Fire Touched (Mercy Thompson #9) by Patricia Briggs

The tensions between humanity and the fae continue to get more dangerous and tense, with the werewolves in the unenviable position of being in the middle. Until a troll runs amok in the city, with the werewolves feeling the need to rush to their defence, especially since some of Mercy’s friends are being targeted by the fae

Mercy steps in – and in doing so draws a line in the sand to protect her people and her city. But in doing so she isolates them from the rest of the werewolves, the Marrock is unwilling to follow them to political ruin and possibly war with the fae. Mercy and Adam and their pack are alone to try and navigate the dangerous complexities of the different fae factions or be dragged into a war with no support.

This book brings in some interesting world building and development – not with the monsters, not with the new creatures or new magic – but with a whole lot of politics. I am glad to see the different factions of the fae – it’s usually so easy to present supernatural groups as a monolith, without differemnt factions (certainly without several different factions) that we would find among humanity. So seeing the fae, seeing the Grey Lords, actually struggling among themselves with their own agendas, their own conflicts and their own positions as well as some fae among them who are officially done with it all and want no more to do with the system. I even like the complexity of immortal relationships that Zee represents – with his honoured enemies he hated but respected.

It works nicely with the werewolf political position as well – as they try to find a balance between not being outright at war with the fae while also not allowing them to just run riot in their territory. The interactions between Mercy and the Marrock and Adam are all decently nuanced without masses of hurt feelings over political necessities. I really like how the pack is becoming strong because it is modern and progressive compared to the often backward and bigoted opinions of other packs and like how including non-werewolves as pack members or close to the pack is also bringing them new strength and options. The pack is better for its moving to the future rather than clinging to old ways even as it causes them political issues

Hopcross Jilly by Patricia Briggs

Mercy and the werewolf pack are doing their full moon roaming as animals when they come across a body. Of a child – and it’s just one of several

Bodies have been hidden for decades – and the killing has now started again. The mysterious fae have stopped working with humanity and are no longer leashing their worst monsters.

This is a graphic novel that functions, in many ways, like an excellent short story connected to the main series – which is exactly what I hoped it would be.

In many ways, I feel graphic novels and short stories are not exactly non-canon, but should be optional extras to a main plot line. I can’t, in all honesty, justify why I feel that essential canon-story development should not appear in short stories or graphic novels, but I do tend to see them as extras, little bits of non-compulsory fluffy

From that standpoint, this works ideally.

In the recent books in the Mercy Thompson series one of the major turning points of the meta-plot was the retreat of the fae back into their reservations after the injustice of the human justice system convinced them there was no point trying to assimilate or work with humanity any further. Of course, this doesn’t really closely affect Mercy and Adam that much, though they were deeply involved in the events that led to the fae withdrawing

We have had previous books which made it clear the fae had a lot of monsters among them as well – and this is another excellent example of that. When we look at the greater lore of fairy tales, we have a lot of terrifying monsters that hunted down “naughty” children (problem because they were originally created as various ways to keep children from disobeying authority figures). They are terrifying and creepy and horrifying – and, in some ways, the fae’s nukes

Now the fae have stopped playing nice with the humans, that also means no longer keeping their more unpalatable members hidden and restrained. No longer playing by human laws monsters like Hopcross Jilly are free to roam again. It both shows how monstrous the fae can be but also how much the fae were trying to play nice by humanity – I like the development of that, how it’s not just a matter of the fae spitefully unleashing their monsters, but also of them simply not working so hard to appeal to humanity.

Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega #4) by Patricia Briggs

Anna and Charles are travelling again – but this time for a nice simple holiday to see an old friend of Charles’s before he dies. It’s a painful reunion and a harsh reminder of the cost of the werewolves’ immense longevity

It’s also a chance to buy Anna a horse from his friend’s excellent ranch. But soon after arriving the quickly find something far more dangerous going on. The fae are finished playing nice with humanity and to push negotiations in their favour they’ve released some of the darkest monsters among them

One of which preys on children and his hunting in the area – including his friend’s family. While neutral in the conflict brewing between the fae and humanity, the werewolves won’t tolerate children being targeted, especially not children connected to the pack.

