I got Moon Called

I saw a great post about Patricia Briggs on the Book Smuggler blog and I said to myself: “Self, you must get this author and read her as soon as possible.” Here I am 3 months later and I have just finished “Moon Called” and I now know what all the excitement was about!

I am not going to bore you with a full synopsis since her books have been out for a while and odds are you have already read her or at least know of her stories from other blogs like Smugglers. Mercy Thompson is regular girl. She changed her major in college from Engineering to English and upon graduation becomes a mechanic in a small shop in a little town outside Seattle. She is a tough girl with a big heart and a talent. She is a special kind of shifter called a “Walker”. She can shift, at will, to and from her coyote alter ego and she is giving Anita Blake a run for her vampire hunting money. Like in Anita and Sookie Stackhouse series some of the creatures of the paranormal sort have begun to come out of the monster closet. In Moon Called the lesser fae are out and the other preternatural crowds have been waiting to see how the human community treat them. Unlike Anita and Sookie, Mercy is used to living among the other paranormal beings. Mercy, being “other” herself, is aware her neighbor is a werewolf, the guy she bought the garage is a gremlin and the guy she is rebuilding the VW van for is a vampire. On a normal day none of this would bother her but when a young newly made werewolf male shows up at the shop looking for help she gets sucked into a strange political coup that turns deadly.

I like Mercy. I like that she is pretty normal, considering. I like that she isn’t looking to be part of anyone’s pack, coven, or gang. She wants to live her life and fix VW’s. I like also that she has skills, she can kick bad guy ass like Anita but unlike Ms. Blake she has nothing to prove. Well she might have something to prove but it isn’t that she is as bad as the monsters she hangs with. Another cool thing about Mercy is she obviously is good looking and very sexy but she isn’t wearing spike heels and push up bras. She has a sarcastic sense of humor that she uses like a shield. She is very human. I like Adam. He is an alpha male of the were kind but he isn’t totally macho and unable to appreciate Mercy’s talents. I like Samuel. I even like that Warren is a gay werewolf living in a pack. He is actually third in command after Adam. I like that all the characters in this series feel possible. Not the paranormal stuff but the people themselves, their emotions and relationships all feel so normal which makes the rest of the story believable.

I have “Iron Kissed” in my possession but not “Blood Bound” so I am off to Barnes and Noble tomorrow to pick it up. I don’t want to read these out of order.