InCryptid Series by Seanan McGuire In Order
Author photo by Beckett Gladney
InCryptid is Seanan McGuire’s Hugo Award-nominated urban fantasy series featuring an eccentric family of cryptozoologists who act as a buffer between the humans and the magical creatures living in secret around us. Examples of “cryptids” found in the series include werewolves, sirens, dragon princesses, swamp fairies, ghouls, cactus cats, questing beasts, tanuki, and more.
In 2010, McGuire was awarded the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer by the 2010 World Science Fiction Convention. Her novella “Every Heart A Doorway” received a Nebula Award, Hugo Award, and a Locus Award. Under the pen name Mira Grant, she writes science fiction and horror, including the political thriller/zombie series Newsflesh. In 2013, McGuire received a record five Hugo nominations in total, two for works as Grant and the other three under her own name.
Below, find a complete list to date of books in the InCryptid series…
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Article originally published May 2020. Revised February 2024.
Discount Armageddon (InCryptid #1)
REVIEW: “Wit, great descriptions, engaging characters, fast pace, and a whole lot of energy.—Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
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 is spending a year in Manhattan while she pursues her career in professional ballroom dance. Simple, right?
It would be, if it weren’t for the talking mice, the telepathic mathematicians, the asbestos supermodels, and the trained monster-hunter sent by the Price family’s old enemies, the Covenant of St. George. When a Price girl meets a Covenant boy, high stakes, high heels, and a lot of collateral damage are almost guaranteed.
To complicate matters further, local cryptids are disappearing, strange lizard-men are appearing in the sewers, and someone’s spreading rumors about a dragon sleeping underneath the city…
Midnight Blue-Light Special (InCryptid #2)
REVIEW: “In InCryptid Series Book One, Discount Armageddon, I really liked the world that Seanan McGuire built in this series. But I have to say that I liked Book Two even more.” (Speculative Chic)
The Price family has spent generations studying the monsters of the world, working to protect them from humanity—and to protect humanity from them. Verity Price is just trying to do her job, keeping the native cryptid population of Manhattan from getting into trouble, and doing a little ballroom dancing on the side.
Enter Dominic De Luca, an operative for the Covenant of St. George, and Verity’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. When he tells her that the Covenant is sending a full team to assess how ready the city is for a purge, Verity finds herself between a rock and a hard place. Stay, and risk her almost-certain death, or flee, and leave the cryptids of New York with nothing between them and the Covenant.
With allies and enemies on every side, and no safe way to turn, it’s going to take some quickstepping for Verity to waltz out of this one. There’s just one question on everyone’s mind: Is this the last dance for Verity Price?
Half-Off Ragnarok (InCryptid #3)
REVIEW: “While chock full of quality worldbuilding, realistic characters, and a double helping of sass, at its core Half-Off Ragnarok is a book about judging others according to stereotypes, how nurture can overcome nature, and the importance of family.” (The Ranting Dragon)
What do gorgons, basilisks, and frogs with feathers all have in common? They’re all considered mythological by modern science, and some people are working very hard to keep them that way.
Alexander Price is a member of a cryptozoological lineage that spans generations, and it’s his job to act as a buffer between the human and cryptid worlds—not an easy task when you’re dealing with women who has snakes in place of hair, little girls who may actually be cobras, and brilliant, beautiful Australian zookeepers. And then there’s the matter of the murders…
Alex thought he was choosing the easier career when he decided to specialize in non-urban cryptids, leaving the cities to his little sister, Verity. He had no idea what he was letting himself in for. It’s a family affair, and everyone—from his reanimated grandfather to his slightly broken telepathic cousin—is going to find themselves drawn in before things get any better.
Pocket Apocalypse (InCryptid #4)
REVIEW: “Fun cryptid mystery with a good balance of snark, tension, and tons of twists that I honestly didn’t see coming.” (All Things Urban Fantasy)
Alexander Price has survived gorgons, basilisks, and his own family—no small feat, considering that his family includes two telepaths, a reanimated corpse, and a colony of talking, pantheistic mice. Still, he’s starting to feel like he’s got the hang of things…at least until his girlfriend, Shelby Tanner, shows up, asking pointed questions about werewolves and the state of his passport.
From there, it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to Australia, a continent filled with new challenges, new dangers, and yes, rival cryptozoologists who don’t like their “visiting expert” very much. Australia is a cryptozoologist’s dream, filled with unique species and unique challenges.
Unfortunately, it’s also filled with Shelby’s family, who aren’t delighted by the length of her stay in America. And then there are the werewolves to consider: infected killing machines who would like nothing more than to claim the continent as their own. The continent which currently includes Alex. Survival is hard enough when you’re on familiar ground. Alex Price is very far from home, but there’s one thing he knows for sure: he’s not going down without a fight.