I think this book was an excellent follow on and contrast to Fair Game. There our sympathies are very much with the fae – it is the fae who are being attacked, cruelly abused and not supported or helped by the human government which leads to the major event in the world setting of the Fae withdrawing to their compounds. We open with this tense moment and both the werewolves and the humans bracing for the possibility of a human vs fae war or, at very least, some very tense relations.

This book shows the other side – that the fae are not nice and are rarely the victims. After most of both this series and the Mercy Thompson series in which the fae tried to play the PR game with humanity and had it fail so dramatically in Fair Game we now see the fae basically letting their monsters loose. They tried to play nice. They tried to keep their greatest monsters hidden and constrained but if humans aren’t going to work with that then it’s time to let loose the kelpies and the child snatchers.

I love this change of direction because it adds so many shades to the whole conflict. The way the fae were treated was unacceptable, but sending out monsters that target children? Equally awful – this puts both the reader and, similarly, the werewolves in the position of team nobody. Or, rather, the position of defending whoever is being unjustly abused regardless of which “side” they’re on. It promises for a lot of interesting plot lines in the future and also adds to the greater meta-feel of Alpha & Omega compared to the much more personally focused Mercy Thompson series.

So we’ve got a nifty little murder mystery with lots of horror and surreal elements from the fae all with a backdrop of big political happening which I really like.

One potential issue I can see is this book has a lot of horse talk in it. One of the hooks to get Charles and Anna on sight is that Charles is getting Anna a horse. I have a feeling the author loves horses and is very involved and knowledgeable about them. Personally I am pretty indifferent to horses and know next to nothing about them and I didn’t find the horse talk engaging – but nor did I find it particularly dull or book breaking. Since I’m not a horsey person and it didn’t bother me I can’t see it being too much of a barrier, but your mileage may vary.

Shifting Shadows (Mercy Thompson #8.5 - short stories) by Patricia Briggs

Collections of short stories from the same author – and certainly set in the same world – like this one can be very hit and miss. After all, a lot of authors write short stories that are designed to go into mixed anthologies to draw in new readers who have never come across their world – when you put them into a book together that is then aimed at readers of the series they can feel very unnecessary, like they add nothing and are generally just filler in the longer series.

This one, I think, rather wonderfully avoids that. Most of these short stories do an excellent job of expanding on elements of the Mercy Thompson/Alpha & Omega world and delving into more detail. This is a great thing for a series that has gone on as long as this has, because there are always going to be gaps – there should always be moments where someone’s story wasn’t explored or a concept wasn’t expanded upon because it simply wasn’t relevant to the main plot – but that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t still add to the world, flesh out a lot of side characters and generally add a lot of meat even if they didn’t quite fit.

So we have Silver that looks at the history of Bran and Samuel before they became werewolves, telling us about Bran’s with mother who enslaved them both – something which had been referred to in past books without ever really expanding upon it. It also brings in Samuel’s connection with Arianna; again I knew Samuel and Arianna had a history but I was never really aware of it’s depth or how far back it went. This story alone took a huge amount (while simultaneously reminding us just how very dangerous the fae are).

Roses in Winter adds some more flesh to Asil’s character – his compassion, his gentle hobbies and his ongoing struggle with the wolf due to his extreme age; and through that we see the almost inevitable struggle every werewolf goes through as they get older as well as the conflict that new wolves face trying to hold onto control and the sadly necessary executions of new wolves who fail to gain that control. It’s a great insight not just into Asil but also into how hard it is for Bran to lead, and a look at werewolf control beyond “rawr, I am wolf, cower before me, rawr!”

In Red, With Pearls brings some desperate characterisation to Kyle and Warren which has been desperately needed in the series. The only gay characters, they are often background in Mercy and Adam’s story and, unlike just about every other member of the werewolf pack and assorted associates, they’re the most affable. That doesn’t sound like a bad thing – but in a story where just about everyone throws up some problems, the gay characters being the mellow “we’ll go along with whatever you want, straight folks” has shades of the GBF, even the foreward of this story notes that Mercy considers Warren the gentlest werewolf she’d met. This story was essential to show more of these characters beyond how they appear when Mercy needs them or how they add to Mercy’s life – to try and claw back some sense of them as more than Mercy’s entourage and give them some of their own character and plot lines which I definitely like. I also like the further delving into the witch world building and the idea of the Pack witch – nearly every pack has a witch on call, but that doesn’t mean the witch is a nice person.

