Aftermarket Afterlife – Seanan McGuire

Rose is a caretaker ghost. She has settled into a baby-sitting afterlife - effectively the nanny for several generations of children in the extended Price/Healy/etc. family. She is also the viewpoint character in the second war-with-the-Covenant novel.

In “Backpacking through Bedlam”, Thomas’s and Alice’s homecoming is interrupted by a long-delayed Covenant attack. By the end of BtB, the Covenant has done a lot of damage. Thomas and Alice win an important battle, but the war is not going well. The Covenant has done a lot more damage. In fact, the Covenant’s ability to do damage is remarkable. On one level, they are a lunatic-fringe secret society that has hundreds of members despite having no visible means of support. Yet they are able to track down well-hidden targets across the US.

Basically the Covenant is a massive plot device: Their operatives are competent or incompetent, depending on the convenience of the author. The Prices’ (and Rose’s - remember Rose?) counter-strike will discourage the Covenant or make it more determined, depending on the convenience of the author.

Rose is also more plot device than character: She can teleport to where she is needed. She can be present as a viewpoint character for widely-scattered scenes in the story. She doesn’t have much of a personality, outside of her longtime-nanny persona.

By the end of the book, the protagonists have lost some of their plot devices. One goddess has told them “no more free rides” and another has told them “no more free teleports”.

“Aftermarket Afterlife” feels like the middle of a trilogy. Everything is left up in the air. Major characters are dead or in bad states. The war with the covenant will continue unabated if the author desires. I’d prefer the next book in this series to resolve more of the loose family ends.