Backpacking through Bedlam - Seanan McGuire

Backpacking through Bedlam

By Seanan McGuire

  • Release Date: 2023-03-07
  • Genre: Fantasy
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 65 Ratings

Description

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

Reunion, noun:
1. The state of being united again.

Reconciliation, noun:
1. An act of reconciling, as when former enemies agree to an amiable truce.
2. The process of making consistent or compatible.
3. See also “impossible.”
 
Alice Price-Healy gave up her life for fifty years to focus completely on the search for her missing husband. The danger of focus like that is that it leaves little room for thinking about what happens after…and now that she’s finally managed to find Thomas, she has no idea what she’s supposed to do next. The fact that he comes with a surrogate daughter who may or may not have some connection to Alice’s recently adopted grandson is just icing on the complicated cake.

So the three of them are heading for the most complicated place in the universe: they’re going home.

But things on Earth have changed while Alice, Thomas, and Sally have been away. The Covenant of St. George, antagonized by Verity’s declaration of war and Sarah’s temporary relocation of an entire college campus, is trying to retake North America from the cryptids and cryptozoologists who’ve been keeping the peace for the past hundred years. And they’re starting in New York.

Alice and company have barely been back for an hour before the Ocean Lady and the Queen of the Routewitches are sending them to New York to help, and they find themselves embroiled in the politics of dragons, kidnappings, and of course, the most dangerous people of all: family.

Getting “back to normal” may be the hardest task Alice has undertaken yet.

Reviews

  • Long Road Home…

    5
    By Shaegrey
    So satisfying to have reached this bright edged point of a stars sharp tip disguised as ‘dirt path heading onto the porch’ moment, an ending of sorts in the spiraling arc of a single arm in the whirling galaxy of stories this Family has made such lives on. Thank you so very much, Seanan McGuire. You bring us into other people’s living moments so clear and cleanly, I wouldn’t wonder if an Aeslin colony once offered an ancestor of yours a transfusion in a dire instance, one mouse sized drop from any willing… and somehow, in HealyPrice fashion, that sillily given love stayed truly in the heartblood of your line. I’ve been dreaming and dreading the reunion of Alice and Thomas since I met the family, to the point where subliminally I felt the kids books early in the series should hurry up and get out of the way so we could learn WHAT HAPPENED?!? quickly followed by AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED!?! Fortunately for me and the rest of your readers, you (and your whole Team family) truly know best how to tell the tail, (I mean tale! Truly no pun intended) and you made me fall in love with them all. Sometimes reluctantly, grudgingly, but family is Family, and I too feel they are mine to protect… and to smack around when necessary. Sometimes they even seem to listen, making me sniff, shrug and nod, turning my face away from the page to hide semi reluctant approval in a smile. The multi layered/textured yarn you’ve spun together has warmed, charmed, infuriated, delighted, ripped harsh laughs (some with tears) to tickled burbling giggling hummms from, and positively enraptured, me, for ever so very many hours of days and nights. I can’t wait for you to bring all the angles of perspective from so many disparate eyes and hearts through so much time into focus for us again. The universe awaits another glittering spray of stardust that holds seeds of life brought to personhood, as you share light from behind your eyes transmuted into words on pages that hold worlds, Lady. Worlds beyond imagination (at least my imagination) until you take us there, and our own essential stardust makings sift together with the life and lives you have revealed or created. I can’t wait!! I never can… yet I always do. And with gratitude every time, I will fan open the cover and pages to reach through the portal you have found (or forcefully created and constantly reopen) to this world and this Family of choice and blood whom I deeply adore. Well done, Woman! Your cats are so proud of you, whatever their demeanor. I’m sending huge gentle iridescent bubbles, crafted with light, love, and the warm strength of Lady Luck cradling you and yours gently in her hands, I send them drifting to you in True Thanks, and blessings in turn for all you have shared with us, heart and soul. And it’s not ALL about selfishly needing you well and writing for decades more, I swear…. Blessed be, Sister. ~Shae D.
  • Holy wow!

    5
    By casualchaos
    It just keeps getting better! Can’t wait to see everyone get back together and the fireworks that ensue!! Another magnificent book in a truly fantabulous series!

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