Installment Immortality

An InCryptid Novel, Book 14

De: Seanan McGuire

Narrado por: Emily Bauer

Seanan McGuire’s New York Times-bestselling and Hugo Award-nominated InCryptid series continues with a whirlwind adventure....

After four generations of caring for the Price family, Mary Dunlavy has more than earned a break from the ongoing war with the Covenant of St. George. Instead, what she's getting is a new employer in the form of the anima mundi, Earth's living soul made manifest, and a new assignment: to hunt down the Covenant agents on the East Coast and make them stop imprisoning America's ghosts.

All in a day's work for a phantom nanny, even one who'd really rather be teaching her youngest charges how to read.

One ghost can't take on the entire Covenant without backup, which is how she winds up on a road trip with the still-mourning Elsie and the slowly collapsing Arthur, both of whom are reeling in their own way from the loss of their mother. New allies and new enemies await in Worcester, Massachusetts, where the path of the haunting leads.

With the anima mundi demanding results and Mary's newfound freedom at stake, it's down to Mary to make sure that everyone gets out of this adventure alive.

It's been a long afterlife, but Mary Dunlavy's not ready to be exorcised quite yet.

©2025 Seanan McGuire (P)2025 Macmillan Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Deeply satisfying.... Fans will not be disappointed."—Publishers Weekly

"InCryptid continues to be a satisfying ride, with room for plenty of good times along with the danger; the risks keep climbing, but the payoff promises to be worth it."—Booklist

Death, ghosts and revenge

I love immersing myself in the stories of the Price-Healeys, the hidden world of magic and the Incryptids (non-humans) hiding in plain sight. Once again I fell directly into the story from the first page and was unable to stop until the last page. This installation of the saga is again told from the ghost babysitter, Mary Dunlavy’s, perspective. Mary died 85 years ago but thanks to a bargain with the crossroads has been taking care of her “family” since then. Mary’s family believes Incryptids, who are not harmful to humans or other species, should be protected. The enemy is the Covenant who are fanatical monster hunters believing that incryptids should be exterminated. This book picks up where the last book left off. After the Covenant came to North America to hunt down the Price family and killed two of them, the Price family struck back at the headquarters in England. Mary helped with the bombing but got caught in the blast. Now the Covenant is hunting ghosts to punish the “ghost” that hurt them and the anima mundi (the earth’s soul) has asked Mary to help stop them. The story includes what you’d expect from this genre - fighting, dangerous situations, paranormal creatures, evil actors, henchmen, loyal friends and family, tragic back stories, mystical coincidences, snark, deep emotions, and laughs. This book, like all the books in this series, made me laugh, cry, gasp, and grit my teeth. This is book 14 in the Incryptid series and while each book can be read as a standalone, to get the most enjoyment, the books are best read in order. I love this family and this series.

Emily Bauer did a fantastic job narrating the story and characters into life with enough change of inflection, tone and cadence to voice multiple characters quite convincingly.

A little more hopeful than the last book

The last installment of this series felt like a series of body blows, this one feels more hopeful and more enjoyable as a listen.

Can't believe how well this story transitioned from the last arc. Pov choice is a masterful demonstartion of craft.

possible spoilers:
Mary's pov is perfect because she's dropped back into the family 6 months post 'All the Things.' Her need to catch up allows for quick, but meaningful summations of how everyone is doing. Her existence as the family caretaker & a crossroads ghost provides a great place for explaining how the 'world magic system' will operate post-crossroads/under the Anima Mundi.
I really like her becoming a more fully realized character. We've taken her double life as a known, sometimes irritating, thing because that's how she exists in the family. Through her journey, we get to share her encounters with the completely separate legends of caretaker mary and crossroads mary, within the cryptid community at large.
As she parses this, we get so much more of her backstory and explore how it has shaped her; there are some very dark, unexpected facets of her we haven't even considered as part of the mary we've known so well this whole time.
The reader expects that she hates these things and wants nothing more than to expunge them now that the cross-roads are gone.
Here, I think, is where we start seeing Mary as who she truly is and wants to be.... and Mary is a badass.

Good installment

I enjoy the cryptic series and this is a solid addition to the storyline. If you are new give yourself the pleasure of starting from the beginning.

Repeated too many well known details

Not a bad story but the author repeats way too many well know details about characters and things that have happened in the story. It's book 14, we know the details, please stop telling us what we know.