Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire
DAW, March 2012
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Contemporary Fantasy
Format: Mass Market Paperback
From the Back of the Book:
Ghoulies. Ghosties. Long-legged beasties. Things that go bump in the night... 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.
Sounds pretty 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...
A lifetime of training isn't enough to prepare Verity for what's ahead- especially not for Dominic De Luca, the Covenant's newest operative. When a Price girl meets a Covenant boy, high stakes, high heels, and a lot of collateral damage are almost guaranteed.
My Thoughts:
I had to wait a few months to post this so that I could post something coherent instead of fangirl squee. This is just one of those books that pushes all my buttons: dancing, biology/cryptozoology, kick-ass female protagonist, and dragons! Plus it created a whole new button for talking religious mice! I really loved this book and it will probably have a place on my bookshelf forever.
The characters are fun and well-developed and there is plenty of snappy dialogue to go around. I really enjoyed that the Cryptids played valuable roles suited to their natures and weren't relegated to merely props and love interests. The family interactions were well-written and believable and hint at a wealth of universe to back up the story. I also liked that the protagonists actually got injured and took steps to prevent injury instead of being mysteriously indestructible urban fantasy character.
As someone who usually passes over quotations and stuff at chapter breaks, I found the beginnings of chapters to be epically amusing. The quotations were short and pithy tidbits, often advice from another member of the Price family. But the real prize is the location descriptors at the beginning of each chapter, of course I might be easily amused.
In summary, you should definitely read this book because it is awesome.
Seanan McGuire's Website
Seanan McGuire's Blog
Discount Armageddon: An InCryptid Novel (Incryptid Novels) on Amazon
My reviews on other books by Seanan McGuire:
As Seanan McGuire
Rosemary and Rue
As Mira Grant
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