Moon Called / Patricia Briggs

4 out of 5 stars

Mercedes Thompson, aka Mercy, is a talented Volkswagen mechanic living in the Tri-Cities area of Washington. She also happens to be a walker, a magical being with the power to shift into a coyote at will. Mercy's next-door neighbor is a werewolf. Her former boss is a gremlin. And she's fixing a bus for a vampire. This is the world of Mercy Thompson, one that looks a lot like ours but is populated by those things that go bump in the night. And Mercy's connection to those things is about to get her into some serious hot water...

I’m not sure why this is a more difficult Christmas season than usual, but it is.  I’m having a hard time motivating myself to do anything besides the basics:  go to work, cook enough to survive, clean when I have to.  I didn’t even set up a Christmas tree this year—and I’ve done that continuously since 1996.  Plus I’ve found myself reluctant to read new books and I’ve gone on quite a binge of re-reading old favourites.

This one I am justifying to myself as a re-read in anticipation of the 11^th book of the series coming out next May.  I’m just having a wander down memory lane, since this is one of the books that got me hooked on the urban fantasy genre.

I’d forgotten how quickly Briggs developed the plot in this first novel—the reader plummets into convoluted politics of various species, equally twisty personal relationships, plus lots & lots of details that set up the Mercy universe.  I was enthralled during that first encounter and have been happily sharing Briggs’ world since 2015.

I was somewhat startled to realize that Mercy was already crushing on Adam, right from the beginning!  Somehow, in my mind, the triangle between her, Adam, and Samuel started with the two men on more or less equal footing.  This is changing my view of Mercy—I like her better for knowing her own desires and not letting Samuel interfere (too much).

I really like Briggs’ depiction of the Fae and her version of vampires.  I’m still very glad I started reading this genre and I look forward to many more urban fantasy adventures in 2019.