Reviewed by Lesley
TITLE: Something Cryptid This Way Comes
SERIES: Love in Maplewood
AUTHOR: Susan Scott Shelley
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 226 Pages
RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2025
BLURB:
Trevor Casal loves Maplewood and will do anything for its residents, including host the town’s first Cryptid Night to kick off the month-long Halloween festivities. After all, Mabel, Maplewood’s own monster, is a tourist attraction, and this is an opportunity to increase business for his inn, his family legacy. The event, and a rash of new sightings, brings his best friend Bram, a cryptid investigator, to town, and Trevor worries that spending so much time together will give away his secret… he’s been in love with Bram for years.
Bram Macleod’s fascination with cryptids began at the age of ten, and his first encounter with Maplewood’s resident monster. In the years since his pro football career ended, he’s devoted his time to documenting investigations and myths on his podcast. Returning to Maplewood after twenty-five years away, Bram is eager to dive into exploring cryptids old and new and to spend time with Trevor, but hesitant on how to handle the fact that, lately, he’s started seeing his best friend in a new light… one that feels a lot like love.
As Bram and Trevor chase down cryptids and get immersed in the town’s Halloween activities, their feelings for each other become impossible to ignore. Crossing that line threatens to change the friendship they depend on, but could give them everything they long for.
Something Cryptid This Way Comes is a low-angst MM romance with matchmaking family, tricks and treats, a guard dog who likes everyone, so many plaid shirts, bedtime stories as a form of wooing, and a love forged from friendship… with the help of the “Maplewood Monster.”
With the highest percentage of LGBTQIA+ residents in Vermont, Maplewood is a town where everyone belongs. And with festivals year round, there’s always something fun happening! This multi-author, low-angst queer series features ten standalone romances—each set against the backdrop of a different festival. Come for the celebrations, stay for the happily ever afters!
REVIEW:
I have really enjoyed this book by Susan Scott Shelley. It pulls in so many characters and elements from the prior books in the Love in Maplewood Series, it’s great. It really pulls the whole series together and what makes it better it even better the event in this book is for Mabel, Maplewood’s very own Cryptid!!
This time the festival we are celebrating is Halloween and the main character is Trevor Casal owner and manager of Maplewood’s Red Clover Inn. He is a Maplewoodian through and through, with the inn being his parents before he took it over. When Agnes (from The Rocktogenarians ) his best friend’s great aunt asks him to run a Cryptid night as part of the Halloween month long celebrations, Trevor knows he can’t say no, especially as it would mean his best friend and lifelong crush, Bram coming home to work on it with him.
Bram (how apt for a book about cryptids) first met Maple when he was 10 years old and a second time when he was 17 so he is a true believer of Maple’s existence. Since finishing playing pro football, he has set up a podcast where he investigates cryptids around the world. When he is asked to come back to Maplewood to help his friend Trevor with an investigation into new cryptids that have been sighted in the area and to help with Cryptid Night he can’t say no.
You really do get to see so many of the couples from the previous books, in the series, in this book as they are all a big group of friends, it is really good. Don’t worry if you haven’t read all (any of) the previous books, this one will still make sense.
Susan Scott Shelley is a new author for me and I really enjoyed her writing style, there is more fade to black scenes in this book than some of the others, which for me personally really works. Don’t worry they aren’t all fade to black sex scenes. This is one of my favourite books in the series so far.
RATING: 
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