Audiobook: Storm Cursed by Patricia Briggs

Storm Cursed
Author: Patricia Briggs
Narrator: Lorelei King
Publication: Penguin Audio (March 7, 2019)
Length: 10 hours and 15 minutes

Description: In this powerful entry in the number-one  New York Times best-selling series, Mercy Thompson must face a deadly enemy to defend all she loves....

My name is Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman, and I am a car mechanic.

And a coyote shape-shifter.

And the mate of the Alpha of the Columbia Basin werewolf pack.

Even so, none of that would have gotten me into trouble if, a few months ago, I hadn’t stood upon a bridge and taken responsibility for the safety of the citizens who live in our territory. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. It should have only involved hunting down killer goblins, zombie goats, and an occasional troll. Instead, our home was viewed as neutral ground, a place where humans would feel safe to come and interact with the fae.

The reality is that nothing and no one is safe. As generals and politicians face off with the Gray Lords of the fae, a storm is coming, and her name is Death.

But we are pack, and we have given our word.

We will die to keep it.

My Thoughts: Plans are underway for a meeting of officials from the US government and the Grey Lords in the territory of the Columbia Basin werewolf pack. There are so many things that can go wrong that Mercy would be hard-pressed to even make a guess as to how many.

What she hadn't factored in were a group of witches - a horribly powerful group of witches - who definitely don't want that meeting to take place. Interference from Coyote is also making things more difficult for Mercy because, as always, Coyote has his own agenda.

With Adam busy trying to remain neutral while being under contract to provide security for the meeting due to a bad contract lawyer and an almost forgotten line in an old contract, Mercy has to call in some old friends and some old enemies and some new friends to deal with the witches.

This episode brings in threads from earlier books in the series but stands alone quite well. I love Mercy's relationship with Adam and her growing bonds with the werewolf pack. I liked seeing Zee and Tad and even Uncle Mike again. I enjoyed meeting the Goblin King and, like Mercy, wonder about his cryptic comments about the future.

The book is filled with action and packed with magic. It was an exciting story that kept me up late because I couldn't go to sleep until I knew what happened.

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

Audiobook: Silence Fallen by Patricia Briggs

Silence Fallen
Author: Patricia Briggs
Narrator: Lorelei King, George Newbern
Publication: Penguin Audio (March 7, 2017)
Length: 11 hours and 13 minutes

Description: In the New York Times best-selling Mercy Thompson novels, the coyote shapeshifter has found her voice in the werewolf pack. But when Mercy's bond with the pack - and her mate - is broken, she'll learn what it truly means to be alone....

Attacked and abducted in her home territory, Mercy finds herself in the clutches of the most powerful vampire in the world, taken as a weapon to use against alpha werewolf Adam and the ruler of the Tri-Cities vampires. In coyote form Mercy escapes - only to find herself without money, without clothing, and alone in the heart of Europe.

Unable to contact Adam and the rest of the pack, Mercy has allies to find and enemies to fight, and she needs to figure out which is which. Ancient powers stir, and Mercy must be her agile best to avoid causing a war between vampires and werewolves, and between werewolves and werewolves. And in the heart of the ancient city of Prague, old ghosts rise....

My Thoughts: The 10th Mercy Thompson novel finds Mercy kidnapped by vampires, taken to Italy, and dropped right in the middle of a bunch of twisted plots. She is alone, cut off from her mate bond by magic, and at the mercy of a very old vampire. She manages to escape and then finds herself alone in Italy without clothing or her passport. And a coyote doesn't blend in very well in Europe!

Meanwhile, once Adam knows where she is, he assembles a team to go to Italy to get her back - no matter what it takes.

I loved catching up with a lot of the characters I have come to love in the earlier books in this series. I love the strong relationship between Mercy and Adam. I also love the strong relationships that Mercy has with a number of her friends from all the various supernatural groups. This episode had a lot of vampire politics woven into it and explained a lot more about the politics that has turned the Tri-Cities and the Columbia Basin Pack into a safe zone for supernaturals.

This was a fast-paced, action-filled novel that kept me listening late into the night.

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

Audiobook: Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs

Fire Touched
Author: Patricia Briggs
Narrator: Lorelei King
Publication: Brilliance Audio (March 8, 2016)
Length: 10 hours and 8 minutes

Description: Tensions between the fae and humans are coming to a head. And when coyote shapeshifter Mercy and her Alpha werewolf mate, Adam, are called upon to stop a rampaging troll, they find themselves with something that could be used to make the fae back down and forestall out-and-out war: a human child stolen long ago by the fae.

