Magic for Nothing by Seanan McGuire

May 18th, 2018 Kimberly Review 36 Comments

18th May
Magic for Nothing by Seanan McGuire
Magic for Nothing
by Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptid #6
Narrator: Emily Bauer
Length: 12 hours and 41 minutes
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Source: Purchase
Purchase*: Amazon | Audible *affiliate
Goodreads
Rating: One StarOne StarOne StarOne Star
Narration: 4 cups

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.

urban Monsters Audiobook SUSPENSE

In Magic for Nothing by Seanan McGuire, it is the youngest Price sibling’s story! An undercover operation and a gig at the Circus made for a daring adventure. A shifter monkey and a ruthless cousin added interests and intrigue.

After the mind-blowing ending of Chaos Chronography, Antimony, the youngest Price sister, who incidentally looks nothing like her siblings, is tasked with traveling to London to infiltrate the Covenant! Can she convince them of her cover story? Can she and one lone Aslin mouse discover what the Covenant knows about the Price family and if they are planning an all-out war? Eeep!

McGuire hooked me from the beginning as narrator Emily Bauer took on new voices and new creatures. Antimony (Annie) is twenty-two and a roller-derby loving young woman who is still living at home. She hasn’t quite decided what she wants to do in life but throughout Magic for Nothing, we witness her come into her own, through growth and sacrifice.

Being inside the Covenant of St. George was just as creepy as I hoped. From their thorough investigation and testing of Annie, we learn quite a lot. She has one lone Aslin mouse with her. Wait until you see what this young mouse uncovers, aside from a full inventory of their cheese.

Thanks to Annie’s unusual skill set with knife throwing and trapeze work the Covenant sends Annie back to America to infiltrate and spy on a traveling circus. Here things get interesting and deadly. As always, McGuire delivers an intense suspense thread while fleshing out new characters and showcases different types of cryptids. Explosions, death-defying tricks and Covenant operatives await you.

The books typically have a romantic thread and Annie develops feelings for one of the performers. Holy Weirdness peeps! Now ya’ll know her extended family is filled with cryptids, ghosts, talking mice and more, but most of the Price family are married to HUMANS. I am not saying more but the movie Jumanji came to mind as I listened. LOL

The ending of Magic for Nothing sets up the next book, Tricks for Free and as soon as the Take Control TBR Pile challenge ends I am diving in! (Update. Devoured it. Love it. Review to follow)

Explosions, death-defying tricks, and Covenant operatives await you in Magic for Nothing by Seanan McGuire #audio #urban Share on X
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About Kimberly
Kimberly is a coffee loving book addict who reads and listens to fictional stories in all genres. Whovian, Ravenclaw, Howler and proud Nonna. She owns and manages Caffeinated PR. The coffee is always on and she is ready to chat. BlueSky | Facebook | Instagram

36 Responses to “Magic for Nothing by Seanan McGuire”

  1. verushka

    I am coming to appreciate how every book focuses on a different sibling — this series genuinely keeps getting better and better!

  2. Greg

    Ooh Antimony in this one huh? I remember her being mentioned in the first book. And nice play on words- Magic for Nothing and Tricks for Free. Maybe McGuire is a Knopfler fan? 🙂

    Infiltrating the Covenant plus circus stuff? Sounds like a win. And an enterprising little Aslin mouse…

  3. Angela Adams

    “An undercover operation and a gig at the Circus made for a daring adventure” — sounds interesting and not a setting that is used often. Thanks for the post.

    Angela Adams recently posted: Happy Mother's Day!
  4. Debbie Haupt

    circus, cryptids, magic and a roller derby loving young woman. Wow I can’t even imagine. It sounds fascinating. Thanks and happy weekend Kim

  5. Lily B

    this looks like it can be atmospheric? been wanting to try this series on audio so it’s on my list after I get through the few I currently following.

  6. Heidi

    I finally read the first book this last week. I have had this series in my TBR since it debuted. Looking forward to some binge reading. I will be excited to get to Antimony’s story.

  7. sjhigbee

    I love the sound of this one – she is SO productive! I can’t keep up… Thank you for an excellent review, Kimberly

    • Kimberly

      To be fair, she only released one book in this series in 2018. I am working on backlist tbr pile and having a blast binge listening.