Moon Called (Mercy Thompson Series #1)
Werewolves, vampires and magic oh my. Urban fantasy is the new thing I guess, with lots of different interpretations of the old cliches. I feel the need to admit to my addiction to them…. It’s not healthy and it’s likely to melt my brain, but they are just so entertaining! Well, there is a new Mercy Thompson book out called River Marked and it seemed a good time to write about the series.
Title: Mercedes Thompson series, the first book is Moon Called
Author: Patricia Briggs
Length: 324 pages (hardcover)
Setting: West coast in an alternate reality (so we think) where there are werewolves, vampires and Fae, some of whom are out the public and some who aren’t
Premise: Mercy is a mechanic who can turn into a coyote and is friends with a fair number of not quite humans and trouble seems to find her quite often. Thankfully, those same people also help her out to fix whatever bad things are going on; she’s even saved the world once.
Strengths:
- Strong and highly entertaining female character
- Nice take on werewolves and fae, namely that they aren’t all sparkles and butterflies, which is just so annoying
- On a similar note, the magic system is basically a gritty retelling of lots of old stories, like Native American legends, European fairy tales (the grisly ones), etc
- After six books, the plots are still interesting and entertaining
- I laugh many times while reading these books
- The main male character(s) are really awesome bad boys :D
- Unlike other series, I don’t get stressed when reading them!
Weaknesses:
- While I adore the good vampire in the series, good vampires have a tendency to annoy me without a good explanation, and Stephan the scooby do loving vampire is awesome, but has no good reason for not being evil
- It is urban fantasy, and so is definitely not highbrow literature
Summary: If you like urban fantasy, you must read this series, it’s just so entertaining. I literally laughed out loud frequently when reading the latest book. That being said, it is typical urban fantasy, so if you don’t like vampires, werewolves and fae in a modern setting, then (besides you being silly) the series probably isn’t for you. Also, one of the books deals with an attempted rape at one point, just a warning.
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