I loved this book. As usual, Ms. McGuire did an excellent job. And I want more dragons..... ( )

Thank god Seanan went back to Verde, i truly hated the last 2 with Alex Price. If it was another one with Alex i would have given up on the series. ( )

1 star for the boring dance stuff
1 star for his machoness Dominic
1 star for rehashing the plot of the first books
1 star for the lazy writing

2 stars for the splatter
2 stars for shark-man
2 stars for the Aislin mice
2 stars for Alice's tattoos

rounded up to 2 stars total because, heck, I've somehow read FIVE books of this shit, something must be nice about them

Recap for future reference:
Dominic and Verity are now married. The "really serious and legit" reality Verity was on, under her Valerie persona, has an all stars season she decides to join. Why? Because. Because her giving up dancing was hastily written in the previous books and now we get to see a do-over. Dominic accompanies her, so does a colony of Aislin mice. Enter bombardment of dance trivia, descriptions of various dances, and constant reminders of how much Verity loves dancing and what it means to her etc and silly reality things. Like we care who your imaginary audience votes off each week Seannan for fuck's sake.
Lots of new characters whose names I kept mixing up. The hostess of the show is a dragon and wants Verity to help her nest buy a baby boy dragon from the New York nest. There's also a poly bi half shark dude and a chupacabra woman in the competition.
Suddenly, ritual killings. Eliminated players are found dead, memory charms are everywhere altering their perception. Apparently there's a snake cult again, this time a powerful one, that wants to bring a huge snake God from another dimension. Things are so serious that grandma Alice shows up. We learn about dimensions, dimension hopping, and Alice's tattoos being charms.
Turns out the show is on top of an old colony of underground cryptids who where run out. A judge and two contestants are part of the snake cult. One is the annoying woman we hate from the get go, the other is Valerie's dancing partner. The judge is the creepy one that likes her. The snake is summoned and killed on live TV. Verity looks at a camera and warns the covenant to back off, thus revealing her family's existence and ruining her identity. The end. ( )

I'm so very glad I read this. I'd felt a bit let down by the last book (sorry, Alex, but I find your ballroom dancing sister is more interesting), but this installment more than made up for that!

First: Verity! And Dominic!
Second; I loved the fact that this takes place during a dancing reality TV show. It's just so absurd, it's perfect.
Third: Grandma Alice. We finally get to meet Grandma Alice and I adore and love her to bits.

This book is a bit darker than the previous books. There's a serial murderer/snake cultist killing off Verity's fellow contestants, which leads to some pretty macabre scenes. But at the same time, it's also light-hearted in the way that this series is. Verity is flippant, and less serious than brother Alex. Also, dance competition - ripe for drama, even without knowing several of the contests aren't human. Also, the Aeslin mice make an appearance, and they're always a hoot.

Last: THAT ENDING. OH. MY. GOD. I'm seriously looking forward to the next book now to see how that fallout plays out. OH MY GOD. ( )

Still enjoying this series very much. I find myself more worried about the mice through the various hazards than anyone else, but that's not new, the mice are adorable. It was fun re-visiting Verity, but now I'm definitely ready for more of Antimony.

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re-read 2022 ( )