It's going to take a lot of skill and some clever thinking to survive this. Mary Dunlavy is facing a question she's never had to ponder before: What happens to a babysitting ghost if all the people she's supposed to protect are gone?

Each book in the InCryptid series tells a complete story and is told from one viewpoint character. I've jumped around a bit in the series so I was familiar with all the characters and a lot of the history, but most people will want to read the series in order. This world is filled with many fascinating cryptid races and familiarity with them builds throughout the series as well.

Mary Dunlavy is an interesting viewpoint character, both in relation to her powers and duties as a babysitting ghost and in her history with the Crossroads. Her ability to move to her charges in different parts of the country allow for direct interaction with many individual family members that is not always possible in some of the other novels. Her knowledge and abilities are a huge asset even considering her limitations compared to some of the other family members.

Seanan McGuire is such a skilled writer that her style pulls you deeply and effortlessly into this world. Her characters are varied but relatable, particularly in their passion and determination. Ruminations on life and death, particularly from a ghost, offer a unique perspective.

There is plenty of thrilling action and the pace moves along briskly. With the escalation of war with the Covenant, there is less levity in this story than some of the others along with some truly devastating heartbreak. The book tells a complete story, but there are still loose ends and consequences to be dealt with in the future.

I do enjoy spending any time I can with the Aeslin mice, which belong on the Mount Rushmore of greatest literary creatures ever invented.

Another great entry in an outstanding series.

I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher.

With a unique mix of humor and tragedy, the Price family is back in the latest in the InCryptid series. I don't know if it is meant as the end to the series, but this feels like the end to the series: huge conflict, tragic losses and, eventually, success. If you've read the InCryptid series up to this point, you have to read this. If you haven't, you'll probably be lost and should start at book one in the series.

Aftermarket Afterlife takes a bit to find it's stride, but once it does, it's phenomenal.

It's definitely time for Mary to get a POV, and it was great to have that here, especially after how opaque she often was in other stories. She got to be a rock through this story of a time where things were ramping up for the worst case scenarios -- this is a hard read, nearing the end of a long storyline and there are losses in it. The only downside of this is that I kind of wish there were two POVs in this one. Because Mary has her limits, and is called hither and yon constantly,w e miss a lot of scenes I really wanted to see (on the less spoilery side, Sally and James meeting again! I wish I could have seen that. There were others as well, but those are much bigger spoilers).

There is also a lot of exposition early on -- pretty much the whole family is together and we're not just as readers being reminded of who everyone is but getting Mary's personal extended history with them and their abilities and so on. But the plot kicks in earlier than in the previous novel and once it starts, the book becomes nearly impossible to put down. Really an excellent read, and one that doesn't pull its punches.

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.

"I changed your diapers when you were a baby and I'm going to change them again when you're too old to remember who I am."

Aftermarket Afterlife raises the stakes to a level that I don't think we've seen in this series before. Most of this book felt like I was being ping-ponged between different family crises, which to be fair is probably how Mary feels. All of these people from Alice downward are Mary's kids, and she'll be damned if she ever lets them forget it.

So, this book was... chaotic. It's also very much the 13th book in a series - usually an Incryptid book focuses on one subset of the family, but this one connected everyone, and there were so many cameos from side characters from all the past plotlines that for once I was actually glad for the recaps that I'm usually annoyed by.

I loved seeing all the Consequences for past plotlines, but there were also downsides to this "preparing for war" book. Namely, I'm not really sure how much higher the stakes can go at this point, how much higher we can take this series before it feels like "we defeated God but then God's more powerful evil brother showed up".

I also loved that this was a Mary book, which meant some neat ghost adventures, starlight and all, and Mary dealing with her afterlife changing a major way after the crossroads disappeared. She has her family, but the Rules have changed, and in fact they are still changing, and she might not like the way they end up.

Still, another downside of all the adoptions and new kids is that, well... the family has grown too large. This book definitely deals with that too. Fucking ouch.

Overall, this was a difficult book to read, and it made me uncertain about my will to continue reading the series. But it still had enough things I loved that I'll probably find myself coming back anyway.