Have Mercy!
Another Look at the Mercy Thompson Series by Patricia Briggs
Hey,
folks. Happy New Year! I’ve been neglecting the Red Wolf Blog for the last few weeks, and it
may be a while before I do another post. I’m really pushing to get Red Wolf Rising ready for editing in the
next few months, so blogging has been moved to the back burner of the writing
stove, so to speak.
However, I just finished reading the seventh book in
this wonderful paranormal series, so I thought it might be time to reprise a
post I did last year, during my Top Five Paranormal Countdown, but this time
include a review of the newest book.
Remember? The Mercy Thompson series, by Patricia
Briggs, was number four on my top five list for a paranormal series…
What I liked…
The heroine…
The tattooed, kick-ass Volkswagon mechanic named
Mercedes is simply to die for, and characters sometimes do. An extraordinary
woman engaged in the never-ending struggle to make ends meet, while dealing
with any number of extraordinary situations, Mercy insists on doing it all on
her own terms. If she likes you, she’ll risk life and limb to help you out. If
she doesn’t like you, you’re just plain up shit creek without a paddle.
The werewolves…
They are part of Mercy’s past and present. I
love the pack magic and the structure of the global werewolf hierarchy. Some of
the characters also appear in other series by Briggs, such as the Alpha and
Omega stories.
The Fae…
There are some great allies and villains from
the Faerie world in most of these novels, including Mercy’s former boss, who
appears more than once.
Mercy’s cloudy past…
… is slowly revealed as the series progresses.
I’m hoping there’s more to come.
The action…
These books are fast-paced. It’s hard to find a
place to turn off the light and go to bed.
The sexual tension…
In the first three or four books, Mercy is being
courted by two powerful werewolves, and the sexual tension is perfectly
balanced with the action.
What I didn’t like…
The sexual tension fades…
Mercy chooses a mate by the fourth or fifth
book, and the series shows a marked decline for me at that point. I’m still
struggling to get through River Marked,
mainly for that reason. I’m hoping Frost
Burned, which just came out in March, will re-kindle my flame.
What I stole…
The omega werewolves…
Okay, technically, the omega wolves are in
Briggs’ Alpha and Omega stories, but
I found those while looking for more Mercy Thompson. The idea of a type of
werewolf who has a calming effect on the dominant wolves and is not so much
affected by the dominance of others is essential to my own Red Wolf saga. And
it was the “what if” question of what a male omega would be like that was the
original impetus for my series.
Okay, that was then. Now, that review I
mentioned…
Frost Burned
I am so vindicated.
It turns out I was right not to abandon my favorite coyote shape-shifter after
only one disappointing book in this wonderful series. Patricia Briggs rebounds
from River Marked with a five-star
offering in Frost Burned, the seventh
of the Mercy Thompson novels.
I’ve said before that I thought the series
started downhill after Mercy chose a mate. I don’t care anymore. Frost Burned is non-stop action from the
get-go. Mercy and her step-daughter are out shopping for some Black Friday
bargains when it all starts. She discovers the entire Columbia Basin Pack of
werewolves has been kidnapped, including her mate, Adam Hauptman.
By using the magic of the pack bond, which she
can now tap into as mate of the pack’s Alpha, Mercy determines that rogue
government agents are holding the pack hostage in an effort to coerce Adam into
assassinating a high-profile politician, embroiling the wolves in a public
relations nightmare that will certainly dissolve the tenuous rapport the
supernatural wolf community has been carefully building with the general public
after recently outing themselves.
That’s all bad enough, but it turns out things
are not what they seem. As she sets about trying to rescue the wolves,
gradually peeling away the layers of intrigue, Mercy finds the real target of
the plot is herself, and she is drawn into a confrontation that puts not only
her life on the line, but perhaps those of every human on earth.
This is as good as anything Briggs has written
so far. Mercy is as tough, sexy, sassy, and indomitable as ever, and I give it
five stars.
Okay, now, that’s it for today. Look for me again in a few weeks. In the meantime, Happy Reading!
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