Chaos Choreography (InCryptid #5)
REVIEW: “Excellent addition to this series…a good mystery, tons of action, some awesome dancing, and some wonderful new characters (both human and not..human). Can’t wait for the next book in the series.” (Hidden In Pages)
Verity Price is back on the West Coast and getting back into the swing of the family business: cryptozoology. She’s rescuing cryptids from bad situations, protecting them from monster-hunters, and generally risking life and limb for the greater good, with her ex-Covenant partner/husband, Dominic, by her side.
Her ballroom dance career is behind her…or so she thinks. When Verity gets the call from the producers of Dance or Die, the reality show she almost won several years before, she finds the lure of a comeback impossible to resist, and she and Dominic are off to L.A. for one last shot at the big time.
Of course, nothing is that simple. When two of her fellow contestants turn up dead, Verity will need every ally she can find—and a couple she wasn’t looking for—in order to navigate the complicated steps of both the tango and a murder investigation without blowing her cover.
It doesn’t help that her official family backup is her grandmother, Alice Price-Healy, who thinks “subtle” is something that happens to other people. Winning this competition may have just become a matter of life and death.
Magic for Nothing (InCryptid #6)
REVIEW: “The plot is more aligned with the series’ long-term arc than any book since the second book in the series, and it surprises on multiple occasions. The ending is incredibly bittersweet and a major cliffhanger, but it works pretty damn well.”—Garik16's SciFi/Fantasy Reviews and Other Thoughts
As the youngest of the three Price children, Antimony is used to people not expecting much from her. She’s been happy playing roller derby and hanging out with her cousins, leaving the globe-trotting to her older siblings while she stays at home and tries to decide what she wants to do with her life.
She always knew that one day, things would have to change. She didn’t think they’d change so fast.
Annie’s expectations keep getting shattered. She didn’t expect Verity to declare war on the Covenant of St. George on live television. She didn’t expect the Covenant to take her sister’s threat seriously. And she definitely didn’t expect to be packed off to London to infiltrate the Covenant from the inside…but as the only Price in her generation without a strong resemblance to the rest of the family, she’s the perfect choice to play spy.
They need to know what’s coming. Their lives may depend on it.
But Annie has some secrets of her own, like the fact that she’s started setting things on fire when she touches them, and has no idea how to control it. Now she’s headed halfway around the world, into the den of the enemy, where blowing her cover could get her killed.
She’s pretty sure things can’t get much worse. Antimony Price is about to learn just how wrong it’s possible for one cryptozoologist to be.
Tricks for Free (InCryptid #7)
REVIEW: “Enjoyable, action-packed novel which allows for the greater development of Antimony as a character. It adds to cryptid lore and explores aspects not previously touched on in the series.” (SF Crowsnest)
Antimony Price is on the run. With the Covenant on her tail and her family still in danger, she needs to get far, far away from anyone who might recognize her–including her own mice.
For the first time in a long time, a Price is flying without a safety net. Where do you go when you need to disappear into a crowd without worrying about attracting attention? An amusement park, of course.
Some people would call Lowryland the amusement park. It’s one of the largest in Florida, the keystone of the Lowry entertainment empire—but for Annie, it’s a place to hide.
She’s just trying to keep her head down long enough to come up with a plan that will get her home without getting anyone killed. No small order when she’s rooming with gorgons and sylphs, trying to placate frustrated ghosts, and rushing to get to work on time.
Then the accidents begin. The discovery of a dead man brings Annie to the attention of the secret cabal of magic users running Lowryland from behind the scenes.
They want the fire that sleeps in her fingers. They want her on their side. They want to help her—although their help, like everything else, comes with a price.
No plan. Minimal backup. No way out. Annie’s about to get a crash course in the reality behind the pretty facade. If she’s lucky, she’ll survive the experience.
That Ain’t Witchcraft (InCryptid #8)
REVIEW: “Further proof that [Seanan McGuire] is a genius, who creates genuinely fun, interesting characters that still have enough flaws and shortcomings to be believable, adds a dash of urban legends and classical mythology, sets them loose in a vibrant, exciting setting, with wonderful results.” (Adjective+Noun)
Antimony Price has never done well without a support system. As the youngest of her generation, she has always been able to depend on her parents, siblings, and cousins to help her out when she’s in a pinch—until now. After fleeing from the Covenant of St. George, she’s found herself in debt to the crossroads and running for her life. No family. No mice. No way out.