Defying the most powerful werewolf in the country, the humans, and the fae, Mercy, Adam, and their pack choose to protect the boy no matter what the cost. But who will protect them from a boy who is fire touched?

My Thoughts: Tensions are rising in the Tri-Cities. The fae have retreated to their hidden reservations but have let very dangerous fae escape. Humans are wondering what they will do next.

Mercy and Adam come to be at odds with the Marrok when they provide a safe haven for a young human boy who has escaped from Underhill and when they declare that the Tri-Cities are under their protection. Aiden spent a long time Underhill and was given some powers to help him cope. But now Underhill is unhappy and wants him back and a variety of fae, all with their own agendas, want to give him back.

Mercy and Adam are unwilling to give this person, who looks like a child, into a situation that he fears. The Grey Lords have different plans. As a matter of fact, many different factions of Grey Lords all seem to have different plans. Adam and Mercy have to deal with the ones who have plans that will bring harm to humans or werewolves.

Mercy gets to spend time with a number of the fae that she knows and likes and a few that she can actually trust.

This story was more about political maneuvering than it was about battles though there were a couple of those too. And Mercy did have a few occasions when she could let her snarky side out.

Fans of the series won't want to miss this one.

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

Audiobook: Night Broken by Patricia Briggs

Night Broken
Author: Patricia Briggs
Narrator: Lorelei King
Publication: Brilliance Audio (March 11, 2014)
Length: 10 hours and 5 minutes

Description: #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series has been hailed as “one of the best” (Fiction Vixen Book Reviews). Now Mercy must deal with an unwanted guest—one that brings a threat unlike anything she’s ever known.

An unexpected phone call heralds a new challenge for Mercy. Her mate Adam’s ex-wife is in trouble, on the run from a stalker. Adam isn’t the kind of man to turn away a person in need—and Mercy knows it. But with Christy holed up in Adam’s house, Mercy can’t shake the feeling that something about the situation isn’t right.

Soon her suspicions are confirmed when she learns that Christy has the furthest thing from good intentions. She wants Adam back, and she’s willing to do whatever it takes to get him, including turning Adam’s pack against Mercy.

Mercy isn’t about to step down without a fight, but there’s a more dangerous threat circling. Christy’s stalker is more than a bad man—in fact, he may not be human at all. As the bodies start piling up, Mercy must put her personal troubles aside to face a creature with the power to tear her whole world apart.

My Thoughts: Things are going well for Mercy, her husband Adam, and Adam's pack until Adam gets a phone call from his ex-wife asking for help because she has a stalker. He can't turn her down and Mercy is going to help, too, despite the fact that she knows Christy for the vindictive, manipulative kind of person who won't be good for their new balance.

As soon as she arrives, Christy begins her insidious ways and tried to nudge Mercy out of her new place in the Pack while making it look like Mercy has it in for her. Besides, she isn't very forthcoming about the man she insists is stalking her.

When the stalker visits Mercy's garage, it becomes apparent that Christy has been leaving things out. It turns out that her stalker is a volcano god who has fixated on Christy. Some immortal whose ability to channel fire is not something any of them have dealt with before or know how to deal with now.

In addition, one of the Gray Lords is also on Mercy's case to return the walking stick that has been following her around for the last few books. Because it was developing a taste for blood, Mercy had gifted it to Coyote and now she can't find him.

Mercy does find a brother she never knew she had. Gary hates Coyote and blames him for all sorts of dangerous situations he has gotten him into. This situation is no different. Gary's visions are essential for Mercy to find a way to defeat the volcano god and protect those she loves.

This was engaging, fast-paced and entertaining. I like the sharp contrast between Mercy and Christy which shows that Adam has learned to make better choices about the women he loves. I like that Mercy has such a strong protective streak and won't let anyone she cares about suffer.

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

Audiobook: Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs

Frost Burned
Author: Patricia Briggs
Narrator: Lorelei King
Publication: Penguin Audio (March 5, 2013)
Length: 10 hours and 2 minutes

Description: Mercy Thompson returns in the seventh novel in the number-one New York Times best-selling series.

