Book Beginnings + Friday 56: Calculated Risks (InCryptid #10) by Seanan McGuire

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading. Friday 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice and asks you to grab a book (any book), turn to page 56 or 56% in your ereader and share a non-spoilery sentence or two.

This week I'm featuring the tenth book in the Incryptid series, Calculated Risks by Seanan McGuire. This is such a fun series and I'm so excited to finally be caught up with it.

About the Book

The tenth book in the fast-paced InCryptid urban fantasy series returns to the mishaps of the Price family, eccentric cryptozoologists who safeguard the world of magical creatures living in secret among humans.

Just when Sarah Zellaby, adopted Price cousin and telepathic ambush predator, thought that things couldn't get worse, she's had to go and prove herself wrong. After being kidnapped and manipulated by her birth family, she has undergone a transformation called an instar, reaching back to her Apocritic origins to metamorphize. While externally the same, she is internally much more powerful, and much more difficult to control.

Even by herself. After years of denial, the fact that she will always be a cuckoo has become impossible to deny.

Now stranded in another dimension with a handful of allies who seem to have no idea who she is--including her cousin Annie and her maybe-boyfriend Artie, both of whom have forgotten their relationship--and a bunch of cuckoos with good reason to want her dead, Sarah must figure out not only how to contend with her situation, but with the new realities of her future. What is she now? Who is she now? Is that person someone she can live with?

And when all is said and done, will she be able to get the people she loves, whether or not they've forgotten her, safely home?

Book Beginnings (From the Prologue)

A small survivalist compound about an hour's drive east of Portland, Oregon

Nineteen years ago

"No." The dark-haired little girl clutched her seatbelt like it was a lifeline, shaking her head hard enough that her pigtails bounced wildly, flicking across her eyes and obscuring her expression. That was fine: Angela wouldn't have been able to read the nuances of Sarah's feelings in her face even if she'd been able to see it clearly. Being a non-receptive member of a naturally telepathic species had forced her to get better at reading facial expressions than most cuckoos, who had the neural capability but never developed the skill. Why bother, when it was so much easier to just skim someone's thoughts and know exactly what they were trying to convey?

Friday 56

I hate it when people tell me not to be afraid. They never do that when something awesome is about to happen. No one says "don't be afraid" and then hands you an ice cream cone, or a kitten, or tickets to Comic-Con.

What have you been reading lately?