Elitist Book Reviews

The latest in Patricia Brigg's Mercy Thompson series has her heroine face her most terrifying adversary yet. This opponent is tougher than the river devil that almost killed her; more cunning than the local vampire queen; and a better baker than Mercy herself: Adam's ex-wife Christy.

Christy comes running to the Tri-Cities werewolf pack for a reason. She's being stalked by a dangerous playboy she met in Vegas who won't take "No" for an answer, who's knocked Christy around, and who may have been the one to kill her boyfriend. Unfortunately he turns out to be more than your run-of-the-mill psycho guy, and it's Mercy and the pack who must deal with the fallout.

Seriously, this series only gets better and better. In NIGHT BROKEN Briggs isn't afraid to shake things up for Mercy, who despite being a confident woman experiences some self-doubt when faced with the near-perfection that is Christy. Many of the pack feel protective over their alpha's ex-wife, her skills of manipulation and victimhood even messes with Mercy's head. It's been no mystery that some of the pack don't like Mercy and feel that a coyote shifter doesn't belong in the hierarchy. Will Christy successfully worm her way back into Adam's good graces and cause havoc with Mercy's standing in the pack?

Then, of course there's the mystery surrounding Christy's stalker. Where did he come from? Who is he really? And why is is so focused on Christy? Is he somehow related to the killings the local police want to pin on the werewolves? The clues begin to stack up and when Christy's stalker visits Mercy at her garage she discovers that he's more than he seems...a lot more, and it's scary enough that she wonders if they will ever be able to solve Christy's problem.

We get to see old friends and meet a few new ones. Other than the pack regulars, we get to see Stephan back in form, Tad returns as cool as ever, and even Coyote has to be called for help when a Grey Lord comes asking for the fae walking stick that used to follow Mercy around.

I enjoyed watching Mercy as she moved through the story, reacted to events, interacted with friends and enemies, and then proceeded to do what she does best: doing whatever it takes to keep her family safe. If you're a fan of the series then NIGHT BROKEN is a must read.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: None
Violence: A couple of scenes, one kind of gruesome
Sex: Referenced

Find this awesome series here:

MOON CALLED

BLOOD BOUND

IRON KISSED

BONE CROSSED

SILVER BORNE

RIVER MARKED

FROST BURNED

NIGHT BROKEN 

I love this series. I will not apologize for the gushing. You male types are probably rolling your eyes. Well your loss then.

In the seventh installment of the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs, FROST BURNED, we start out with Mercy and newly minted step-daughter Jesse out for some early morning Black Friday shopping. It should have been an ordinary day, the kind of normal day Mercy has been craving since she moved to the Tri-Cities and met the Alpha of the local werewolf pack, Adam Hauptman.

Instead, while Mercy and Jesse are out, the entire pack is kidnapped.

Then we're carried along as Mercy tries to make sure those who weren't kidnapped are safe, particularly the non-weres' loved ones. This includes Kyle, the divorce lawyer partner for the pack's third in command, and a close friend of Mercy's. With the pack in trouble, she has to call in outside help--everyone and every favor she can muster in order to save those she loves.

The majority of the PoV is Mercy's first-person narrative. I love Mercy's voice and observations, she's smart and strong. But here Briggs also adds some PoV from Adam, whose side of the story is as important as Mercy's. As usual, Brigg's prose is easy-to-read and engaging. We do get to see more of half-Fae Tad, the son of Mercy's former boss, who is coming into his own powers (I hope we see more of him in the future). We also see more of Kyle, who before now has only gotten brief scenes. People come and go in the series, but Briggs doesn't let them stagnate, and makes sure readers become fully attached to even the secondary characters.

As we try to figure out the "Who" and the "Why" of the abduction, the story begins to get a little slippery. Some things are obvious, but there's more to it than at first glance, and Briggs gets a little convoluted (she does that sometimes) about who's really behind it and why. If you haven't read previous books, the revelations will mean nothing to you and will be confusing. This makes the climax feel random when it really isn't. But the story moves quickly and it's easy to gloss over the confusing bits and just enjoy the story clear to it exciting end.

Briggs has built an interesting magical world with its rules, but not a whole lot is added here to the setting itself. FROST BURNED is less about showing us something new than it is using what's gone before, everything Briggs has built, to solve a problem caused by making normal people aware of paranormals. The result is an excellent addition to an already fantastic series.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: Maybe three instances total?
Violence: Fairly frequent throughout, but without gore
Sex: Referenced

If you love Urban Fantasy and haven't been reading this series, seriously, what rock are you living under?

MOON CALLED

BLOOD BOUND

IRON KISSED

BONE CROSSED

SILVER BORNE

RIVER MARKED

FROST BURNED

Mercy's life changed when she moved to tri-cities Washington. Since then she's had run-ins with vampires and demons, lived next door to the a werewolf pack's Alpha, collected a fae artifact or two along the way--and has risked her life several times to help her friends. But now, in RIVER MARKED, we get to see something a little more personal about Mercy: her Native American heritage.

Mercy is engaged to marry Adam Hauptman, Alpha of the Columbia Basin werewolf back. She may not be a werewolf, herself, but Mercy can hold her own. She's a 'walker', a shape-shifter who can become a coyote--an ability she inherited from her Native American father, and which has served her well in the past when she's had to fight the vampires and fae she inevitably comes in contact with.

Early in the novel Mercy and Adam get married, and hope for a nice, private honeymoon. Of course, that's not what they get. Instead they get a river monster, straight out of American Indian mythology.

But they can't fight the monster alone: the local Indian shaman and friends lend a hand, as well as Coyote. Yes, the god Coyote from Native American mythology--the one who long ago didn't kill the river monster when he had the chance. Remember that Mercy can turn into a coyote? It turns out that Coyote may have had something to do with that...

