Book
This is the third book in the Mercy Thompson series. It is about
Mercedes “Mercy” Thompson, a VW mechanic and skin walker. She can change into a
Coyote. She is sort of involved with the local werewolf pack. She is also
friends with Zee, her old boss and part of the fae, who is arrested for murder.
He is innocent and Mercy takes it upon herself to solve the crime to absolve
Zee.
Thoughts
This is book three, so there might be spoilers for book one and two.
Without me meaning to, but hey.
So I really like Mercy. She’s like a real, proper grown-up. She acts
sort of reckless and a bit silly at times, but she’s very comfortable with
herself and she knows herself. Which I find really refreshing. She’s not only
just like… a grown up, she’s a strong, and confident person. She can be petty,
and she lives to rile up her neighbour, but I like it.
There’s one thing about werewolf books I never get. I mean, I get it
because patriarchy, but in the werewolf books that I have read the alpha is
always male. Now admittedly I haven’t read many werewolf books, so I might just
be picking the wrong books. In nature the alpha of wolf packs are usually a
couple, the parents of the pack. Which, why aren’t the books like that?
Although writing this now, I realize that Mercy is declared the mate of Adam,
so she’s technically his second. Still, he is still in charge of her. WHY? I
realize it’s fantasy so why would it be like nature? But it annoys me.
I like how comfortable and grounded Patricia Briggs is in her world.
It’s urban fantasy, so it’s set in our world, but she has a very clear grasp of
her own mythology, and her own society. I love that, she’s very confident in
how she writes. I love how comfortable she is with Mercy as well, and how
consistent she is.
I liked the actual plot, it was interesting to see more about different
magical creatures. It’s a look into the fae community, with a bunch of
different types of fae. There are gremlins, and selkies and all kinds of
different fae. I liked looking into the different kinds of fae.
I enjoyed the look into Ben’s character. He’s a bit creepy, and weird,
and it was interesting to see his more human side, and I felt sympathy for him,
and he was great. Something happens at the end of the book, which I will
obviously not spoil, but I feel like how Ben handled it was impressive, and how
Mercy handled it was very true to character. And it was very honest and real
how Briggs dealt with it.
I am so glad they sort of solved the whole Samuel/Mercy thing. Mercy
will be forced to deal with being all indecisive. Now she has a fairly good
reason for being indecisive. She has been forced to this decision she has to
make, by two over-macho assholes. But I’m glad that part of that mess is sort
of resolved. Because that was annoying as fuck.
Finally
I really like these books. I really love Mercy, she’s a badass. I like
Adam, with the scowling, and the being a grumpy alpha wolf. I love Zee, and I
like Ben, somehow. I like how grounded the books are in their own reality.
Briggs is da bomb.