Patricia Briggs: Bone Crossed

• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Ace; Reprint edition (January 26, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 044101836X

 As a shapeshifter with some unique talents, ace car mechanic Mercy has had to maintain a tenuous harmony between the human and the not so human within the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington on more than one occasion. But this time, she may be in over her head.
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-.

Jim Butcher: Grave Peril

• Mass Market Paperback: 378 pages
• Publisher: Roc (September 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451458443

Harry Dresden's faced some pretty terrifying foes during his career. Giant scorpions. Oversexed vampires. Psychotic werewolves. It comes with the territory when you're the only professional wizard in the Chicago area phone book.
But in all Harry's years of supernatural sleuthing, he's never faced anything like this: The spirit world has gone postal. All over Chicago, ghosts are causing trouble - and not just of the door-slamming, boo-shouting variety. These ghosts are tormented, violent, and deadly. Someone - or something - is purposely stirring them up to wreak unearthly havoc. But why? And why do so many of the victims have ties to Harry? If Harry doesn't figure it out soon, he could wind up a ghost himself...

 In the third installment of Butcher's Dresden series, we have rather a lot of "Oh shit" moments. The start was, I think, meant to be a "bang" but it ended up being more of a "pop" unfortunately. I suffered through quite a bit of confusion in the first chapters as we were introduced to characters and circumstances that had developed in the time between the last book and this one. That's normally pretty well done, but in this case, there were just too many new things going on at once, and I was having real trouble trying to figure out if I should know these things and was forgetting, or if they were brand new. I'm going with brand new. For example - a faery godmother? Really? When did that happen? Oh, when he was a baby. Why have we not heard of this before now if she's been hounding him most of his life? (Pun intended - you'll understand later).
 So right off the bat, I was a little flabbergasted at the events. That is not to say, however, that they were not fun and immensely entertaining. The first thing we learn, in the midst of an all-out battle against what I think is one of the creepiest ghosts ever, is that someone has been messing with the ghosts of the Nevernever and all hell is about to break loose because of it - well, all the Nevernever anyway. Of course, we have to deal with that. Also, the vampires are acting up, probably because Dresden previously pissed off their head honcho in town, big time. His godmother is after him as well, making getting anything done in regards to the case extremely difficult. Lastly, there's a Nightmare thing running around that may have something to do with some dark sorcerer/demon summoner that he helped arrest (again in that interval between books - which means the reader has no idea what he's talking about). Oh yes, and there's some clairvoyant girl who somehow ties into one or all of these things. Confused yet? So am I.
 While there's a lot going on, Butcher has miraculously developed a talent for keeping all the plot points firing apace and preventing them from getting too convoluted. Thank God for that. His first book was a little iffy on that score, but he has significantly improved, and as the book moved along and there were more developments helping to tie things together, the confusion was dispersed. It was well written for the most part, although occasionally the inner (and outer) dialogue got a little cheesy. The only other thing that detracted from my enjoyment of this novel was the editor's outrageously poor editing. Please, I don't want to have to fill in the blank and guess at what you're trying to spell while I'm reading for enjoyment. Not Mr. Butcher's fault, but jeez, get some better proofreaders people.
 There wasn't a ton of character development going on as we were pretty centered on Dresden and Michael and their problems. That's okay though, not every book has to be about everybody. Murphy was strangely absent for the majority of the time, and Susan made just enough appearances to be annoying and then awesome and then sad. Annoying because she's a reporter who doesn't seem to comprehend that no, Harry cannot tell you all the things and when he's busy it's probably for a good reason so you should shut up, sit down and wait patiently. Awesome because she's pretty ballsy. And sad because...well, I'll let you get to that.
 Overall: A-
 I enjoyed the book, and I like that Butcher is taking Dresden down a darker and more emotionally fraught path. We're not just doing it for kicks now. And the writing improves with every book, even though this one got off to a rocky start.