TRICKS FOR FREE by Seanan McGuire

"An amusement park should be a safe place to hide..."

Tricks for Free

Posted: April 5, 2018

Antimony "Annie" Price needs a bit of luck. Fleeing from the Covenant of St. George after her undercover assignment took an unexpected turn, she abandons her family, friends, her boyfriend, and even the Aeslin mice in hopes to avoid capture. Using an old identity, Melody West, she applies for a job at Lowryland Amusement Park. She expects to work hard while she figures out how to recover her life while avoiding the Covenant. What she doesn't expect is the strange series of misfortunes that begin plaguing Lowryland or the cabal of magic users operating behind the scenery. What kind of mess has Antimony gotten herself into? And is there a safe way out?

TRICKS FOR FREE is the seventh book in the InCryptid series and wow, this series only gets better and better! Better yet, the storyline is set near my hometown and features a funky amusement park, perfect for a city on the I-4 corridor of Florida. Seanan McGuire provides most of the back history but readers new to the series might want to read the prior book, MAGIC FOR NOTHING, to better understand the character of Antimony and why she is on the run.

Annie really comes into her own in TRICKS FOR FREE. Earlier books in the series featured her older siblings who painted a less than likable portrait of Annie. In MAGIC FOR NOTHING, we start to see her character emerge but in TRICKS FOR FREE she takes on a much more heroic status and you can final see how she fits into the Price legacy. In fact, Annie may well be my favorite Price sibling after TRICKS FOR FREE!

And oh, the Aeslin mice! I dearly missed their involvement in TRICKS FOR FREE but Seanan McGuire includes a short story about their own escape, told partially from their own perspective. I still miss the Aeslin mice, however, and am hopeful we will see Annie and her mice reunited in future books in the series.

TRICKS FOR FREE is yet another spectacular offering from the talented Seanan McGuire. I love that the InCryptid world continues to expand as we learn more about the various beings who inhabit Seanan McGuire's carefully crafted world. I can't wait to see where this series takes us next!

Book Summary

The seventh book in the funny and 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.

Penance, noun:
1. Punishment for past actions.
2. An attempt to pay for what can't be bought.
3. See also "exile."

Antimony Price is on the run. With the Covenant on her tail and her family still in danger, she needs to get far, far away from anyone who might recognize her--including her own mice. For the first time in a long time, a Price is flying without a safety net. Where do you go when you need to disappear into a crowd without worrying about attracting attention? An amusement park, of course.

Some people would call Lowryland the amusement park. It's one of the largest in Florida, the keystone of the Lowry entertainment empire...but for Annie, it's a place to hide. She's just trying to keep her head down long enough to come up with a plan that will get her home without getting anyone killed. No small order when she's rooming with gorgons and sylphs, trying to placate frustrated ghosts, and rushing to get to work on time.

Then the accidents begin. The discovery of a dead man brings Annie to the attention of the secret cabal of magic users running Lowryland from behind the scenes. They want the fire that sleeps in her fingers. They want her on their side. They want to help her--although their help, like everything else, comes with a price.

No plan. Minimal backup. No way out. Annie's about to get a crash course in the reality behind the pretty facade. If she's lucky, she'll survive the experience.