Patricia Briggs: Silver Borne

• ISBN-13: 9780441019960
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
• Publication date: 1/25/2011
• Series: Mercy Thompson Series , #5
• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Pages: 304

 When Mercy Thompson, mechanic and shape-shifter, attempts to return a powerful fae book she previously borrowed in an act of desperation, she finds the bookstore locked up and closed down. 
 It seems the book contains secrets - and the fae will do just about anything to keep it out of the wrong hands. And if that doesn't take enough of Mercy's attention, her friend Samuel is struggling with his wolf side - leaving Mercy to cover for him lest his own father declare Samuel's life forfeit. 
 All in all, Mercy has had better days. And if she isn't careful, she may not have many more... 
 Mercy Thompson is, hands down, one of my favorite heroines of all time. OF ALL TIME. She's badass, she's brave, she's independent. But in this book she learns something else that we haven't really seen from her yet: she learns that it's okay to lean on someone else and be the weak one for a while. Having spent the last four months immersed in Supernatural, I find this message particularly meaningful after watching Dean Winchester struggle to take all the blame and responsibility of the world on his own shoulders and sacrifice himself for others time and again. OKAY that went where it wasn't meant to go, but the point is, I appreciated Mercy's development all the more because of my Supernatural feels.
 In this installment of her saga, Mercy's dealing with pack and fae bullshit. The pack, being a bunch of mostly old-fashioned dogs, essentially, are having a little trouble accepting a coyote shifter as their Alpha's mate. Since Adam and Mercy are still on precarious ground after her rape of two novels ago, they haven't really taken the time to figure out the dynamics of the magical pack bond that Mercy now has to deal with. Prime time for messing with Mercy's head. Throw in Samuel's mental breakdown (he's very old and very lonely) and you have a recipe for oh-man. And a major plot twist for our favorite white wolf toward the end.
 Also, the fae are after her, again. Although it's not the Gray Lords and it's not a group of fae so much as it's one fae in particular throwing a wretch of a wrench into her life, so that's a plus. Zee's son, Tad, asks Mercy to check in on a mutual friend, and hijinks naturally ensue.
 As I've already kind of intimated, the developing relationship between Mercy and Adam is my favorite part of this novel. Every time something happens to Mercy, Adam climbs the walls and has a freak out, and I, damsel at heart that I am, love to see a man lose his cool when his love is in danger. And since he's a wolf, that means a whole lot more. He has a few this novel, mostly because of the issues with the pack bond, but Mercy handles them supremely and actually talks it out with him, which is a major step in any relationship. So rah-rah on that front. AND BRAN AND CHARLES. They show up briefly and basically any chance to see Bran has me cheering from the rafters.
 Overall: A
 It wasn't as completely action packed as the other novels, but it definitely kept me on the edge of my seat with a ton of "will-he-or-won't-he" situations. Or she. There were a lot. The mystery also had an interesting twist.

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-.