Moon Called (Mercy Thompson, Book 1)
by Patricia Briggs
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Book Reviews of Moon Called (Mercy Thompson, Book 1)
Book Review: A book worth reading
Summary: 5 Stars
I LOVE the Mercy Thompson books.I first found out about it on Amazon.It sounded really interesting so I ordered it.I find that Patricia Briggs is a great author for coming up with a story like this one.It has all the great mythical creatures that are said to be myths and legends.But here some of those so called myths and legends reveal themselves under the orders of the Grey Lords.The ones who are in charge of the Fae,the beings who are great and unimaginably powerful.
Moon Called:
I love this story because of who and what Mercy is.She is a Walker.A Walker being someone who can change there form into the Coyote at will.A Walker who was raised by a Werewolf and not just any Werewolf but the Marrok himself.The Marrok is THE Alpha,the leader of all Werewolves.Mercy maybe being the last of her kind because she doesn't know of any others living around her area.No one really knows much about the Walkers or if there is any of them left other than Mercy.Having been hunted and killed by the Vampires years ago.Because Mercy,like all other Walkers she is immune to some forms of magic and more because they can talk to ghost,for that reason the Vampires felt threatened.She is surrounded by Werewolves and others mythical creatures.Mercy is a loner,not being Fae or a Werewolf it is dangerous for one such as her.If it wasn't for Adam the local Alpha Mercy would have been dead a long time ago.Adam claims her as his mate(under the orders of the Marrok,Mercy unaware of that oder)which gives her protection,him being the Alpha of the local pack.Adam's claim on her is real to him,his wolves believe that his claim on her is just for her protection from them and other wolves,knowing that while she has that they can't touch Mercy without being dealt with by Adam.
I love how she has this little love triangle going on with herself,Adam(the local Alpha), and Sam(the Marrok's son).Which is pretty dangerous seeing as how Adam and Sam are both Dominant and if she doesn't choose one things can get serious.Who should she choose?...Samuel her first love that she still has feelings for?...of Adam who she finds very attractive and dangerous because she can't control herself when around him.
A new wolf comes by her shop looking for a job not knowing what Mercy really is.But with her strong nose and knowing their scent she knows what Mac is.Being curious she gives him the job to see how things turn out unknowingly getting involved in Werewolf business.A man and werewolf come looking for Mac have finally been able to track him down to Mercy's garage.Having killed a werewolf and needing the mess to be cleaned up Mercy must call Adam(the Local Alpha)and let him know what is going on.Adam takes in Mac to train him in how to control his wolf.Adam is attacked at his own home his daughter is taken and Mac is left dead on Mercy's porch as a warning to stay away.Adam is hurt and his daughter is missing.This is a big mystery as to who exactly behind all this.Mercy and the rest of Adam's pack are doing everything they can to find Jesse.Adam suddenly drives off after getting a phone call no one knowing where he has gone.Now Adam is missing as well and Mercy receives help from someone who knew Adam before they were turned when they were in the military,the one now helping Mercy was up until now apart of all the trouble that has been going on.
Book Review: It made me a Briggs fan
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the least-crappy light/pop werewolf-based novel I have ever read. That is to say, it's GOOD.
I've long been a fan of werewolf mythology -- they always seemed cleaner (morally if not physically; predators instead of sociopaths), wilder, more "natural," and less... well ... pretentious than their vampire counterparts. (Plus, there are far fewer writers doing werewolves, so they're fresher. Even though vamps will always have their Goth-y charm, for me.) But all too often, unless we're talking "literary," Samuel Delaney-esque sci-fi (or something by Dennis Danvers, try "Wilderness," it's BEAUTIFUL), what I've actually seen most often is thinly disguised, substandard romance, Harlequin-book-of-the-month style.
I was expecting what the genre all too often presents, which is a scant excuse for forced, clunky, fanfiction-y erotica. This book was different -- it was engaging and charming, with just enough "sexy" thrown in to be a seasoning to the tale, instead of "trying too hard." What we have here is essentially a murder mystery -- a detective story. (It's what I love about fantasy/sci-fi/spec fic in general -- you can take any genre and hang it upon the supernatural framework: two for one.) Twists and turns and people who you think are going to live...
I bought the book for the most flighty of reasons -- because of the cover. The woman depicted on the front struck me as extremely atypical. Not your normal hot, big-eyed, busty, bookcover material. She's rangy, and tough, and it takes you a long while to decide if she's pretty or not. But she looks like there might be some depth to her, something unexpected. She's obviously thinking, but you're not sure what. Funnily enough, this has wound up being the pretty much the same opinion I have of the book itself. It's pithy and spare, the prose is strong, and it has a couple of new ideas up its sleeves to boot. There is no sap here.