Mercy Thompson's life has undergone a seismic change. Becoming the mate of Adam Hauptman - the charismatic Alpha of the local werewolf pack - has made her a stepmother to his daughter, Jesse, a relationship that brings moments of blissful normalcy to Mercy's life. But on the edges of humanity, what passes for a minor mishap on an ordinary day can turn into so much more....

After an accident in bumper-to-bumper traffic, Mercy and Jesse can't reach Adam - or anyone else in the pack for that matter. They've all been abducted.

Through their mating bond, all Mercy knows is that Adam is angry and in pain. With the werewolves fighting a political battle to gain acceptance from the public, Mercy fears Adam's disappearance may be related - and that he and the pack are in serious danger. Outclassed and on her own, Mercy may be forced to seek assistance from any ally she can get, no matter how unlikely.

My Thoughts: Mercy and Jesse are in a car accident on Black Friday and can't contact Adam - or anyone else in the Pack. When Mercy realizes that the Pack has been abducted, it is up to her to gather any allies remaining to try to rescue all of them.

Allies are rather thin on the ground because the fae, including Zee, have retreated to their reservation and hidden the reservation. Bran can't help from Montana but he does send The Moor - a very, very scary old werewolf - to help out.

Mercy also had the help of Zee's half-fae son Tad who has a whole lot more magical power than she know he had and much more than the other fae realize he has.

Mercy also contacts Stefan even though their relationship has been strained for quite a while.

It is up to Mercy and her allies to try to figure out what is going on and to rescue Adam and the Pack before they can be used to further a political agenda that has no up-side for the wolves. The plot also involves the Vampires and an attempt to take over Marsilia's seethe.

This was an engaging and fast-paced episode in the Mercy Thompson series.

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

Audiobook: River Marked by Patricia Briggs

River Marked
Author: Patricia Briggs
Narrator: Lorelei King
Publication: Penguin Audio (March 2, 2011)
Length: 8 hours and 56 minutes

Description: Car mechanic Mercy Thompson has always known there was something different about her, and not just the way she can make a VW engine sit up and beg. Mercy is a shapeshifter, a talent she inherited from her long-gone father. She's never known any others of her kind. Until now.

An evil is stirring in the depths of the Columbia River - one that her father's people may know something about. And to have any hope of surviving, Mercy and her mate, the Alpha werewolf Adam, will need their help....

My Thoughts: After a surprise wedding, Adam and Mercy are off in a luxury camper to a campground on the Columbia for some quiet time together. But people are disappearing in the area and it seems an ancient evil has been resurrected.

Mercy gets a chance to meet Coyote who is sort of her father when he comes to help her try to get rid of the new monster. And Mercy learns that the fae have an interest in checking up on some European river fae who have disappeared from their reservation in the campground and might be involved in the disappearances.

This episode has a lot of Native American myth and legend as Mercy learns more about her heritage and the supernatural beings from it who still have influence in the world.

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

Audiobook: Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs

Silver Borne
Author: Patricia Briggs
Narrator: Lorelei King
Publication: Penguin Audio (March 3, 2010)
Length: 9 hours and 5 minutes

Description: When mechanic and shapeshifter Mercy Thompson attempts to return a powerful Fae book she'd previously borrowed in an act of desperation, she finds the bookstore locked up and closed down. It seems the book contains secret knowledge - 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 Sam's life forfeit.

All in all, Mercy has had better days. And if she isn't careful, she might not have many more to live.

My Thoughts: In this fifth in the Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series. Mercy has three problems to solve.

First of all, her friend and roommate Samuel who is a very old werewolf has lost his will to live and tries to commit suicide. With his wolf now in control, Mercy has to find a way to give Samuel a reason to live or he will be executed.

Second, Mercy was given an old fae book to read by a local part-fae bookstore owner and now she needs to return it. But the bookseller has disappeared and various fae all want the book back and are willing to murder Mercy and her friends to get it.

Third, Adam's pack is in disarray because of the mating bond between them. Many in the pack don't want to accept a coyote either as the Alpha's mate or in the pack at all. Sneaky plots try to disrupt their relationship and lead to a challenge against Adam - a fight to the death - when he has already been injured when rushing into Mercy's burning trailer home to try to save her. The plotting wolves hadn't mentioned that Mercy wasn't at home and that they saw no reason to stop the fae from burning her out.

This was another great episode in an engaging and well written urban fantasy series.