On the Prowl. Anthology by Patricia Briggs, Eileen Wilks, Karen Chance and Sunny

Alpha & Omega by Patricia Briggs

This short story is the prequel to the Alpha & Omega series that I have read. I found it quite useful to bring a little more detail to the background of the Alpha & Omega series while, at the same time, striking the ideal balance of not actually being essential to reading that series. It doesn’t add more to Anna’s history than I already knew but does provide a greater context to how her abusive past happened (especially given the inviolate nature of Omegas in the series) and how she and Charles met.

Even though I have read this series and the Mercy Thompson Series I also think this book did an excellent job of being both a stand-alone novel and giving us enough information about the world to be both workable and intriguing. Whether you had or hadn’t read the series, it was still a good story with elements for both readers.

While I’m not a big fan of the whole Alpha-male-werewolf-rawr trope but I think this story did a good job of looking at some of the consequences of this – how easy it would be for these “dominant” wolves to be abusive and for their victims to fear them all due to the ease of abuse written into their culture. Sure there’s a heavily element of the abusive werewolves doing-it-wrong, but at the same time it’s clear why their victims wouldn’t see much difference and would be wary of dominants.

We do have a lot of insta-love and insta-sexiness going on with Charles’s woo-woo mating bond kicking in. This causes a lot of over sexiness, a lot of domineering sexiness and, frankly, a lot of really unpleasant sexual pressure that is only exacerbated by Anna being a rape victim

We have some POC in this story – Charles is a Native American and drops in a fair amount of his culture and origins. Kara, Anne’s best friend, is Black – but it’s a shame she doesn’t get more presence here or in later books, serving only to be worried and protective of Anna (in a rather powerful way) without much more to her.

Anna sets the tone for future books in this series – while she’s hurting, abused and fearful, she’s also intelligent, brave and resourceful when called for – she’s abused but it’s made clear that doesn’t make her weak.

Unfortunately, this book does revolve around one of the tropes that is central to these series – mental illness is worse than death. Older werewolves in this world are often prone to insanity. This is considered terrifying, very dangerous and, ultimately, these werewolves have to be “put down”. Making mental illness a source of danger (a common, destructive and rarely true trope), a fate worse than death and something incapable of treatment or management.

This story has issues but it’s the one I liked most in the book – and the one I think struck the best balance with the series it was part of

Inhuman by Eileen Wilks

This is a short story set in the same world as the World of the Lupi series that I have read. It is, however, an excellent standalone story – in fact, while it’s set in the same world and the same events that are in the main series shape this one, it’s so separate from the main series that I missed that it was a part of it – in the beginning at least. It’s possible this perception is because I have read the main books and don’t realise how much I’ve assumed or absorbed to make this one work but it was very detached. The events like the magic wave flowing over the world and the increasing magic were mentioned in the beginning and nicely easily understood concepts to establish this world setting without having to get into the detail from the main series

If anything, the World of the Lupi series is too dependent on this book. Nathan and Kai, the protagonists of this story, return to play a major role in Night Season which makes that book feel very rickety unless you have read this short story to explain who Nathan and Kai are.

I think more development of Kai’s abilities and more definition of it would have been helpful – it was a little vague. I think the story itself was also more of an introduction to Kai and Nathan than a plot in and of itself. It does a great job of establishing who they are, how they fit into the world and how they get pulled into whatever shenanigans they will be pulled into – but it doesn’t actually tell much story. There’s a monster, they wait, the monster attacks them. Ok that’s overly simplistic and there’s a lot around the edges – but the edges is more about introduction of the characters and throwing in a hefty amount of “rawr sexy”.

Like the series it’s part of, there’s also a lot of appropriation of real world oppression against the woo-woo groups. We have direct links made to the holocaust and a lot of anti-magic laws that mirror laws and language against oppressed groups

Fair Game (Alpha & Omega #3) by Patricia Briggs

Anna is worried about Charles – ever since the werewolves were revealed to the world, the laws have been enforced with brutal, almost draconian, strictness. And Charles is the enforcer of those draconian laws. The killing always wore at him – but not nearly as much as the deaths he feels are unjust

A serial killer case with the human investigators asking for werewolf help presents an excellent opportunity –Charles can help stop a killer rather than being one, helping the authorities for some good PR for the werewolves (and some careful education) and remove a monster from the streets. A monster who is apparently targeting werewolves and the fae.

