Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Installment Immortality by Seanan McGuire Series: Incryptid #14
Published by Tor on March 11, 2025
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 288
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
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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.
Installment Immortality is the fourteenth book in the Incryptid series which follows different members of the Price family as they try to protect the cryptid community from The Covenant of St George and others that might hurt it. This story focuses on Mary Dunlavy, part of the Price family, even though she is a former crossroads ghost.
One really nice thing about Installment Immortality is there was a pretty long intro and recap that took up about ten percent of the beginning. A lot has happened through thirteen books and a number of short stories and I had forgotten a few key points. Mary is trying to spread her wings beyond being just a caretaker ghost. After the events of the prior book she has put herself back together and is ready to take on caring for the new generation of the Prices.
The new spiritual sheriff in town has asked Mary for help. Some of the members of the Covenant of Saint George have survived and are messing with the ghost communities up and down the east coast. The anima mundi sends Mary to take care of the situation, but she is going to need some corporeal assistance and asks a few of the fighting age generation to help. Elsie and Arthur are still mourning the loss of their mother and the person Arthur used to be but was erased. They are eager to help Mary if it means getting out of their house and all the depression that lingers there.
I was actually the most interested in Arthur’s potential story line. I loved the build up to his and Sarah’s story line only to become a little heartbroken by the after effects that were brought up in Aftermarket Afterlife. Artie is no more and Arthur isn’t the person everyone expects him to be. The reader gets to explore this and the cracks in the shell of him. It is sad and he is still in a lot of danger. I missed the old Artie too, but liked some of the new characteristics of Arthur.
The plot of the book overall was good. The covenant reeling from the actions of Mary in the prior book have a new target in the ghosts and are trying to create a weapon of them. But by kidnapping them they are causing some unexpected side effects and Mary needs to put a stop to it before humans start to die. Meeting different kinds of ghosts and seeing how they form and linger in their afterlives is always interesting. I do struggle caring about the lives of ghosts over the lives of the living so I have enjoyed the books set more firmly in the physical world of the Incryptid series. That said it was a solid plot.
The only real issue I have, other that Seanan McGuire took one of my favorite couples and destroyed them (at least for now) is that this seemed like it could use a bit more editing. Mary talks about being a crossroads ghost a lot of times throughout the story, but it is really repetitive and almost the same speech every time. There were a few other pieces of information like that when she talked about how she gets to take care of the Price family children and how it works or how her current ghost powers are working.
This being the 14th book of the series, I’m not sure how much longer I will follow this series. The last book was really rough and emotional with some pretty big fallout for main characters of the storylines. For me, some of it is getting stale, the editing may be getting a little lazy and feels a little filler for fifty percent of the book while the other part of the story is fantastic. I love McGuire’s imagination and the types of characters she creates but I almost think the series should have been done a few books ago. I will read the next book because it should be the final to this specific story arc with Arthur and then I will decide for sure if that is my exit from the series.
About Seanan McGuire
Hi! I’m Seanan McGuire, author of the Toby Daye series (Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night, Late Eclipses), as well as a lot of other things. I’m also Mira Grant (www.miragrant.com), author of Feed and Deadline.
Born and raised in Northern California, I fear weather and am remarkably laid-back about rattlesnakes. I watch too many horror movies, read too many comic books, and share my house with two monsters in feline form, Lilly and Alice (Siamese and Maine Coon).
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I love this series but am holding out for the audiobook. Hopefully, the finished copy will be cleaner.
So true. I hope that by the final cut some of that will be fixed. I usually enjoy the audios for this series too.
A good and thoughtful review. I have had this series on my radar for a while, though I haven’t started it yet. The series as a whole looks both fun and interesting, but from your review, it sounds like it’s getting darker, more serious in tone, and I’m not sure I’m up for that right now.
I think if you read the first 12 it is solid series end right there. I really enjoy the series as a whole and I thought book 12 was going to be the end.
Sounds like the series is taking a bit of a downturn. I can see maybe being done with the series at this point. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this one!
Yes…but I’m a sucker and just need to know what will happen with one of the characters and it just keeps sucking me in.
Oh no! I’m sorry it’s getting stale!
Me too. She has a few more October Daye books and I haven’t really gotten the same feeling with those yet. She is so creative.