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

Audiobook: Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs

Bone Crossed
Author: Patricia Briggs
Narrator: Lorelei King
Publication: Penguin Audio (Feb. 5, 2009)
Length: 9 hours and 7 minutes

Description: In a world where "witches, vampires, werewolves, and shape-shifters live beside ordinary people" (Booklist), it takes a very unusual woman to call it home. By day, Mercy Thompson is a car mechanic in Eastern Washington. By night, she explores her preternatural side. As a shape-shifter with some unusual talents, Mercy's found herself maintaining a tenuous harmony between the human and the not-so- human on more than one occasion. This time she may get more than she bargained for.

My Thoughts: Mercy is trying to get over being raped (and having the attack videotaped) and then killing her assailant. She is also trying to come to terms with her new mating bond with Adam who has taken her into his pack - something that she didn't think was possible given that she's a coyote and not a wolf.

Beyond that, the vampires are unhappy with her and Stefan. She's had a symbol painted on her garage indicating that she is a traitor to the vampires and which leaves her open to all sorts of attacks by other paranormals. She also learns that Stefan had been tortured and starved by Marsilia when his very dessicated body is dropped into her living room requiring feeding by a number of Adam's wolves.

And if that wasn't bad enough, Amber, an old frenemy from college, comes to urge her to visit her home in Spokane where her son is being haunted by a vengeful ghost. Adam and Stefan both urge her to go to Spokane to get her away from Marsilia's revenge. After all, there is only one vampire in Spokane. So Mercy should be safe.

What Mercy doesn't know is that the only vampire in Spokane has hired Amber's husband to be his lawyer. Mercy wakes up two mornings in a row with bite marks on her neck. She also bonds with Amber's deaf son Chad when she proves that he is being haunted by some sort of vengeful ghost and she manages to convince Chad's father that the ghost is real.

Mercy doesn't know how to get rid of the ghost and heads back to the Tri-Cities to get away from the vampire and try to find out how to get rid of the ghost. There she learns that the vampire in Spokane could have some power over her because he likely forced her to make a blood exchange even if she doesn't remember it. Stefan offers to break that bond but the only way to do it is to form a bond of his own. That seems like the lesser of two evils and Mercy agrees after being sure that the bond won't make the wolves in Adam's pack vulnerable.

Mercy has a bad reaction to the mating bond since her idiosyncratic magic isn't letting her control the bond. It is while she is burned out and unable to contact Adam that she is kidnapped by Amber's husband who is the vampire's unwilling minion and returned to Spokane. As a coyote, she could get away but goes along in the hopes of rescuing Chad.

This was an exciting and fast-paced story with all kinds of twists and turns. Mercy has a lot to deal with but manages all the issues with grace, courage, and humor.

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

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.

Audiobook: Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs

Blood Bound
Author: Patricia Briggs
Narrator: Lorelei King
Publication: Penguin Audio (Oct. 1, 2009)
Length: 10 hours and 2 minutes

Description: “Kick-ass were-coyote auto mechanic Mercedes Thompson” (Publishers Weekly) has leapt to the forefront of today’s urban fantasy heroes, thanks to bestselling author Patricia Briggs. Now, Mercy finds herself in the middle of a bloodbath—with only one way out...

Mercy has friends in low places—and in dark ones. And now she owes one of them a favor. Since she can shapeshift at will, she agrees to act as some extra muscle when her vampire friend Stefan goes to deliver a message to another of his kind. But this new vampire is hardly ordinary—and neither is the demon inside of him.

When the undead and the werewolves sent to find him don’t return, the local vampire queen turns to Mercy for help. A coyote is no match for a demon, but Mercy is determined to get her friends back—including the two werewolves circling around her heart.

My Thoughts: This is the second book in the urban fantasy series that stars Mercedes Thompson who is a VW mechanic and coyote shifter. When a vampire named Stefan calls in a favor, Mercy finds herself immersed in a complicated situation.

Stefan asks her to go along as he meets a vampire who damaged a friend of his. He is surprised to find that the vampire is newly made and was made from a human who is also a sorcerer. When Stefan goes missing along with some of the werewolves in the pack next door to Mercy's house, the head of the local vampire seethe calls on Mercy to find the sorcerer vampire.

The story was filled with excitement and action as Mercy searches for her missing friends before the sorcerer can kill them.

