Audiobook: Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs

Iron Kissed
Author: Patricia Briggs
Narrator: Lorelei King
Publication: Penguin Audio (Nov. 1, 2009)
Length: 9 hours and 11 minutes

Description: “Expect to be spellbound”* by Patricia Briggs’s #1 New York Times bestselling series starring Mercy Thompson. Being a lowly “walker” in a world of vampires, werewolves, and fae once kept her safe. But Mercy’s bark—and bite—are not so harmless any more…

Though Mercy can shift her shape into that of a coyote, her loyalty never wavers. So when her former boss and mentor, Zee, asks for her help, she’s there for him. A series of murders has rocked a fae reservation, and Zee needs her unique gifts, namely her coyote sense of smell, to sniff out the killer.

But when Zee is accused of murdering the suspect Mercy outed, he’s left to rot behind bars by his own kind. Now it’s up to Mercy to clear his name, whether he wants her to or not.

Mercy’s loyalty is under pressure from other directions, too. Werewolves are not known for their patience, and if Mercy can’t decide between the two she cares for, Sam and Adam may make the choice for her...

My Thoughts: In this adventure, Mercy is called in by her friend and mentor Zee to use her superior sense of smell to find out who murdered some fae on the fae reservation. She does pinpoint a suspect - a human who is one of the guard for the reservation.

When Zee and Uncle Mike go to talk to him, and likely kill him, they find that someone got there first and murdered him. The police arrive suspiciously fast and Zee is arrested for murder. Since the fae want the whole thing to go away fast, it is up to Mercy to find out who really killed the guard and prove her friend Zee innocent.

But the fae are very powerful and very invested in keeping their real powers off the radar, so Mercy is in as much danger from the fae as she is from the real killer.

It turns out that the murders were cover for someone wanting the powerful fae artifacts that each of the victims controlled. Among them is a walking stick whose original purpose was to make a farmer's ewes have two healthy lambs at each birthing. But old fae artifacts can do more than that, and this one has decided that Mercy needs it. It keeps showing up no matter how often Mercy tries to give it back.

This is also the story where Mercy needs to decide between Samuel and Adam before the two powerful alphas take away her choice. Samuel is her first love and her first heartbreak and she knows he needs her. But Adam is the man she loves - if only she wasn't terrified that loving him would put her under his control and change her in ways she doesn't want to be changed.

The story was compelling reading and parts of it were very hard to listen to because of the content. Mercy does manage to survive and I hope she is able to overcome the damage done to her. I recommend it and recommend this series to fans of good urban fantasy.

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.