The ninth book in the fast-paced InCryptid urban fantasy series returns to the mishaps of the Price family, eccentric cryptozoologists who safeguard the world of magical creatures living in secret among humans.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 … 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
4.5 stars
This was such a great addition to the Incryptid series. I was in a bad reading slump, but this book helped pull me out of it.
Sarah has always fascinated me, so it was very interesting getting to see things from her perspective. She’s a cuckoo, a telepathic ambush predator who looks human but is actually closer related to a parasitic wasp. Cuckoos are normally terrifying and horrible creatures, but Sarah breaks that mold. She’s one of the good guys.
Five years ago, in an effort to save her family, Sarah pushed the boundaries of her telepathy too far and seriously injured herself. Now, she feels ready and recovered enough to reenter society. She’s at a point where she’s relatively sure she won’t accidentally hurt herself or anyone else. But what’s coming is a doozy, and will greatly test her. There’s a war brewing between humans and cuckoos, and whether she likes it or not, she’s at the center of it all.
As soon I read the first sentence, I was right back in this world. It felt like coming home, these characters felt like family. A really weird family, for sure, but whose family is normal anyway, lol.
We learn A LOT about cuckoos, which was so fascinating. A tad creepy, too, but so very interesting.
There are two POVs in this one, Sarah, of course, and then I was pleasantly surprised to find Artie’s too. At first, I was a little thrown off by the POV shift, but I quickly acclimated to it and really enjoyed it. It wouldn’t have been such a full story without both of them.
This story ended on quite a big cliffhanger, so I’m very eager to get started on the next one. If you’re a fan of urban fantasy, this series is a must read. These books aren’t stand alones, but when you start the first one, you’ll be hooked.
NOTE: This book does contain some strong language.
I was looking forward to this book and it did not disappoint. I’d wanted to see a story centred on Sarah as she’s a very interesting character. The author’s world building continues in this book and you learn more of Sarah’s species. It’s an enjoyable story but ends with a cliff hanger. I have no problem with this except for the wait between this book and the next.
Sluggish story with way too much repetition.
The story ends on a cliffhanger, but the follow up story could have been combined into one complete book instead of splitting into two leaving this one to end on a cliffhanger. The story itself is quite simple and as is, could have been completed in half the number of pages. For some reason, the author decided to give us every character’s background at least twice , if not more. We get cuckoo detail after cuckoo detail many times over. YES, we got it the first time, cuckoos are wasp like despite looking human.
Sarah and Artie are the least interesting couple of the series so far as well. We don’ get enough of them intereacting together to feel like they truly have a connection.
Sincerely doubt that I’ll bother with the follow up book since I could barely finish this one.
Originally posted on Tales to Tide You Over: https://margaretmcgaffeyfisk.com/category/reviews/
I realized I’d missed a book in the InCryptid series, and one I’d been looking forward to, when news of the next book reached me, so dug out our paper copy. Sarah’s story is unique for the series so far because it’s written in the narrative voice of someone who interacts with the world differently on many levels.
It’s not that Sarah’s the first cryptid to hold a major role. We’ve shared space with ghosts, dragons, werewolves, and variants I’d never heard of before. Sarah, though, cannot touch without violating a person’s inner world and cannot read expressions well enough to interpret intent or state of mind. Without telepathy, she is all but struck blind and only aware of those around her if they cross into her line of sight.
I wanted to see how the author handled these differences when, for the most part, the lead had also been the narrator in the previous books. There are many cryptids who are friends and even family. Sarah’s not alone in that distinction as much as her species sets her apart both because it’s from a vastly different dimension and because the Johrlac are parasitic, ambush hunters.
Her species isn’t the only one that hunts humans either. Some of those others are even in the acceptable range for the Price family as long as they restrain their appetites. I think what makes the Johrlac so repulsive, beyond their overwhelming selfishness, is the feeling of violation when they remove the last protected space – the mind. It’s an underlying human fear running through our literature, and the reaction to torture or cults. Rewriting someone’s internal wiring is not cool.