I like Mercy's growing friendship/romance with Adam who is the head of the local pack. I like her wariness as she realizes that Adam can use his powers to overwhelm her if he chooses too and her growing trust that he won't. I also found her relationship with Stefan to be interesting and am eager to see where it goes in later books.

The narration was well done and the voices distinct. The narrator had a great sense of timing and pace.

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

Audiobook: Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Moon Called
Author: Patricia Briggs
Narrator: Lorelei King
Publication: Penguin Audio (Sept. 1, 2009)
Length: 9 hours and 14 minutes

Description: I didn't realize he was a werewolf at first. My nose isn't at its best when surrounded by axle grease and burnt oil . . .'

Mercedes Thompson runs a garage in the Tri-Cities. She's a mechanic, and a damn good one, who spends her spare time karate training and tinkering with a VW bus that happens to belong to a vampire. Her next-door neighbor is an alpha werewolf - literally, the leader of the pack. And Mercy herself is a shapeshifter, sister to coyotes. As such, she's tolerated by the 'wolves but definitely down the pecking order. As long as she keeps her eyes down and remembers her place, the pack will leave her in peace.

My Thoughts: This is the first in what is currently a twelve book series and introduces Mercedes Thompson, Volkswagon mechanic and a skinwalker who can turn into a coyote. Mercy was raised by werewolves in the pack of the Marrok when her young human mother didn't know what to do with a child who shifted.

She left the pack at sixteen to go back to live with her mother when she fell in love with the Marrok's son Samuel who had ulterior motives for courting her. After college, where she switched her major from mechanical engineering to history, she moved to the tri-cities area and bought a garage from a gremlin and began fixing cars. One of her clients is a vampire who also loves Volkswagons. She lives in a double-wide trailer within eyesight of Adam, the alpha werewolf of the Columbia River pack, and delights in tweaking him when he seems to get too pushy.

When Adam's 15-year-old daughter is kidnapped and Adam severely injured, Mercy believes that her only option is to take him to the Marrok's pack for help. This lets her resolve some of the issues that caused her to leave and reunites her with Samuel who is sent by the Marrok to try to find the missing child and figure out what is going on.

I really liked Mercy who is bright, competent, and independent. I liked that she was willing to stand up for herself with both the Marrok and the alpha werewolf. The story was exciting and the characters well drawn. A lot of characters were introduced which gave a good picture of the world as it exists in this alternate paranormal world.

I liked the narration which did a good job making each characters distinct and building the tension in the story.

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

Friday Memes: Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Happy Friday everybody!

Book Beginnings on Friday is now hosted by Rose City Reader. The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Check out the links above for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Beginning:

I didn't realize he was a werewolf at first. My nose isn't at its best when surrounded by axle grease and burnt oil -- and it's not like there are a lot of stray werewolves running around So when someone made a polite noise near my feet to get my attention. I thought he was a customer.

Friday 56:

" 'Stay here a moment, Ben,' " Ben said, with an exaggeration of the drawl that Adam;s voice still held from a childhood spent in the deep South. " 'Wait until my daughter has a chance to get to her room Wouldn't want to expose her to the likes of you.' " The last sentence lost Adam's tone and fell back into his own crisp British accent. He didn't sound quite like Prince Charles, but closer to that than to Fagan in Oliver.

I thought it was time to go back to the beginning and read Moon Called by Patricia Briggs which is the first in her Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series. This book was published in 2006 and I know I had a copy when I began LibraryThing in 2008.

Here is the description from Amazon:

Moon Called is the novel that introduced Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson to the world and launched a #1 bestselling phenomenon... 

Mercy Thompson is a shapeshifter, and while she was raised by werewolves, she can never be one of them, especially after the pack ran her off for having a forbidden love affair. So she’s turned her talent for fixing cars into a business and now runs a one-woman mechanic shop in the Tri-Cities area of Washington State.

But Mercy’s two worlds are colliding. A half-starved teenage boy arrives at her shop looking for work, only to reveal that he’s a newly changed werewolf—on the run and desperately trying to control his animal instincts. Mercy asks her neighbor Adam Hauptman, the Alpha of the local werewolf pack, for assistance.

But Mercy’s act of kindness has unexpected consequences that leave her no choice but to seek help from those she once considered family—the werewolves who abandoned her...

I recently bought a copy of the audiobook of this title. That's the one I'm reading now.