This book added a few pieces to the world setting here – elements I’d seen from the Mercy Thompson series but get to see much more closely with these books since we’re closer to the decision making. We get to see the conflict that arises after the werewolves are revealed to the world, the difficulties this causes, the way the werewolves have had to change and the problems that has caused. The idea that werewolves are now having to avoid anything that could make them look bad (including loss of control when very young) leads to what is considered an almost draconian rule. There’s lots of interesting political nuggets – like trying to declare werewolves an endangered species as a sneaky way to have them classed as animals rather than humans.

And Charles is the one to enforce it. I would say this is some decent character development with Charles – and it is; after all he is viewed by the werewolf world as the ultimate boogeyman, the executioner who comes for you when you are bad, the monster lurking and that reputation hurts him – and gives him a terrible self-image. This knocks on with Anna because he’s worried about not being good enough for her, that he’s too blood stained or that she will be especially horrified by his death count (especially since, as an Omega, she’s one of the few werewolves who doesn’t face the wolf’s urge to kill).  My only question with this development is that it’s old ground. Charles has been going through the exact same issues since he and Anna first met, so I want to know when he’s actually going to make sufficient progress on them – not necessarily to get over them, but at least not to shut down and decide that Anna is going to think he’s a terribad monster.

What is great development is how it shows how these things can wear on any person, but also how these issues mix with the political realities of the world they’re in. This is a minor theme of the book - with Bran trying to juggle everything and realising that, frankly, he cannot, something has to be sacrificed. And that sacrifice may be his son. The political and the personal are difficult things to balance especially in these fragile times which involves a clot of co-operation with people they don’t necessarily

This all fits excellently with the ending which is both supremely complicated and satisfying – showing off both the injustice of the human justice system and still giving us immense satisfaction of the bady guys being well and truly finished off. But it also fits the political vs personal theme – was the ending a mistake on the part of the actor? (Behold my dancing around the spoilers!) As much as it was satisfying, did they allow the personal to overwhelm good politics? The fact it was maintained or returned to in the book looks good for the rest of this series

Hunting Ground (Alpha & Omega #2) by Patricia Briggs

Charles and Anna, after much arguing, travels to a summit with the leaders of the European werewolf packs in the Marrock’s place. They need to discuss a world changing issue – the Marrock’s plan to reveal the werewolves existence to the world. Not all the Europeans agree with the Marrock’s plan and Charles needs to smooth things other

Not an easy proposition at the best of time – but the powerful, man eating werewolf Jean Chastel and his influence on the continent adds a lot of complication and difficulty. But just because he’s the most obvious threat, doesn’t make him the only one.

This was a pretty decent mystery, which I always appreciate. I had suspicions about the culprit but the ending still took me a little by surprise with enough red herrings and complexities back and forth to leave me guessing – and second guessing – my assumptions and suspicions. That’s a sign of a good mystery

We also got some nice world building details I appreciated – some more touching on the fae, more looking at werewolf packs beyond North America and some nice research as well – there’s definitely been some more detailed readings of Arthurian legends here I liked to see.

I also liked Charles development – his own insecurities don’t feel like angst but actual reasoned doubts and concerns from a man who has been a killer for so long, hated it even while he considered it necessary and now fears Anna’s disgust simply because he is disgusted with himself. We’ve also got some very reasonable conflict from a very private, very close person who is now finding his life blown open extremely quickly. Anna has had her whole life changed, far more than Charles, but Charles has also had to change centuries of habit which will take some time.

Anna is still very nervous even extremely afraid of Alpha werewolves. Which forms a loop because the more afraid she is the more “protective” they become which, in turn, makes her more nervous and them more agitated. I actually really like this element for 2 reasons: firstly, Anna has faced considerable abuse in her old pack. Alpha male werewolves abused and raped her - that kind of trauma doesn’t just vanish overnight because she’s found a good man – I like to see trauma given time to heal and grow and work through rather than magically disappearing – and yes, that includes the issues she still has with Charles.

