Title: Chaos Choreography [Incryptid, book 05]
Author: Seanan McGuire
Rating: ★★★★★
Availability: Book Depository | Google Play | Kobo | iBooks | Amazon | B&N
Author: Seanan McGuire
Rating: ★★★★★
Availability: Book Depository | Google Play | Kobo | iBooks | Amazon | B&N
Fifth book in Seanan McGuire’s funny and fast-paced urban fantasy InCryptid series featuring ballroom dancer and monster expert Verity Price.
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 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 contestants turn up dead, Verity will need every ally she can find with the investigation, without blowing her cover…
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 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 contestants turn up dead, Verity will need every ally she can find with the investigation, without blowing her cover…
Although I keep hearing about Grandma Alice in the Incryptid books, I never thought I'd encounter her in any of the Price siblings' cases. Incryptid is one of the few urban fantasy series I keep tabs on because I have so much love for these books. It's not your usual cryptid-hunter series, and there's even an index at the end of the book to help you keep track of your cryptids. Cryptids are what we would usually call as monsters, but some are actually pretty nice and just want to be left alone.
Oh, look at me, talking about them as if they're real...but for the few hours that I was immersed in the Healy-Price world, they felt as real to me as you and I are.
Chaos Choreography, the fifth book in the main Incryptid series (there are free short stories up for grabs off McGuire's website), made me impatient to go home yesterday so I can stay in bed and just finish it. It's that good. I didn't bring my tablet to work and I cursed myself for not syncing the book to my phone.
I love me a good action story, and Chaos Choreography served that up in spades. It has my usual beloved characters such as Verity, Domenic, and the Aeslin mice, with the added bonus of Grandma Alice, whom I would really love to read more about someday. I thought Verity was bad-ass and graceful. Grandma Alice made her look like a kid, with her skills and deep knowledge of the cryptid world. Plus, she can travel dimensions. Dimensions! Awesome.
Verity goes back to the dance floor and eventually realizes that all is not what it seems. Her other competitors are dying one by one, and with the other Price members and some of her cryptid friends, they race to save the rest of the dancers and stop the snake cult from being successful.
I had my suspicion on who was the mastermind behind it, but the rest came as a shock. The big reveal was indeed a big reveal. The story actually felt a little short even though it was 368 pages and was filled to the brim with action upon action. But then again, don't our favorite books always feel a little short? (Harry Potter, anyone?)
There were a few questions I had at the end of the book, such as it left unexplained how the mastermind behind the cult knew magic or what to do, but it doesn't affect the story that much, because I guess, as it was explained in the story, magic users just had the latent power in their bloodlines.
In the end, I finished Chaos Choreography wishing that someday, I'd see all three siblings + grandma Alice together in one story, kicking ass. And Seanan McGuire, I wouldn't mind a 700-page Incryptid story!
Cheers,