I love the idea of Native American "walkers" (coyote-shifters) being as strong as, and standing in opposition to, the standard Euro-mythological werewolves. I'd love it if Briggs revisited the concept of these walkers in subsequent novels.
After I bought this book I started looking up everything Briggs has written. Really, the woman has a gift. The best I can explain it is, she manages to write "light," fast-paced, easy and quick to get through books without them being dumb. I read this book (and then immediately after, "Dragon's Bones," which... oh, Oreg breaks my heart!!) and felt like they had actually tried to teach me a little something about humanity, something real about people and their psyche, rather than just diverting me for a couple of hours. (Or titillating me to distract me from the lack of plot and logic.) There's real soul here.
I'd say this one's a four-star plot (it IS pop after all), with five-star characters and prose, and knowing more of Briggs now, I'll definitely call her a five-star author. Her characters give you something to hook your heart onto, something to love about them, a reason to root for them, without that feeling that you've seen their type a thousand times before. Briggs is, at the heart, a true storyteller. It's pop with a brain.
Book Review: Great werewolf story that quickly pulls you in
Summary: 5 Stars
Mercy Thompson is an auto mechanic and runs a one-woman garage in eastern Washington state. One day while she's working, a young kid -- 18 years old maybe -- shows up and asks for work for a few hours. Mercy can smell instantly that the kid (who introduces himself as Mac) is a werewolf, but she also quickly deduces that he's a new wolf. He seems not to notice anything special about her, and if he had been a werewolf for a while, he would. Mercy is known as a "walker". She's a shapeshifter, but her ability to shift -- in her case, into the form of a coyote -- is hereditary and not tied to the moon. She has heightened senses, although not the superhuman strength of the werewolves, and can shift her shape at will. Mercy gives Mac a job for a few hours and closes down the garage not knowing if she'll see him again. A couple days later, he shows up again, but this time things go bad. Mac is visited by a couple of strangers -- a human and another werewolf -- and Mercy overhears a conversation about cages and drugs. It's pretty obvious that Mac is in need of saving, and Mercy acts, transforming into a coyote and attacking the werewolf. Miraculously, she kills the beast -- mostly by accident and pure luck and the werewolf's own inexperience -- and the human flees. Mercy calls her next-door neighbor, Adam Hauptman, who happens to be the local werewolf pack's Alpha, and informs him she's just killed a werewolf....
Then things really get interesting....
I really enjoyed this story. There's some tension between Adam and Mercy that was a lot of fun, but, hey, no endless sex scenes, a la Laurell K. Hamilton. Mercy's no pushover, but neither does she seem like the kickass heroine type. Rather, she's capable, competent and confident, but at the same time very aware of her limitations. She's a loner, and she's got a bit of a history that's revealed during the story, but she's not too angsty about it. Adam is a typical alpha, but not obnoxious about it, and as the leader of the area werewolves, he's constantly trying to tell Mercy what to do, but she'll have none of it. She's not a wolf, she's not pack, she doesn't have to do what he says -- which doesn't mean that she won't listen to the advice of others when it's smart to do so.
When the book was finished, I found myself hoping that Briggs is planning to write another book featuring these characters -- and she is...three more, as a matter of fact. Moon Called is a stand-alone, but there's some unfinished business between Mercy, Adam, and Samuel, a dominant werewolf with a link to Mercy's past. Also, the local vampires played a small role in the book, but you get the feeling that they're a big, bad presence just waiting for the right opportunity to wreak some havoc.
This book has lots to offer and gets the job done in a reasonable, bloat-free number of pages. If I have one criticim of the book, it's that the final reveal at the end of the story is a bit too layered and complicated. I had to read it a couple times just to get it all straight in my mind. Overall, though, I enjoyed this book immensely and will definitely be checking out other titles by this author.
Book Review: What a little moonlight can do ...
Summary: 4 Stars
For a woman raised by wolves--OK, werewolves--Mercedes "Mercy" Thompson has turned out all right. Though Mercy's half-Native-American heritage allows her to shapeshift into a coyote, instead of a wolf, she's taken care of herself by working as a mechanic and keeping her nose out of supernatural matters. But her eastern Washington town has too many such matters: her former boss is one of the fae; her neighbor is the local werewolf Alpha; and her client with the Scooby-Doo-inspired van is a vampire. Moreover, times are changing, as the fae have made themselves known to humanity, which isn't accepting their existence with perfect grace. And though Mercy has found her niche between the natural and supernatural worlds, their slow collision threatens to crush her.