I also like it because it helps poke a hole in one of the ongoing issues with this world setting, seen more in the Mercy Thompson series than the Alpha & Omega series; the whole idea of Alpha werewolves being sexy and the habitual tip-toeing around them all the time. While it’s very normalised in the other books, Anna makes it clear that it’s frightening, it’s intimidating and it makes Alpha werewolves difficult and unpleasant to be around.

Cry Wolf (Alpha & Omega #1) by Patricia Briggs

Anna has been a werewolf for 3 years – and those years have been spent as the victim of the Chicago pack, a pack that brutalised and tortured her to keep her under control. Until Charles, son of the Marrock, came to town and killed the old Alpha, rescued her – and formed a mate bond with her.

She’s now a member of the Marrock’s pack and is reeling from the changes that have so transformed her life and having to come to terms with how this pack works – how it is not the abusive situation she is used to, but nor is it a haven of peace and tranquillity. There’s also the revelation that she is one of the ultra-rare Omegas and what that means, and that the mating bond with Charles has not yet solidified.

Neither she nor Charles has the chance to assimilate to the changes as a rogue werewolf appears to be killing people, just before the Marrock wants to reveal them all to the world. Charles is the only one he can send to investigate, but things escalate badly when they face an evil far more dangerous than an out of control wolf – but a centuries old threat that could destroy the entire pack.

As someone who is familiar with the world of this series from the Mercy Thompson Series, I found this book fascinating for what it developed. The story was good, it was interesting and it was well written – and certainly pulled me in and was never a struggle to read – but I think the main gem of this book was expanding the world.

Through this book we got to see more detail about the Marrock, his history, what he was and what that means. Through that we also see far more of what goes into being a werewolf – I think one of the problems with writing about such a mainstay of legends like a werewolf is that people have already read so much and tend to take that as a base line. Patricia Briggs has done an excellent job of creating something very original with the werewolves – their immortality and pack bonds – and making that a whole foundation for what it means to be a werewolf. They’re not quirks, or oddities intended to differentiate these from the generic – they’re elements that have created a truly original being and a foundation for their whole society while still paying homage to the mainstays of werewolf mythology. There’s some interesting conflict here that we’ve only seen from the outside – like the nature of being a monster, the need to kill, even the need to put down your fellow werewolves who lose themselves and what that means for your own morality.

This book also opened up witchcraft a little, which has always been something lurking in the back of the series but never really expounded upon to any great degree. These new insights add texture not just to this series but to the world as a whole – it’s one of the joys of reading an expanded universe that you can put the different stories together to create a completed whole without it feeling convoluted.

That doesn’t mean this book isn’t perfectly fine to read if you haven’t read the Mercy ThompsonSeries it’s still fascinating it still has an excellent world and it as a fun, action packed story that is paced well – managing to balance some good action, some great mystery, a few surprising twists and a lot of very concise description of the setting to really bring the mountains alive. I think the characters have a lot of potential – Anna has layers of conflict and experience and learning... but her “growth” often feels like mercurial mood swings. She’s supposed to be gaining on confidence, but she seems to swoop between meek mouse and fierce eagle between paragraphs. I think it’s supposed to be her natural Omega nature pushing through her abused nature but at times it feels… random. The ancient characters also have a pretty good sense of their age which is pretty rare to see done well. And the veteran werewolf was a wonderful and tragic figure.

Even if I hadn’t read the other series, reading this book would pull me in, incite my curiosity and encourage me to read more.

Gender and Relationships in the Mercy Thompson Series

The Mercy Thompson series is a very popular Urban Fantasy series written by Patricia Briggs. When we first met Mercy, she was a fiercely independent female mechanic who had the ability to shift into a coyote. Over the course of eight books, readers have gotten to know Mercy, her friends and the world which Briggs has created quite well. For the most part, the Mercy Thompson series has been interesting to read but like any other book in this genre, it has not been without its share of problems. It would be far too easy to dismiss gender as an issue in the this series because the protagonist is a woman and the author is also female. One would think that at least in this area, a reader could consume an unproblematic story but that is not the case - and we should be wary of assuming strong depictions of women (or any marginalised person) just because of the author.  Despite all of the good qualities in this series, gender representation is an ongoing issue.

Like many Urban Fantasy protagonists, one of the most glaring problems with Mercy is her treatment of and relationship to other women. So often in the genre we find strong, capable female protagonists fully in charge of their own lives - but they are exceptional, they are special women. Other women in the series rarely match them for strength and depth of character.