If you enjoyed the other books in Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series, then RIVER MARKED (book 6) will not only continue with the characters you love so much, but you get to see Mercy and Adam grow and change, and learn a little bit about Mercy's heritage. I enjoy Adam and Mercy's relationship, how they work as a team and trust each other, how they respect their limitations and allow flaws without letting it ruin the relationship. Unfortunately we don't get to see much of the regular gang; but that's not necessarily a bad thing since we actually get to see a lot of time with Adam and Mercy together.

Coyote in particular is a fun character--you can tell that Briggs has done her homework. Seeing his interactions, behaviors, and willingness to sacrifice made him engaging; I hope I get to see him again in the series. The other characters aren't more than shallow surfaces, but since it's a short book there really wasn't time for much else. And as usual, Briggs' world is multi-faceted. While she uses extant mythologies and locations, she weaves them deftly into her stories.

You've likely grown familiar with Briggs' prose and straightforward storytelling, and here it continues as easy-to-read as ever. The plot moves along at a good clip, revealing things at key points, all leading up to the exciting conclusion. Usually Briggs has a convoluted scene or explanation in her books; but not this time, everything was clear and engaging.

This series is a great palate cleanser--delightful and entertaining. You could read RIVER MARKED without having read the previous ones. But if you're an urban fantasy lover, you should read all the books, starting with MOON CALLED.

Recommended Age: 14+
Language: A mere handful of uses.
Violence: A fair amount, since people die, but it's on par with similar books.
Sex: Nothing graphic, but Adam and Mercy are on their honeymoon, so it's talked about.

Mercedes Thompson, car mechanic and shape-shifter, leads a complicated and exciting life. Considering the vampires, werewolves, and fae that surround her, whether friend or enemy, there's usually something dangerous involved. But the great thing about Mercy is that her friends can always count on her when there's trouble.

Only this time, in SILVER BORNE, it's Mercy who needs help.

She's the unwitting owner of a fae item that someone would kill to get. Unfortunately, while Mercy is trying to discover the identity of her would-be assassin, her long-time werewolf friend Sam is in another kind of trouble: after hundreds of years he no longer has the will to live, but Mercy refuses to let him give up. Yet there just doesn't seem to be enough time to solve these problems before lives are at stake.

There's many reasons why I like to read Patricia Briggs' stuff over and beyond any other urban fantasy. Foremost is that she's excellent with setting. While others gloss over the intricacies of living in a werewolf pack or having a vampire as a friend, Briggs doesn't stop at the obvious--she goes deeper and it enriches her stories and the relationships between her characters. After two different series (if you also include Alpha and Omega, Charles' and Anna's story) to build onto the setting, there's only that much more to grab you. So while the books in the Mercy Thompson series are fine to read as stand-alones, it would be hard to believe any urban fantasy lover wouldn't want to read the entire series and get the full brunt of what Briggs has created. It's also kind of fun that it's set in the atypical location of Tri-Cities Washington.

Mercy is an enjoyable mixture of bold and thoughtful, loyal and independent, courageous and vulnerable. Her shape-shifting is inherited from her Blackfoot Indian father: she's a 'walker' who can become a coyote (not to be confused with weres), and as a result she's also able to see ghosts and has some resistance to magic. Adam is her werewolf alpha boyfriend, whose overprotectiveness is sometimes creepy, but oddly endearing because it doesn't stop him from letting Mercy be who she is. Sam, the son of the the North American Alpha of all Alphas, and a dominant in his own right, is a friend from Mercy's childhood. His story is a fascinating one, and it's interesting to see how his age and experience affects his behavior. He's been around since early in the series and needed a resolution, so I was glad that his story finally wrapped up in a satisfying way (ok, I admit the resolution was probably too easy, but I just went with it). Side characters, such as members of Adam's pack and Mercy's friends and co-workers, are all a diverse group without being too many to keep track of--and they're easy to care about because Mercy sees them for who they are and loves them for it anyway. Briggs has been consistent across the series with her characters and setting, yet is still true to Mercy's development as her story has unfolded from book to book.

Briggs' prose is unencumbered, and Mercy's first-person PoV is intelligent without being melodramatic or too flippant. That's one thing that drives me crazy with the current urban fantasy chit lit: authors think that the females have to be brash and kick-butt, or at the very least sassy, but it always comes off as annoying and unbelievable. That, or else they're so powerful or know-it-all that they have too easy a time coming up with solutions to problems. Mercy approaches her dilemmas in a realistic way, accepts her limitations and will work around them in order to get the job done (she's not so ultra modern female as to not ask for help), no matter how scary the situation is.

SILVER BORNE's plot is straightforward, although with a touch of Briggs' usual convolution to complicate things. There's a big scene about a quarter of the way in where lots of crazy stuff starts happening, and there's all these names, so I got lost--Briggs could have been more careful with how she handled the entire chapter. But there seems to be a complicated event like that in all of her books; for example, the entire end of book 1, MOON CALLED, was a confusing explanation of motives and actions that still doesn't make sense to me. You'd think she'd know better by now, especially considering how many books she's written, but I guess even experienced authors will overreach.

Briggs plans on writing two more books before finishing up Mercy's series. Fortunately, she's just starting her Alpha and Omega series, so it looks like she's not leaving that world anytime soon. In the meantime, if you haven't read any of Mercy's story, go find MOON CALLED and get to know her and her friends.

Recommended Age: 16+
Language: A few scattered here and there.
Violence: Yes. There are werewolves after all, and they are temperamental creatures.
Sex: Innuendo throughout, and one detailed scene.