Lucky for her, she’s always been resourceful, and she’s been gathering allies as she travels: Sam, fūri trapeze artist turned boyfriend; Cylia, jink roller derby captain and designated driver; Fern, sylph friend, confidant, and maker of breakfasts; even Mary, ghost babysitter to the Price family. Annie’s actually starting to feel like they might be able to figure things out—which is probably why things start going wrong again.
New Gravesend, Maine is a nice place to raise a family…or make a binding contract with the crossroads. For James Smith, whose best friend disappeared when she tried to do precisely that, it’s also an excellent place to plot revenge. Now the crossroads want him dead and they want Annie to do the dirty deed. She owes them, after all.
And that’s before Leonard Cunningham, aka, “the next leader of the Covenant,” shows up…
It’s going to take everything Annie has and a little bit more to get out of this one. If she succeeds, she gets to go home. If she fails, she becomes one more cautionary tale about the dangers of bargaining with the crossroads.
But no pressure.
Imaginary Numbers (InCryptid #9)
REVIEW: “Seanan McGuire is one of my favorite urban fantasy authors and her InCryptid series is part of that reason. IMAGINARY NUMBERS is a stunning installment and one that every urban fantasy reader is sure to relish.” (Fresh Fiction)
Sarah Zellaby has always been in an interesting position. Adopted into the Price family at a young age, she’s never been able to escape the biological reality of her origins: she’s a cuckoo, a telepathic ambush predator closer akin to a parasitic wasp than a human being. Friend, cousin, mathematician; it’s never been enough to dispel the fear that one day, nature will win out over nurture, and everything will change.
Maybe that time has finally come. After spending the last several years recuperating in Ohio with her adoptive parents, Sarah is ready to return to the world–and most importantly, to her cousin Artie, with whom she has been head-over-heels in love since childhood.
But there are cuckoos everywhere, and when the question of her own survival is weighed against the survival of her family, Sarah’s choices all add up to one inescapable conclusion: This is war. Cuckoo vs. Price, human vs. cryptid—and not all of them are going to walk away.
More books coming to the list (I’m revising the article now!)
Calculated Risks (InCryptid #10)
REVIEW: “For InCryptid veterans, I definitely recommend Calculated Risks as a bit of a new take in the series (new dimension and all) and getting to know some of the newer characters like Mark and James.” (Books for the Beach)
Just when Sarah Zellaby, adopted Price cousin and telepathic ambush predator, thought that things couldn’t get worse, she's had to go and prove herself wrong. After being kidnapped and manipulated by her birth family, she has undergone a transformation called an instar, reaching back to her Apocritic origins to metamorphize.
While externally the same, she is internally much more powerful, and much more difficult to control. Even by herself. After years of denial, the fact that she will always be a cuckoo has become impossible to deny.
Now stranded in another dimension with a handful of allies who seem to have no idea who she is—including her cousin Annie and her maybe-boyfriend Artie, both of whom have forgotten their relationship—and a bunch of cuckoos with good reason to want her dead, Sarah must figure out not only how to contend with her situation, but with the new realities of her future. What is she now? Who is she now? Is that person someone she can live with?
And when all is said and done, will she be able to get the people she loves, whether or not they've forgotten her, safely home?
Spelunking Through Hell: A Visitor’s Guide to the Underworld (InCryptid #11)
REVIEW: “Seanan McGuire’s writing keeps it fun even while the blood is flowing. The InCryptid series is going strong, and overall, I love it! The Price-Healy clan is amazing, and I can’t wait for more of the story.” (Bookshelf Fantasies)
For Alice Price-Healy, finding her missing husband isn’t just a mission: it’s an obsession, the thing she has willingly given up every other aspect of her life to pursue. And after more than 50 years, she finally has confirmation that he might be alive out there.
She may even have a direction. Now, if she can just keep herself from getting killed before she reaches her destination, she might be able to finish her seemingly endless quest.
All she wants is a happy ending. That’s the only thing the universe has never wanted her to have.
Fifty years of running through dimensions without a lot of concern for making friends has left her with more enemies than allies, but she’s still got a few places to turn, including Naga, the professor of extra-dimensional studies and giant snake-man she met when she was seven, Helen and Phoebe, the Ithacan satyrs, and Cynthia, the owner of the Red Angel Tavern.
Where she can’t turn is to her family, back on Earth and tired of her dimension-hopping obsession. They wrote her off as unreliable long ago, and are unlikely to join what looks like one more wild goose chase.
But is it? Or is this the time Alice finally brings Thomas home to stay?
Backpacking through Bedlam (InCryptid #12)
REVIEW: “The InCryptid series is one of my favorite urban fantasy series. I love the idea that InCryptid live among us. I love the Price family and the entourage of characters they’ve claimed as family. Perfect for fans of urban fantasy, danger and adventure. (Caffeinated Book Reviewer)
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.
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?
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