Most blatantly, other women simply are not present - or not present to any great degree. Mercy lives in a very male world. Obviously, as a straight woman, her love interest is Adam and Adam dominates much of her life, but even outside of Adam most of the people around her are men. She worked with Zee and then Tad - both male. Her main contact with the vampires has been with Stefan - male. Back when she lived with the Marrock, the main contacts she had where with him and his son, Samuel and, to a lesser extent, Charles. Her closest friends - Warren and Kyle - are both men. Most of the pack members are men - and, in common with many other series - for some reason women just don’t turn into werewolves very often. She has a somewhat fraught - and definitely low contact - relationship with her mother.

There are very few women in Mercy’s life - and the only one with anything resembling a close relationship with her is Jessee, Adam’s daughter and, of course, a teenager not a peer.

This lack of female equals is already very much an element of this trope - but what women she does meet are usually antagonists. The few female members of the pack are very hostile to Mercy - Honey being the only one starting to thaw towards her in the latest book. Marsilia, the vampire head of the local Seethe, has certainly clashed with Mercy pretty viciously. Mercy even clashed with the Marrock’s wife when she lived in the Aspen Creek Pack (apparently more so than with the Marrock himself). Even her relationship with her mother is fraught and difficult and contains, at best, a kind of understanding contempt of her mother and she appreciates the distance between them.

Any women Mercy seems to build any kind of a respectful, peer relationship with - or has the potential to - are brief appearances, usually confined to one book; while her female enemies are much more prominent.

This comes to a head in the latest book, Night Broken with Adam’s ex-wife who is almost comically awful to Mercy. Because a woman fleeing from a murderous stalker who has beaten her and destroyed her life really has time to play petty “catty” games? Apparently so! This frankly ridiculous caricature of spiteful womanhood, in turn, is presented as an extremely weak justification for Mercy herself sharpening her claws for a truly cringeworthy take down of a battered woman seeking refuge. By the end of the book, the conflict was almost comic in its awfulness, with Mercy wanting to send Christie back to her abuser and Christie wanting Mercy to die on her hospital bed.

But the paucity and problems with other women in the series are not the only problematic elements of this book when it comes to female representation; we have to consider her relationship to Adam.

Night Broken (Mercy Thompson #8) by Patricia Briggs

Mercy has faced many threats over the years. Vampires, werewolves, river monsters – but now she faces a new problem: Adam’s ex-wife Christy.

She is being stalked and hunted by someone who is more than willing to kill and destroy and has already hurt her. She has fled to the only people she knows can help – her ex-husband, the werewolf, and his pack.

But her stalker is far more than just a human who won’t let go – and the whole pack may be in danger.

I really liked this story – it was nicely balanced in terms of revelations and questions. The side plots fit in well, continuing the overall story without getting in the way – but also without feeling extraneous or irrelevant. They gave a nice sense that just because the main plot is happening doesn’t mean everything else in Mercy’s life is on hold – or everything else in the world is on hold. The vampires and the fae are still present, still edging into Mercys’ life, along with the human government and its hostility to supernaturals: they’re all present but this isn’t the focus of the book. It’s a nice balance to hit.

The big bad was very big and bad indeed and really did give over a good sense of his power while not being insurmountable or being oddly weakened to make him combatable. Sure there were a few “he’s just playing with us” scenes, but the true nature of the threat they were facing and the powers they had to call on to stand toe to toe with it really came through.

And the world building is well done – no wikipedia-like info dumping we’ve seen in the past. It also drew on an area of mythology I’ve never come across before, integrated well and called on some real world history to make it work on top of that. Excellently well done, in fact

And now for something horribly horribly wrong. Adam’s ex-wife Christy needs help, she is visiting and she is evil. Of course she is. The rest of the book has a long battle between Mercy and Christie full of lots of passive aggressive digs.

Let’s remember that this is a woman who’s boyfriend has been killed, her home destroyed and she badly beaten black and blue escaping an abuser and murderer and is now desperately seeking some kind of help and protection. But no, in among all these trauma she has time to make a play for Adam and play nasty little power plays on Mercy; though even her neutral gestures are seen through the most spiteful of lenses.

