I guess every couple of books, we focus on another sibling: Verity, Alex and Antimony.   We've met them both, through memories or phone calls, but we didn't get much of them.   Alex is a geek who's speciality is reptiles.   Crypto-reptiles to be specific.   (So.   Many.   Snakes.   Yay!)   He works at a reptile house in a zoo as a visiting employee, while trying to breed Basilisk in the backroom, dating another visiting employee who deals with the big cats (and is a super-hot Australian), while trying to figure out why Ohio's frog population is down - and what to do about the cryptozoological replacement in the ecosystem.   If the trend continues, winged frogs will be exposed as a Real Thing That Exists, and he's afraid that the rest of the cryptozoological world will soon follow. 

Which will expose them to the Covenant, and also freak out the rest of the world.   What's a geek-boy to do if he ever wants to have another date with that super hot exchange chick he works with?

Well, let's just have him meet his patchwork family - literally in the form of his Revenant grandfather who's patched together from dead bodies.   (He was alive once, but Mad Science intervened after his death.   Now grandpa works at the morgue - partly for body parts for him and the rest of the Revenants.)

When people start turning to stone, Alex has to discover what kind of 'mythical' creature is behind this, if it's a sapient one or a more animalistic one being used, and how to stop them.   (Basilisk, for example, are cryptozoological and have animal tendencies/brains/mental capacities, while Gorgons are sapient - thus can take part in the human world as long as they put a wig on their hair.   If Basilisk are involved, Alex has to go after whoever is unleashing them, whereas if it's a Gorgon, he can go directly after the Gorgon.)   The fact that his assistant IS a Gorgon and he has Basilisk in the attic - fine, the backroom - complicates things: could he or Dee, or Dee's community be involved?

And how many people-turned-statue does it take to get the Covenant to notice and investigate?   Alex better find whoever's doing this before Ohio finds out...

Sorry, I am tapped out of good descriptions right now, so you get... this.

I love how the purge coming to town creates so much more drama.   With more Covenant agents ready to descent on NYC, Verity Price has to debate how much she can trust the Covenant agent already in town - Dominic DeLuca, whom she happens to be sleeping with in a sexytimes way.  

But when he's called on to choose between her life and his, he's honest enough to say he doesn't know where he'll land.  Can Verity protect her life, the cryptozoological species in NYC, and also land the guy?  

Sorry, guys, my description for this is not as good as the first book.  Luckily this book WAS as good as the first.   

What if the snarky scientists studied them?   Well, then you'd have this.   It's actually a lot more complicated: Seanan McGuire creates a nice blend of monsters that you know, and her own species.   The boogeymen are a known quantity to us, but what McGuire does with them is place them in a known framework and then make them sympathetic; she does not tow the line when it comes to cryptozoological species.   She makes them her own, makes us sympathize with most of them, and then places them in a very real New York City that has a for the most part unseen side filled with boogeymen, dragon princesses, medusa, Aeslin mice, and the list goes on and on.   

She also creates the Covenant of St. George, which is determined to see the extinction of everything that isn't human.   Except that cryptozoological creatures have a place in the ecosystem, giving some reason to keep them alive and thriving.   Which is where Verity Price's family comes in: they've left the Covenant a couple generations ago, and are considered traitors to be executed.   Or they would be if the Covenant didn't believe that they were all dead.   

So Verity is a cryptozoologist who needs to to keep these distinct species alive, without attracting the attention of the world which isn't ready to accept them yet while dodging the unwanted attention of the Covenant.   (She's also working as a waitress at a strip joint that employees the species she studies, and is trying to launch a ballroom dancing career.)

Very is clever, snarky, and just made this novel for me.   I really just love her as a character.   I also love the Aeslin mice and Istas.   But on top of the fantastic world building and amazing characters, McGuire brings a kick-ass plot.   Literally most of the time.   

With Covenant agent Dominic DeLuca in town getting ready for a purge - like it sounds, it purges cryptozoological creatures from a city, Very has to try to stop Dom from killing her friends and investigate the disappearances of cryptozoological creatures - and then maybe she can think about the purge. 

I enjoyed this - I just enjoyed the other offerings more.   

Still a fun ride, but I missed enough without volume two that I felt a little bit lost.   Not sure how to talk about this without spoiling it, so I'll leave it here. 

And I was like I dunno?   I read it partly because the dude who wrote this also wrote Saga, so I was like, well, it has to be more interesting than it sounds to me!

And it was.   When they discover an iPod - or iPhone? - and then who's behind it being there, well, things get interesting.   

Not completely sold on following this one, but I got this in a Humble Bundle and read volume three for the Hugo awards.