Angel of the Overpass

Every time I evade him, someone else dies. That’s the simple, brutal truth of my existence. 

I have a kind of complex relationship with Seanan McGuire's books at this point. On one hand, whenever I'm asked to list my favorite authors, I still includ her every time; a lot of her novels have certainly helped form the person I am, and one of them literally saved my life once. On the other hand, over the last couple of years I've been feeling a lot of... disconnect, I guess, when it comes to her more recent books? It's like her stories are becoming a bit too long, big, and sprawling for my liking—and I mean both the scope of the series she's working on and the individual installments within them. I keep wanting for these stories to get more direction, to get tightened up maybe, and that prevents me from freely enjoying them, much as I still adore the author's characters and prose. That's why I'm so incredibly behind on so many series.








😅

Rose Marshall's series has always been special to me, though, not least because it has always felt more focused. Which is kind of funny since it's an offshoot from InCryptid—the single McGuire's series I've had some trouble with from the start instead of beginning to feel lost half a dozen of books in. But the first two books barely felt like they were related to InCryptid at all, neither thematically nor in terms of exploring a whole different part of the setting. Sparrow Hill Road remains one of my favorite ghost books to date, and I very much loved The Girl in the Green Gown. So I expected, despite all of the complications mentioned above, to love Angel of the Overpass, as well.

And... well, I did and I didn't. For once, this actually felt very much like an InCryptid novel. While it's undeniably a continuation of Rose's previous adventures, it's also very much a sequel to This Ain't Witchcraft, and I feel like it borrowed a lot of the parent series' vibes. The narrative felt... a litle all over the place, I guess? There were the key beats that did move the plot forward steadily, but between those beats, the story kept going off on loosely related tangents, wild (though fun and interesting!) things kept happening, and yeah, they mostly tied in with the main plot thread eventually, but they also felt distractive. This weirdly felt less focused than book 1, which was literally a collection of stories put together into something vaguely novel-shaped.

At the same time, there was so much cool stuff there. The worldbuilding, as ever, left me wishing I could read multiple standalones set in this world, centered around different kind of ghosts, like maybe a book about some midnight beauty, and a book about some homesteader, etc. Also, I'd love something routewitches-centric! It was also awesome to dive into this sort of cozy horror movie atmosphere this series does so well.

Rose herself was a joy to hang out with, and I loved how some of the lingering questions and worries I've had in the past have been explicitly addressed. Like, the whole Gary and Rose plot? I've had thoughts about it, and I was excited to see that Rose has been having very similar thoughts about it, as well. Also, Rose has always struck me as someone very kind and very angry at the same time, and in the previous books the anger part was... well, not downplayed exactly, but kind of kept in the shadows. It was highly satisfying to see it take center stage here, and to see it have consequences that I thought were really logical and fair, and at the same time they surprised me and left me feeling bittersweet. Oh, and the whole revenge plot kept me invested throughout—Bobby Cross had it coming for so damn long.

If given another chance to delve into Rose's world, I wouldn't say no. But I also feel like this book is a very satisfactory point to end her story on, although not her journey. The road always goes on, doesn't it?

In ANGEL OF THE OVERPASS, Rose reckons with what has happened in the Twilight and beyond thanks to certain actions taken in the Incryptid novel, THAT AIN’T WITCHCRAFT. As a side note, if you’ve been reading the Ghost Roads without reading Incryptid then I recommend fixing that if possible since the two series are related and these two books in particular intertwine them irrevocably.

Rose has been dead since she was sixteen, and her years of hitching have kept her moving. The Ghost Roads series, generally, has the time to do a lot of worldbuilding from a different but complementary view to the Incryptid books. It focuses on routewitches, ghosts, and occasionally deities, where Incryptid focuses on the Price-Healy lineage/antics and cryptids (which are sometimes the same thing).

Not only does this wrap up a big thing left hanging from the start of the series, but it also addresses the after effects of some events in the related Incryptid books by the same author. Specifically, it deals with particular aspects of the fallout from THAT AIN’T WITCHCRAFT. It has a storyline that’s distinct from the previous books while being intimately connected to them. I’m not sure that it both introduces and resolves anything big, since a lot of what’s it’s doing is processing and mitigating changes to the world which happened in another book, as well as dealing with the main antagonist of the series. It has a lot of resolution, but many fewer introductions. 

Time will tell whether this is the end of a trilogy or if there will be more books in the series, given how it ends I suspect the latter. Assuming it’s not the last book, it sets up a pretty major development which can easily be expanded on later. It’s the end of a specific phase for Rose and the beginning of another, and I hope future books show that new phase playing out.

Rose is still the narrator and her voice is consistent with previous books, as well as her sporadic appearances in Incryptid. It wouldn’t make sense to start here, but weirdly the previous Ghost Roads books aren’t the most important precedent. In some ways, ANGEL OF THE OVERPASS is a more immediate follow-up to THAT AIN’T WITCHCRAFT than the direct Incryptid sequel, IMAGINARY NUMBERS. It relies on the first two Ghost Roads books for some things, but if someone has only been reading Incryptid they should still read ANGEL OF THE OVERPASS to answer some pretty big worldbuilding questions even if they don’t intend to catch up with the rest of the series proper.

The plot follows Rose trying to track down Bobby Cross now that some *events* mean she has a chance at dealing with him once and for all. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) following path to its conclusion will change her in ways she might not be ready for. Really, she’s been changing all along and what she does now will either finalize or disrupt a transformation that’s been a long time coming. I’m glad for the canonicity of this change, since more and more her circumstances have made it harder for her to be a hitcher, including but not limited to her having a car/boyfriend such that she only needs rides as a condition of her ghost-hood, the logistics of that have been getting trickier.

This is a great entry in the Ghost Roads and I’m looking forward to the next time Rose appears, whether in this series or another.