To date, author Patricia Briggs has published three novels starring Mercy (Moon Called, Blood Bound, Iron Kissed), and a fourth (Bone Crossed) is due soon. Each probably can stand on its own, but reading them in order is recommended.
* Moon Called: The arrival of an unknown group of werewolves and werewolf hunters threatens the local pack, forcing Mercy to seek help from the local vampire seethe.
* Blood Bound: Mercy tries to pay off her debt to the vampires by helping them hunt a demon-possessed vampire.
* Iron Kissed: When Mercy's former boss is framed for murder, she defies him and the fae by seeking the true killer. (No vampires in this one.)
These quick synopses fail to do justice to the fast-paced, complex plotting in each book (and thought-out imagining of the structures and tendencies of werewolf, vampire, and fae societies). Each is told from Mercy's smart, no-nonsense perspective, and it's to the author's credit that, even though I usually like first-person narrators with above-average eloquence, I never tired of her voice. True, I have my quibbles (e.g. the first-person viewpoint is limited in its ability to present information, which is tough in novels that really heavily on mystery; and also, there are a few long passages of deduction or conversation that seemed to go a bit too perfectly to get to the right outcome) -- but overall, the writing is solid and keeps things moving. It's also mostly free of sex and profanity (though with regard to the latter, there are a few too many instances of someone starting to curse and stopping short).
Although these books lack that superior element of style, enlightenment, or brilliant plotting that would warrant a fifth star, they're solid modern fantasy/action/mystery entertainment. Granted, my offspring and work schedule have (temporarily, I hope) deprived me of the time and capacity for "weightier" works, but I read all three of these in less than two weeks (and just checked out Cry Wolf, the first in a related series). Recommended as paperback purchases or library loans for fans of this genre who are at least of high school age. 3-1/2 stars for Moon Called; 4 for Blood Bound due to its plot; 4 for Iron Kissed due to a well-done climax (in which Mercy *really* suffers).
Book Review: Great book, promising series
Summary: 5 Stars
Mercedes Thompson is deeply involved with the paranormal world. This shouldn't come as a surprise since she's preternatural herself, but all she wants is to fix cars in her garage and be left alone. It turns out to be impossible when a newly turned werewolf shows up starved, shivering and helpless in her doorstep. She knows nothing about Mac when she decides to help him, but in a matter of days she's deep in trouble involving packs of werewolves, vampires, fae people and some humans.
This was the first book of Patricia Briggs I've read and have to say I was pleasantly surprised. For the first time in a while I got a strong heroine who isn't annoyingly self-centered and stupidly stubborn. She's stubborn, don't get me wrong, but it's believable. Besides, Mercedes, or Mercy, is likeable.
In this first installment we learn where she comes from, how she came to be a walker (I won't explain what it is, but it's interesting and promises to be more complicated as the story develops) and how she interacts with various kinds of supernatural in her life.
Another quality I found refreshing was the no-nonsense of her way. There's no endless whining, she's practical but not cold. She worries about things, makes mistakes but doesn't dawdle on them. Very easy to relate.
We're also introduced to Adam, the charming local alpha werewolf, who's Mercy's neighbor. At first Adam seems to be someone who'll randomly appear in the story, but soon becomes essential part of the plot. We also meet Samuel, another werewolf, who's part of Mercy's past. And there's Stefan, Mercy's vampire friend, who made me think he might be more important than he likes to appear. Along with some other interesting characters, they have to solve a mystery well designed that, as a reader, I found it hard to figure out the reasons and the hands behind the crimes until the very end.
The way the story is presented is also something to be appraised. Though it's under the main character's perspective, it's flows easily and you're at the final chapter before you notice it. Briggs gives the right amount of descriptions, enough to imagine the character and its surroundings without becoming boring. She presents the past when it's needed to comprehend the plot and there are no needless repetitions. Once something is explained, you don't have to read it again (something many authors use as page fillers). As I said before: refreshing.
I have to warn you, though, that if you're looking for paranormal romance, this might not be the book for you. You feel the chemistry between Mercy and some other characters but generally this is not about her love life. It might grow into it as the story goes, with promising conflicts between enticing males, but it seems to me the main focus on this one is the mystery and suspense.
As a fan of well-written urban fantasy, I'll be definitely reading more on this series.