InCryptid Books in Order
Part ofSeanan McGuire Books in OrderExplore the InCryptid books in order by Seanan McGuire, with quick summaries, world background, and help choosing where to start.
Last updated: June 30, 2026
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Publication Order
22 books
Discount Armageddon
by Seanan McGuire
2012
Verity Price is a ballroom dancer, former reality TV star, and working cryptozoologist assigned to Manhattan. When local cryptids start disappearing, she is forced into a very personal war with the monster-hunting Covenant.
Discount Armageddon
by Seanan McGuire
2012
Midnight Blue-Light Special
by Seanan McGuire
2013
Verity is trying to finish her Manhattan assignment and figure out her future when talk of a Covenant purge turns everything dangerous again. She will need quick feet and better luck than usual.
Midnight Blue-Light Special
by Seanan McGuire
2013
Half-Off Ragnarok
by Seanan McGuire
2014
Alex Price is managing a basilisk breeding program at an Ohio zoo when people start turning to stone. The case drags him into danger from both cryptids and humans, and his girlfriend may be keeping secrets too.
Half-Off Ragnarok
by Seanan McGuire
2014
Pocket Apocalypse
by Seanan McGuire
2015
Alex follows Shelby to Australia, where werewolves are appearing where they absolutely should not exist. Then he gets bitten, and the mission becomes very personal very fast.
Chaos Choreography
by Seanan McGuire
2016
Verity gets the chance to return to the reality show that launched her dancing career, but old enemies are watching. Add dead bodies in a theater and the comeback starts looking like a trap.
Magic for Nothing
by Seanan McGuire
2017
Antimony Price takes center stage as she goes undercover in a traveling carnival full of lies, danger, and impossible choices. Annie can handle a lot, but trust has never been her strong suit.
Tricks for Free
by Seanan McGuire
2018
Hiding inside a Florida theme park, Antimony Price is low on allies and options when the park's secret power structure notices her. Working undercover is hard enough without sorcerers and ex-boyfriends complicating things.
That Ain't Witchcraft
by Seanan McGuire
2019
With the Covenant and Lowryland's sorcerers both after her, Antimony almost welcomes a new job from the crossroads. Then the assignment turns into one of the biggest threats the series has faced.
That Ain't Witchcraft
by Seanan McGuire
2019
Imaginary Numbers
by Seanan McGuire
2020
Sarah Zellaby finally gets a book of her own, which means family drama, cuckoo politics, and impossible math all at once. A simple visit home becomes a collision with the species that abandoned her.
Imaginary Numbers
by Seanan McGuire
2020
Calculated Risks
by Seanan McGuire
2021
Sarah is stranded in a parallel dimension where the cuckoos are moving fast and memory itself has been weaponized. Saving the world may be possible, but first she has to survive the people she loves.
Calculated Risks
by Seanan McGuire
2021
Spelunking Through Hell
by Seanan McGuire
2022
Alice Price has spent fifty years looking for her lost husband across worlds, and this is her turn at center stage. The quest is exhausting, weird, and overdue in the best possible way.
Spelunking Through Hell
by Seanan McGuire
2022
Backpacking Through Bedlam
by Seanan McGuire
2023
Alice and Thomas finally get home just in time to be pulled back into the growing war with the Covenant. Rest is short, family is messy, and the road trip gets weird quickly.
Aftermarket Afterlife
by Seanan McGuire
2024
Mary Dunlavy, ghost nanny to generations of the Price family, takes over as narrator just as the Covenant makes its move. The war has begun, and even being dead is not enough protection.
Installment Immortality
by Seanan McGuire
2025
Mary Dunlavy would love a break, but instead the living soul of Earth sends her after Covenant agents imprisoning America's ghosts. She hits the road with grieving allies for a haunted, hard-fought mission.
Butterfly Effects
by Seanan McGuire
2026
Sarah Zellaby is summoned to her species' homeworld to stand trial for what she has done. To save her, the Price family must cross dimensions and survive a hostile telepathic society.
Series background & context
The InCryptid books take a premise that could have been grim and make it funny, warm, strange, and surprisingly serious when it needs to be. The Price-Healy family are cryptozoologists, but not in the monster-hunter sense. Their job is to protect the so-called monsters of the world from human ignorance, and protect humanity from the monsters when necessary. Standing on the other side is the Covenant of St. George, which believes extermination is the cleaner answer.
That conflict powers everything.
What makes the series especially fun is that it is multigenerational. Different books hand the narration to different family members, and each one changes the flavor without breaking the world. Verity brings dance, Manhattan nightlife, and a more overtly social rhythm. Alex brings reptiles, fieldwork, and a slightly drier voice. Antimony makes everything louder and more combustible. Sarah turns the series toward impossible math and cuckoo politics. Later books widen things further.
The cryptids themselves are a big part of the appeal. McGuire clearly loves making these creatures feel like species with culture, history, habits, and internal logic rather than just monster-of-the-week obstacles. Mice who act as religious bureaucrats, bogeymen, waheela, basilisks, cuckoos, gorgons, crossroads ghosts, and many more all fit into the same busy ecosystem.
It is a very lived-in world.
The books are fast, funny, and often romantic, but they are not lightweight. Beneath the banter, the series keeps returning to extinction, prejudice, assimilation, family obligation, and what it means to build community across enormous differences. Because the narrators change, McGuire can keep opening new parts of the world without making the series feel repetitive.
So this page works best if you want one big shared universe with several entry flavors. Discount Armageddon is the natural start, and still the best one, but it helps to know that InCryptid is not only Verity's story. It is the story of a whole family, the allies they gather, and the very large number of things trying to eat them.
Edited by
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