That Ain’t Witchcraft by Seanan McGuire

InCryptid, Book 8

Synopsis: Crossroads, noun:

1. A place where two roads cross.
2. A place where bargains can be made.
3. See also “places to avoid.”

Antimony Price has never done well without a support system. As the youngest of her generation, she has always been able to depend on her parents, siblings, and cousins to help her out when she’s in a pinch—until now. After fleeing from the Covenant of St. George, she’s found herself in debt to the crossroads and running for her life. No family. No mice. No way out.

Lucky for her, she’s always been resourceful, and she’s been gathering allies as she travels: Sam, fūri trapeze artist turned boyfriend; Cylia, jink roller derby captain and designated driver; Fern, sylph friend, confidant, and maker of breakfasts; even Mary, ghost babysitter to the Price family. Annie’s actually starting to feel like they might be able to figure things out—which is probably why things start going wrong again.

New Gravesend, Maine is a nice place to raise a family…or make a binding contract with the crossroads. For James Smith, whose best friend disappeared when she tried to do precisely that, it’s also an excellent place to plot revenge. Now the crossroads want him dead and they want Annie to do the dirty deed. She owes them, after all.

And that’s before Leonard Cunningham, aka, “the next leader of the Covenant,” shows up…

It’s going to take everything Annie has and a little bit more to get out of this one. If she succeeds, she gets to go home. If she fails, she becomes one more cautionary tale about the dangers of bargaining with the crossroads.

But no pressure.

Review: Like always, I was really looking forward to get into this novel! How can I resist a new book on Antimony? Impossible! More than that, all her friends are there, Leonard too, and our heroine will finally have to deal with the consequences of her deal with the Crossroads.

Thinking that she could finally take a break, Antimony and her friends found themselves in Maine to take a break. But here it is, things are not going to go as planned and the Crossroads will come to recover their debt and they want Annie to kill James Smith, their new neighbor who seems determined to confront the Crossroads to recover her friend who has disappeared while establishing a deal with them. Since then, James has been trying to find her and is studying everything there is to know to do so. In addition to managing this, our heroine will also meet Leonard again, who is determined to bring her back to the Convenant and kill those with whom she is. Starting with Sam her boyfriend.

As I said, I had a really good time with this novel. As always it was a pleasure to meet all the characters and I must admit that I was very curious to see how our heroes would manage with Leonard, but also with the Crossroads which is far from being something easy to deal with.

And what about this end? I must admit I’m really curious to be able to find out what’s going to happen now! And above all, who wewill  find for the next volume. That’s the big question of the moment!