Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #2
Rating: ★★★★☆
Cryptid, noun:
1. Any creature whose existence has been suggested but not proven scientifically. Term officially coined by cryptozoologist John E. Wall in 1983.
2. That thing that’s getting ready to eat your head.
3. See also: “monster.”
The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity–and humanity from them. Enter Verity Price. Despite being trained from birth as a cryptozoologist, she’d rather dance a tango than tangle with a demon, and when her work with the cryptid community took her to Manhattan, she thought she would finally be free to pursue competition-level dance in earnest. It didn’t quite work out that way…
But now, with the snake cult that was killing virgins all over Manhattan finally taken care of, Verity is ready to settle down for some serious ballroom dancing—until her on-again, off-again, semi-boyfriend Dominic De Luca, a member of the monster-hunting Covenant of St. George, informs her that the Covenant is on their way to assess the city’s readiness for a cryptid purge. With everything and everyone she loves on the line, there’s no way Verity can take that lying down.
Alliances will be tested, allies will be questioned, lives will be lost, and the talking mice in Verity’s apartment will immortalize everything as holy writ–assuming there’s anyone left standing when all is said and done. It’s a midnight blue-light special, and the sale of the day is on betrayal, deceit…and carnage.
Wow! This book gripped me from the moment I started and did not let go! Any of the issues that I had in the first book melted away here. If I thought the stakes were high in the first book, and the drama intense….well, it’s got nothing on Midnight Blue-Light Special.
The Covenant is in town. And as soon as I realized that, I knew that it was going to be one hell of a dangerous and bad ride. Because Dominic is still struggling with letting go of everything he’s ever known and diving into not wholly understood new waters. Verity is still trying to protect the (many) cryptids in New York. And the cryptids – for the most part – are just trying to live. And in walks the Covenant to decide if it’s time to do a purge, where they go around killing every cryptid they can manage to find in a bloody clean-up of the city.
Not only are they a danger to all the cryptids that Verity’s dedicated to keeping safe – they’re a danger to Verity and her entire family, whom they view as the worst sort of traitors. Luckily for the Prices’, the Covenant has pretty much assumed them dead, or just left them alone, for a while.
That’s all about to be put in jeopardy here. The plot and the danger is incredibly intense and suspenseful. I was on the edge of my seat, biting my nails, hoping that everything was going to be okay, that everyone was going to be okay.
This book brings back many of the characters that we met in the first book, introduces us to some intriguing new characters, and develops some others – who are quickly becoming favorites. Every small bit of information that I got just made me eager for more. The characters, their histories, their powers, their personalities and interconnections….it’s absolutely fascinating. And the way that Seanan McGuire pieces it all together makes it feel real. That’s the best compliment I can give.
This series keeps getting better, and I can’t wait to dive into book 3, Half-Off Ragnarok. In the meantime I’ve got a couple dozen short stories to tide me over in this world. Thank goodness, because I don’t think I’ll ever get enough.
Leave a Reply