While it may seem as if I’m talking at random, these are major themes in the book. The war mentioned in the book blurb is as much for minds as land, at least at first, and Sarah is the battleground.
Here’s where things get dicey. The narrative voice I was looking forward to all but disappears for what felt like a good part of the book. This isn’t Sarah’s story, despite appearances. It’s Sarah and Artie’s story. I went with it because Sarah wasn’t in a position to narrate, but I found the change startling.
Artie is half cryptid on his father’s side, which comes with significant limitations. Still, in affect, he’s human. He has the same wants, needs, and reactions. He doesn’t have to second guess every thought to see whether it arises from a repellant species. In other words, he’s a more comfortable, familiar voice to most readers, at least when doused in cheap men’s perfume.
The repetition of catch-up material threw me out of the story a couple of times. It happened when Artie took over from Sarah, but there was some repetition in Sarah’s portion already. Artie rehashed history of the extended Price family, and how his and Sarah’s unusual cryptobiologies work. I don’t remember this being an issue in the earlier books, but time may just have swallowed the knowledge, and it’s a minor annoyance.
My biggest issue came with the cliffhanger ending. If you don’t like those, be forewarned. The following book is right around the corner, though, which means we don’t have to stand on this cliff for long. And that’s not to say some things aren’t resolved. Long-term threads, even those stretching back to the very first book, came to satisfactory conclusions while even major parts of the main plot are tied up by the end.
Questions raised in the cuckoo war are answered in fascinating ways, and the big reveals were well seeded, allowing me to anticipate almost all of them. I just had to wait to see if I was right. Interesting cryptid discoveries, mostly about the Johrlac, kept me reading and involved in the story.
I really liked what this story did for the Johrlac. It’s a strange thing to say when the teaser is all about a cuckoo war, and I’m not going to give you specifics, but if you’re enthralled with discovering new things about cryptids, there’s meat for you in this book. Even the mice, who I adore, have their moments. It will surprise no one who pays attention to learn the mice are more than the Price family sees.
The character development in Artie and Sarah, among others, also appeals. They face a lot of challenges in this book on a personal and public level. Nothing brushes past the characters on either side of this war without leaving a wave of change in its wake.
Ultimately, this book isn’t my favorite of the series, but I never wanted to stop reading it. Fascinating things are happening throughout, and there are moments of levity to lighten the dark. Maybe not as many as some would have preferred, but they are there. This story is big on the Price motto of family first unless the world’s at risk, and it teetered between those opposing values well.
P.S. There’s a new novella in the back that I’ve yet to read: Follow the Lady.
Great book, unsatisfying ending
I’d put off reading this book as Sarah was a new protagonist and I was worried she wouldn’t be an interesting enough character to carry her own book. I’m happy to report that Sarah was a wonderful lead character. She has an odd mix of vulnerability and inner strength that quickly draws you in. So much so, that I started the book late in the evening with the intention of just reading a few chapters to get a feel for the story and finished it at four in the morning.
Sarah’s story and the history of the cuckoos was exceptionally well done. It was also fun to get a look at the Price family from a different point of view.
The only issue I had with Imaginary Numbers is it ended on a cliffhanger that left me with a lot of unanswered questions. As the next book in the series isn’t due out until next year, that is a long time to wait for answers to those questions. I feel that if the author had just done one more chapter, they could have answered the bulk of those questions, and I would have been much happier with the ending.
One of my favorite series. We got to know Sarah, whose always been a mysterious, scary member of the family.
I won an Advanced Reading Copy of this book. I love the InCryptid series. This book looks at Sarah and Artie and you see both of their Point of View which is nice. You get a lot more information on the 2 species (Johrlac/Cookoo and Lilu/Incubus). I like seeing the mice and their interactions with the family. The ending is a bit cliff-hanger but I’m looking forward to the next book. The novella that is with the book is fun and you may want to read it before the main book. Poor James has no idea what he is getting into, Sam has some but not much.