Her bruises? Give her “an advantage” because she can play for sympathy. When she cooks it’s clearly so she can prove she’s a domestic goddess far superior to Mercy (not cooking to try and be grateful for the help of course. And why everyone rhapsodises over a plate of sandwiches I do not know. Seriously the cooking quality of the area must be pretty damn poor if everyone flocks for BLTs). When Christy cries, it’s manipulation. When she’s sorry she’s brought trouble to their pack, it’s more manipulation. If ANYONE shows any degree of sympathy to the woman who has been beaten and stalked by a murderer, Mercy assumes it’s more of Christy’s manipulation rather than actual sympathy.

Of course, some are just unambiguous spite from Christy as well – there’s a battle over a stained table cloth, there’s a battle over where Christy’s make up and toiletries go (she puts them in Adam and Mercy’s en suite bathroom), whenever Mercy calls Adam she answers and refuses to put Adam on the phone. She tells lies to make people think Mercy is being mean to her. 

I am actually in awe of how nasty Mercy is in this book.

All of this is watched by the three other women of the pack (because female werewolves are rare because REASONS! Female werewolves are ALWAYS rare, it’s a rule) who, naturally, pick sides and snipe and glare at each other, because women always fight and are “catty” right? Oh the men generally back Mercy (as right thinking folks) and repeatedly reassure Mercy while letting Christy have it (lots of “bitch” in there). And Mercy “jokes” about giving Christie to her abuser.

Fangs for the Fantasy Episode 109

An unusual time this week because of technical difficulties, we’ve managed to get it back up.

We talk about the new series of Grimm and its excellent start, an awesome episode of Once Upon a Time – and it’s treatment of family and Regina, Lost Girl and several changes as well as Being Human (US) which is on a changing point and The Walking Dead on which nothing happened.

Our book of the week is Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs

Our Next books of the week are

11th March - 18th March: Summoning the Night by Jenn Bennet   18th March - 25th March: Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare   25th March - 1st April: The Struggle by L.J. Smith   1st April - 8th April: Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger    8th April - 15th April: The Queen is Dead by Kate Locke

Frost Burned (Mercy Thompson #7) By Patricia Briggs

Mercy is settling into life as Adam’s husband, back from her honeymoon, fully recovered and facing a dread foe – Black Friday midnight shopping with Jesse, her new step-daughter. To add to the fun, she gets in a car wreck as well and has to write off her Rabbit.

If only that was the least of her problems. Almost the entire pack has been kidnapped, she can’t reach anyone over the phone, not even werewolves outside the pack, the one person she can find is injured and drugged – and there are unpleasant people with guns looking for her and targeting her friends on the edge of the pack.

Her small team has to try and find Adam – while Adam must try and escape before he’s blackmailed into doing something that could have all werewolves destroyed. Additional help from the government she doesn’t trust and a werewolf that may lose it at any time doesn’t necessarily help things

Then there’s some fae assassins, mystical weapons and a whole load of vampire politics to add to the mix.

And she’s stolen the vampire queen’s car. And broken it. Oops.

Reading the synopsis and the first few pages I had a lot of hope. Here was Mercy going to charge into battle on her own, her own actions, her own decisions, free from Adam’s often stifling shadow. And she was reconnecting with characters we haven’t seen in a while, like Kyle, while at the same time advancing the political meta plot.

That hope is now dead, tried to rise from the coffin, was staked, beheaded, burned and had its ashes scattered across four different bodies of water.

We start the story – drama drama, action (ish), the pack has been kidnapped. Mercy starts doing stuff without consultation (ish) and generally doing her best (sort of) to save everyone (well, some of them). And then Adam wrangles his own plan (well, no, opportunity falls in his lap) and loo, all is solved.

Sure, there’s a few loose ends to tie up, we’d kind of like to know who is behind it, but with one set of bad guys running and the other dead, it’s not a pressing or especially pertinent concern. And that’s how the book is written. I kind of expected the book to be over – the story was after all – but rather than working in a conclusion I discovered I was only 40% in. Not even half way through but the story was over – so what was happening? We kind of wallowed in limbo. Sure, one of those loose ends ballooned out into a full plot eventually – at about 65%. 20% of this book in the middle was just waffle and empty flailing with no real plot at all. Right in the middle of the book. It was like 2 books pasted together and some kind of mushy glue stuffed between them. There wasn’t so much a speed bump interrupting the story so much as a vast sink hole, sucking in all plot and leaving us directionless, lost and a little confused.

