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.

Aftermarket Afterlife is the 13th (not counting a patreon only prequel novel) official novel in Seanan McGuire's urban fantasy series, Incryptid. The series follows the Price/Healy family, who tries to protect cryptids (sentient or non-sentient species whose existence isn't believed by science) from normal unknowing humans...as well as other knowing and more malevolent humans who hunt such cryptids, such as the worldwide organization known as the Covenant of St. George. The series has featured Cryptids from various parts of the world, although is mostly set in North America, and each arc in the series has tended to follow a different member of the family as its first person protagonist. In Aftermarket Afterlife, the series switches its' central character/narrator to Mary, the family's babysitting ghost who used to work for the malevolent supernatural force known as the Crossroads.

And Aftermarket Afterlife is honestly the most grim and devastating novel in the series, as McGuire uses the novel to tie up seeming plot holes and loose ends in ways that take away multiple books' past happy endings...and result in our main protagonists suffering losses like never before. Mary has to deal with not only the fact that there are two new baby/infant members of the family (and that the return of the family grandfather threatens to overturn family harmony) but also a full on attack by the covenant on multiple fronts, such that the lives of her charges and the cryptids and people they care about are in serious danger. The result is a novel where not everyone will make it out alive - and I'm not just talking about the babysitting ghost protagonist - and it is downright brutal. InCryptid is often a series which has had plenty of fun moments even amidst dire danger, and well there's a lot less of that fun here....but the novel works pretty well and moves the series' main arc significantly forward...so I expect we hopefully will have more fun stuff to come in the future.

Spoilers for Books 1-12 are unmarked below:

Plot Summary:
Mary Dunlavy just wanted to take care of her family - even after death. But for decades she has done so at the cost of also working for the malevolent force known as the Crossroads. Now the Crossroads is gone, so all she is a Babysitting (or Caretaker, as she'd prefer to think of it) Ghost, which should make things much easier right? Well, not when that the family she lovingly haunts is the Price Family, whose members (by birth or by adoption) keep putting themselves in danger trying to save all the Cryptids of the World. And right now should be one of her hardest jobs yet, keeping the family together in peaceful harmony as Alice and Thomas Price come home for good (along with adopted child Sally), despite the hatred of their daughter Jane and the mixed feelings of everyone else.

But before the family reunion can really devolve into the chaos everyone expects, something worse begins to happen: the Covenant launches a full on assault on all of the Price Family's allies in North America all at once - whether that be in the dragon's lair in New York, where youngest Price Olivia is residing, or at the Campbell Family Carnival among which several of the Prices grew up. To save them, the Prices will need to be in multiple places at once across the country....and only Mary is capable of zipping in and out at will. But it's a ghostly power that Mary is struggling to use these days without the Crossroads behind her.....

But without Mary's help, the Cryptids of North America...and the Prices themselves may be numbered. And even with her help, Mary may undergo more losses at once than she has ever experienced, a nightmare beyond her greatest imagining. A nightmare that will drive her to go to the limits of her ability and may finally answer the question: what will it take to finally get rid of Mary Dunlavy, Crossroads/Babysitting Ghost, for good?


To be honest, a number of the more recent InCryptid Books have ended on happy endings that haven't really made sense to me. For example, book 2 in the series ended with the heroes using Sarah's power to make Covenant operatives think that there wasn't a need for a purge of New York. But Book 12, Backpacking Through Bedlam, ended with Alice, Thomas and Sally helping to kill off or otherwise dispose of 20 Covenant members in New York, as if that would solve the problem, and just sort of left it at that like it would be a resolution and the Covenant wouldn't send more agents who were even better armed. Book 10, Calculated Risks ended with Sarah accidentally erasing Artie's entire mind in order to get everyone back to our dimension and had her manage to save Artie - and get a happy ending - by telepathically using all of her memories and the memories of others of Artie and putting those into his head to reform his person. But of course a person is more than other's memories of them, so surely this wouldn't actually restore Artie, right? Similarly the end of Antimony's arc had her getting away from the Covenant Scion who wanted to recruit her, but surely he wouldn't be okay with her just getting away?

Aftermarket Afterlife decides that all these "happy" endings weren't real after all and uses that to construct its terrifying conflict. So of course the Covenant isn't done with their attacks and instead launches one with even more overwhelming force across North America, targeting multiple Price Allies at a time. Artie ISN'T restored to his old self by Sarah's actions, and he now goes by Arthur and is clearly not right, without the emotions he often should have, to the discomfort of both his family and he himself. And Leonard Cunningham, the covenant scion who was after Annie, well he's back and still wants her desperately and is willing to do deadly things to get her. In some sense this use of continuity is impressive, but the way it essentially reverses a bunch of happy endings in prior books makes those other books suddenly have a bad taste. Add in the fact that this book doesn't deal with new Cryptid communities or species and that it doesn't really have a lot of the fun humor of other books in the series, and you might expect that I'd really not love this book, as it misses some of my favorite parts of InCryptid.

However, Aftermarket Afterlife still works and it works really really well, despite all of the above and some brutal spoilers I won't go into here (other than to say do not necessarily expect all your favorite characters to get out alive). It helps that Mary's voice comes together really well as she suddenly faces the possible extinction of her own family, whose love is the very reason for her continuing existence, and finds herself drawing deeper and deeper into her power to try to do anything she can to save them. After all she's just a ghost who can't really physically affect the material world too much, what can she really do? Well a lot actually...but she has limits and she runs to and through them in the course of this book...but of course she does, because as the book makes clear in her voice this is who she is, the caretaker of her family. The continuity I mentioned above also works really well, as do the character relationships and whatnot within those continuities, which makes everyone's interactions and reactions work very very well.

