- Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Ace; Reprint edition (January 26, 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 044101836X
Marsilia, the local Vampire Queen, has learned that Mercy crossed her by slaying a member of her clan. Now she's out for blood. But since Mercy is protected from the vampire's direct reprisal by the werewolf pack - and her close relationship with its sexy Alpha - it's not Mercy's blood Marsilia is after...
It's her friends'.
I really like Mercy Thompson. She's saucy, and fierce without being some uber-powerful super-being, and she's got a non-standard heroine job: she's a mechanic. How awesome is that? I will probably address her basic characterization in more depth when I go back and re-read the earlier books, but since this is the first I've done on this blog, I felt I should start with a little something about her.
In this books, we're still dealing with the repercussions of the events of the previous books, obviously. One cannot suffer rape and forget it in a week. I'm surprised Mercy is doing as well as she is at this point, but that largely comes from being an incredibly strong individual and from having completely destroyed her attacker. Major kudos to Mercy. As a natural part of coming to terms with what happened, she is having difficulties becoming intimate with Adam. I love that Briggs didn't have Mercy run into the arms of the big strong man, and allow his tender love to heal all her wounds. No, she had to deal with the fear she suffered, even from someone she trusted as much as Adam.
Aside from this, she's also dealing with the consequences of killing Andre, the vampire madam of the Tri-Cities' pet vampire. Granted, he was a total nutjub, but in this world vampires are not necessarily reasonable. Just incredibly territorial. In order to escape Marsilia's clutches and give the werewolves time to try to smooth out the situation, Mercy goes to help an old college friend with her ghost problem.
Obviously there is a lot going on in this novel. Possibly too much. You start thinking that the ghost problem is connected with the vampire problem, then it turns out it's not. I'm sure we'll see that developing further in the coming books, but it's still kind of hurriedly thrown in there, almost like she didn't really have a plan for a stand alone plot for this book other than tying up loose ends from others. The ghost/vampire angle was her main plot for this book. While it became interesting at the end, it felt a little half-assed to me.
The relationships are quite solidified at this point. We're all pretty sure that Mercy is going to end up with Adam, but it still remains to be seen how the emotionally unstable Samuel will deal with it. I also love that Ben and Mercy have bonded, and he's now kind of her biggest fan. Even though Ben was sort of an ass when we first met him, for some reason I still loved him, and I think it's because I saw the potential for this to happen. He really gave Mercy her spirit back in the last book, and we love him for it. Stefan also became massively cooler, I think. With his Mystery Inc. van, I always pictured him as sort of a hippie, but now he's a total badass. His loyalty to Mercy could bode a future interest in her romantically, if it's not there already, but since we know she's with Adam, it's not going to pan out. But doesn't it still make us feel good to have that person who loves us and would protect us without expecting anything in return? Stefan is that guy, I think, and I've become quite fond of him.
Overall: A-
Was this my favorite of the series? No, not really, no. Not at all actually. Yes, it was packed with a lot of stuff going on, but it wasn't really cohesive and it didn't all quite come together in the end. But Briggs did wonders with the relationships between characters, and I appreciate her all the more for that. So it's not getting an A or an A+ but it's definitely a solid A-.
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