Magically Diverse, Humanly Erased

One thing we love in most Urban Fantasy is a rich world. I have to say that they’re my favourite kind - maybe I’m jaded, maybe I’m greedy, but vampires alone just don’t do it for me any more. I love A world that has a vast range of creatures in it - it has vampires, it has fae, it has magic, it has werecreatures, it has demons and angels and all variety of things that go bump in the night. We have different realms, we have creatures drawn from every corner of the world’s mythology - and it makes for truly excellent worlds and stories. These diverse worlds are great to read, great to watch and among some of our favourite Urban Fantasy products.

Unfortunately, it does make something glaring - we have these worlds with this vast diversity of monsters, but the humans within these stories are anything but diverse. We have these homogeneous worlds lacking in more than a token appearance of POC or GBLT people or other marginalised people. We can have this vast portrayal of every kind of creature imaginable - but only ever one or two kind of people

We see several extremely rich worlds that have, at best, only the slightest of minor tokens. Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files has an amazingly diverse world. We have three vast and very different courts of vampires, we have several variations on werewolves. We have the warring Summer and Winter courts of the fae and the vast diversity within each. We have wizards, we have demons (several kinds again) we have an incredibly rich world here. And we have, at best, token, brief appearances of POC and no GBLT characters at all. This Chicago is magically diverse yet incredibly homogeneous.

Speaking of Chicago - Chloe Neill’s Chicagoland Vampires also have a growing diversity of creatures - vampires, wizards, river nymphs, sirens, wereanimals - it’s all there, each more fascinating then the last. The people, however? As straight and white as they possibly can be.

I absolutely loved the succubus series by Richelle Mead.  I loved that it had a large world that included many supernatural creatures but it did not escape my notice that Mead could not be arsed to even attempt inclusion.  All the characters were White, straight, cis gendered and able bodied.  So much imagination had to go into writing lines for a succubus who was friends with demons, vampires and an imp.  At times it felt like the large supernatural cast was meant to cover for the lack of diversity in the series itself.  

Last year we coined the term the Marginalised Maris. One of the ways in which authors attempt to allude to diversity is by talking about a marginalized character without ever really introducing the character to the audience.  A perfect example of this is the Anna Strong Series by Jeanne C. Stein.  Stein went to great care to create an extremely diverse word which includes, several forms of shape shifters, vampires, witches etc., but manages to do in an all straight, white, cis world. In, The Becoming, we are told about Michael, Anna’s gay best friend.  The only thing we learn about him is that he has been gay bashed. He never becomes a part of the story, he exists solely as a cheap reference for some quick GLBT inclusion.  Stein was far more interested in creating a diverse cast o supernatural creatures than having a diverse cast of marginalized human beings. 

Cover Snark: More Tattoos, Less Clothes!

Our cover snark is all about tats.  As you can see on the cover of Blood Rights, Chyrsabelle is covered with tattoos and they are a symbol of her status as an extremely valuable comarré.  My problem is not that Chyrsabelle has tats, the problem is that you can see her tats.  Throughout the book, Painter goes to great lengths to ensure that it is clearly understood that these tats are not to be seen.  They are reserved for the vampire that owns the blood rights of the comarré .  

We can only see the tats in question because Chrsyabelle is wearing a backless and shoulderless dress. Yes, this is yet another example of not matching up with the plot. While Chrsyabell does dress in all white, she certainly would never choose to wear anything so revealing and would see that dress as a complete negation of the vows that she took when she became comarré, but then why bother with a little thing like making sure the cover represents the story when the opportunity exists to show a little skin.  

This cover completely negates everything that Painter set up in her story.  It’s enough to make me wonder if the publisher even read the story before choosing the cover art. It’s all about what sells, and certainly not about what’s accurate.


              

Now, if I remember how Mercy is described in the book, she has 1 tattoo. A little coyote paw on her lower stomach. So this? I’ve no idea what this is, Is it adjusted to make her look sexy? Or is it blue collar coding to show she’s a mechanic? (After all, pictures of her almost wearing a boilersuit or carrying a wrench are not uncommon) Or did the cover artist escape his cage and managed to scribble random ink (and remove most of her clothing) before he could be restrained?