Part of InCryptid, book 10
First published 2021
Sarah Zellaby has survived a lot. Being kidnapped by her birth family and forced through an instar, a biological transformation rooted in her Apocritic heritage, was supposed to break her. Instead it made her stronger, and that is the problem. She is still recognizably herself on the outside. Inside, she is something harder to contain, even for her own mind. She has spent years pushing away the truth of what she is: a cuckoo, a telepathic ambush predator, and no amount of wishing changes that. Now she is stranded in another dimension with a small group of allies who have no memory of her. Her cousin Annie does not know her. Artie, who was maybe becoming something more than a friend, looks at her like a stranger. A faction of cuckoos wants her dead. The people she loves are in danger and cannot even remember why she would care. Sarah has to figure out how to survive, how to manage powers that no longer behave the way she expects, and how to get everyone home safely, whether or not they remember her name. The question underneath all of it is quieter and harder: who is she now, and can she live with the answer.
Genres: science-fiction, fantasy, speculative-fiction, young-adult, psychological-thriller, urban-fantasy
Vibes: dark, emotionally-complex, intense, introspective, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: amnesia, fish-out-of-water, forced-proximity, found-family, identity-discovery
Setting: another dimension
448 pages · Paperback · DAW
Content warnings: abuse, body-horror, kidnapping