Cry Wolf / Patricia Briggs

Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2020 Re-read

So, finally I have read the novella where the story of Charles & Anna’s saga had its beginning. As a result, things made much more sense this time through this first novel. I really like this series and I appreciate this book more with the missing background filled in, but I'm leaving my rating unchanged because I feel that my initial complaints were justified.

I still retain my dislike of the cover art too. Daniel Dos Santos, I think you could have done much better. I'm not sure if the woman on the cover is Anna or Mariposa, but either way she's just not dressed appropriately. This cover harkens back to the cover art of the 1970s that often portrayed scantily clad women whether there were any in the novel or not!

However many of my favourite books have ridiculous covers like this one. I've learned to ignore them and just enjoy the stories.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Let me first state up front that I’ve become a fan of the Mercy Thompson series, which this book (and series) are firmly attached to. But it took me a couple of books to decide that, yes, I really did enjoy the Mercy-verse.

I have no doubt that I’ll get to that point with this series too. But first I’ll have to get past the fact that there was necessary information missing from this first book, namely how Charles and Anna met. There are a lot of assumptions made about the reader’s knowledge—basically that you have read the short story that apparently gives the pertinent info. This seems to me like cheating. Surely the first book of a series should provide all the information needed to enjoy it? Not, I guess, that it was too difficult to sort things out, but when I’m reading for brainless fun I don’t want to wonder what the heck the main characters are talking about.

A related rant: the cover art of these books just disappoints me. Briggs actually thanks the cover artist in this volume for a cover which I find amateurish and unattractive. I don’t recall any women with humongous breasts running around in tube-tops anywhere in the novel, so where does this chick on the cover come from? Is she meant to be Anna? Because if so, once again my inner vision and that of the cover artist are thousands of miles apart.

At this point, you’re probably thinking that I really didn’t like the book, so why did I give it 3 stars indicating that I did like it? Well, that would be because I really did enjoy the story and I’m sure that I will read future volumes. I’ll just read them at home where no one can see these embarrassingly cheesy covers.

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