And the story end in a way that not only probably ends Mary's arc at one book, but also probably finally gets us into a place where the InCryptid story can move forward from the plot arc that begun way back at the end of book 5 (Chaos Choreography), where the family's biggest focus was dealing with the fact that the Covenant suddenly knew they were still out there and became obsessed with killing them and all of North America's Cryptids. We're not done with the Covenant for sure, but perhaps now we have some breathing room, with such breathing room earned though terrible stakes, and maybe we can get back to the fun stuff in the future. Again, even without much of the fun quirks of this series (and there's a little bit of it here) in this book, it works since I care so much about the characters, and most readers will too if they're 13 books in. But It'd be nice to have a more relaxing lovable dangerous adventure with new Cryptids again, and this book paves the way I think...(Not that McGuire's ability to devastate her long series protagonists should ever be underestimated).

This is the 13th book in the InCryptid series and absolutely not the book to pick up if you haven’t read any of them.

Our narrator for this book is Mary and she’s the only one who could tell this story as it needed to be told with the Price-Healys spread across the country. The entire family features in this book and it was both wonderful and painful. The Covenant of St. George has finally responded to the events of Chaos Choreography, waging war on both the family and the cryptids of North America. It was violent, it was brutal and oh, how it hurt.

The mice are sad, Seanan! You made the Aeslin mice sad!

I loved the way that this book was able to tell us more about Mary and to let us explore different members of the family much easier with the use of her powers. It was nice to be able to check in on everyone and to learn about the new family members they have created. That being said, the stakes were definitely up in this book and the loses really hit me hard. I think they were well-explored and made sense with how serious everything has gotten, and I enjoyed this book more than the previous two. I think Antimony remains my favorite narrator, with Sarah being a close second. Seeing through the eyes of Mary was definitely a new experience that I think fit this exciting moment in the story of the Price family.

Thanks to Netgalley and DAW for the prerelease copy. Below is my honest review.

I can't. There aren't words. I am struggling to write this review. Was the book good? Of course it was. It was five stars. It's Seanan-freaking-McGuire, so of course it was good. It was great. But...

It was also devastating. I wasn't prepared for this, even a little bit. I know Seanan can be brutal, but wow. WOW.

I don't want to spoil anything, so let me give you the quick rundown: All of the series leading up to this point has been about moving pieces into place. And those pieces? They're moved. And now, there is war. And neither the Covenant nor the Price-Healy clan are going to pull their punches.

Prepare yourself before reading this.

Also, this is one of those books that you REALLY need the context of the rest of the series going in, so do yourself the HUGE favor of reading all the fantastic books leading up to this one (including the three Ghost Road novels too, please and thank you). You won't regret it... though you might regret the trauma this book is likely to cause. *breaks down weeping*

HIGHLY recommended.

Representation: 4 (Mary is implied Aro/Ace)
Emotion: 3 (Did I cry? Yes. Was it at the right times? No.)
Characters: 4
Plot: 2
Pacing: 2
Romance: 0

Overall Score: 2.5 Stars (Rounded up to 3)

I honestly considered giving the book a 1 star because it kind of ruined the series for me. This is a series I used to re-read before every new book (until around book 10, when I just didn't have time to do that.) But because of some of the plot decisions, I don't think I'll be able to re-read it again or recommend it to anyone without disclaimers about "maybe don't read past book 11 or 12"

But I decided that it did provide entrainment and despite my Personal upset, it's not a bad book, so I would look at the elements and decide the star rating from there.

What I liked: Mary is an interesting protagonist, and her ability to hop around between family members provided a cool connection we've rarely seen in these books, since everyone is so spread out.

What I wanted more of: the family reunion, romance of any variety (I know these are more Urban Fantasy than romance, but all previous books had a romance of some kind, so it was an unexpected let down, and Certain Events made the lack of new romance worse), and definitely more closure. The last few pages were super rushed and I'm confused on if this is the last book or not.

If there Are other books in the series, I may not read them.

"Seanan McGuire's New York Times-bestselling and Hugo Award-nominated urban fantasy InCryptid series continues with the thirteenth book following the Price family, cryptozoologists who study and protect the creatures living in secret all around us.

Mary Dunlavy didn't intend to become a professional babysitter. Of course, she didn't intend to die, either, or to become a crossroads ghost. As a babysitting ghost, she's been caring for the Price family for four generations, and she's planning to keep doing the job for the better part of forever.

With her first charge finally back from her decades-long cross-dimensional field trip, with a long-lost husband and adopted daughter in tow, it's time for Mary to oversee the world's most chaotic family reunion. And that's before the Covenant of St. George launches a full scale strike against the cryptids of Manhattan, followed quickly by an attack on the Campbell Family Carnival.

It's going to take every advantage and every ally they have for the Prices to survive what's coming--and for Mary, to avoid finding out the answer to a question she's never wanted to know: what happens to a babysitting ghost if she loses the people she's promised to protect?"

It's March so this should easily be her third book of the year... How is she so productive without sacrificing quality?