Monday, March 13, 2017

Review: Magic for Nothing by Seanan McGuire

Magic for Nothing
Release Date: March 7, 2017
Publisher: DAW
Incryptid Book #6
ISBN:  0756410398
ISBN13 9780756410391
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Review Copy Source: NetGalley
Improbable, adjective:
1. Not very likely to happen; not probable.
2. Probably not a very good idea anyway.
3. See also “bad plan.”

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.

Another Price sibling, another great installment of the Incryptid series!

I wasn't really looking forward to reading MAGIC FOR NOTHING, but once I started reading I didn't want to put it down. Antimony never really stuck out to me as someone that would be interesting to read about, but my first impressions were wrong. Although I found it hard to really like Annie in the beginning of MAGIC FOR NOTHING—especially when she was being such a biatch to Verity, I love Verity—she grew on me and I found out that she has reasons to feel the way she does. She ended up being the perfect family member to infiltrate the Covenant and proved she was just as bad-ass as the rest of the family.

The romance aspect of the story was a little weird and a bit hard to really get into, but overlooking the awkward facts was easier as the story progressed. Not sure if things will continue into the future, but it will be interesting to find out.

Annie had to make some really hard decisions at the end of MAGIC FOR NOTHING that put her even farther out of the reach of her family. I really hate them for putting her in the situation in the first place, but I understand it and hope they are have something on the back burner to help her out. Either way, the Incryptid series continues to draw me in.

I gave it 4/5 stars

* This book was provided free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.