But you’re right. Its an easy plot point, that many authors can get away with. I think partially because of their target audience, but that’s just theory.

When they want men to evolve, I see families, comrades dying, captured, tortured etc that gives the male character his new personality, so to speak, and changed purpose. All of sudden he’s hunting demons, being the good ol’ bounty hunter etc etc.

Whenever I think upon writing a story, and trying to remain outside the box, I switch the genders. NOT the personalities. As I mentioned about the yaoi manga, you can change the gender but still its essentially a female personality and its still in the same role. Which is annoying.

Change the gender, but keep the personality, the job and the trauma. The best example I can think of is Kate from Ilona Andrew’s Kate Daniels series. She’s put thru various deaths of close people, deals with her deep-seated lesson of staying separate from people etc etc.

Many times I’ve thought, this is a character that could be male or female.
Its the -personality- that is interesting to me, not the “sex” per se.

I laughed when I read you didn’t pick up the series again. Neither have I xD

I came across an excerpt from the next book after this one, and as I was reading it…ugh the feeling was definitely there again. I think I ignored many things about the previous books, because it wasn’t that big of an issue. After the third book however, heh. I couldn’t blame my ignorance any longer.

There were numerous warnings that this author liked shock trips e.g. the poor wolf boy in the first book who ends up on her porch, dead. I paused at that. There didn’t seem to be much foreshadowing to it.

I think I read the same things you did, a letter from Briggs in reply to someone else’s opinion. She said she couldn’t help it, but a writer is not just helpless flotsam, recording the views as the river sends her along.

Anyways. I’m pretty surprised at myself, I thought I’d forgotten these books. Heh.

I have to say tho, ever since this book, I tread carefully at which books I pick up by her. I fear that another contrived plot point might jump out at me, no matter what it may be.

That is, Mercy’s actions that BROUGHT her to Tim, and the afterward scene. I realize that the ring was a powerful influence, but it didn’t seem to fit, that Mercy would be so idiotic, as to bring herself to that situation.

If I remember correctly, she even challenged his masculinity, but in a , very… contrived way. She was, idk, arrogant? Or maybe the author just wanted it to happen. That’s what it feels like.

If the goblet didn’t affect her as strongly, why did the ring affect her so much?

Now, its been a couple years since I read this. So forgive me if my memory is faulty.

According to my memory, the entire scene was rushed, forced and very contrived.

Rape is a hot button for me as well. It seems like a very old standby of victimization, and one I don’t really wish to read about.

I don’t enjoy it, and its often left me feeling voyeuristic, and that, as another commenter pointed out, the author’s are themselves victimizing their character. I don’t like.

In reality, these characters would be most concerned with survival, and therein would do as much as possible to stay safe.

A truly savvy character, such as how I perceived Mercy up till those last 50 pages, I…don’t believe would put herself into such a helpless scene. It,seems, contrived.

As to the actual rape, and ensuing chaos, in her own mind, and the situations, I felt was pretty well written.

I don’t believe she could have recovered quite as quickly as she did, but perhaps there is more to her character.

In many ways, it was handled pretty cleanly. As for someone commenting on how damaging a maiming is compared to rape, and that they wouldn’t want to read about a character that damaged, i’d ask them to speak with a person that has had rape done to them.

It is very damaging, to the psyche, to the emotions, to the behaviors of the person. Rape is SUCH a violation, it worse than maiming. It is invasive, much like a physic attack on a persons’ mind.

To me, being beaten, or being in a fight where you’re damaged horribly, it is less traumatic. You can cope. Such invasive attacks such as rape, can not be resolved easily.

In that way, I can understand rape and similar violations being used as part of the plot, and the character’s profile.

But, it didn’t fit in this book. I was thinking, how could this situation degenerate so fast? It was a shock tool, and honestly, they never work. I don’t really want to read the rest of this series, nor the shoot off one about the female alpha.

This world doesn’t seem to have a lot of hope, and reading these types of worlds seems to be similar to the act of hitting yourself in the head. No purpose and its just hurting you.
That’s just my personal thing, I have it around rape, not because of personal experience but of empathic experience.

Sorry for the long comment, the only reason I was drawn to comment was because of your writing Jia. It was a very good bit of writing and I enjoyed it. Thank you for writing this, it gave a different side then the usual “omg it was soooo good”.^^;;

I actually liked Iron Kissed the most of the three. The last 50 pages were the ones that made the book, for me. I always had a sense that Ben was a bit too harsh, that he was shoving everyone away because he was hurt, and that part of the book explaining it didn’t sound forced at all to me. I thought it a major “Ah-ha! I was right!” moment.

Rape is often not sex-driven. It’s a power issue. That fits Tim perfectly. If you think about werewolf pack structure and the brutality of packs outside the U.S., it also seems like it might fit Ben (depending on what his backstory actually is).

Okay, so rape may be a “common” element of stories. So is romance. Not to dismiss anyone’s experience, but look at the statistics others have mentioned. One in 4, maybe even 1 in 3. That’s greater than a woman’s odds of getting breast cancer.

Rape happens. And, sadly, it happens a lot. I know someone who both she and her brother were conceived by it-’from two different types of rape, by two different guys, less than two years apart. If you look at the statistics, even a lot of fraternal twins have different fathers.

I like when authors can bear have something distasteful done to their characters and do a tasteful job of it, while keeping that something distasteful. Some sadly seem to relish it.

I think writers “like” picking rape because it’s like someone with a health condition that it’s happened doesn’t affect how she appears, but it certainly affects her life. People can’t tell to look at her, so it has a lot more room for character development and growth.

To explain by example, my endocrine system-’the one that makes and regulates the hormones, the chemicals that regulate your body-’is haywire. People can’t look at me and know that I woke up today with my hormones somehow off-kilter enough to give me that “nice” shakey-muscle feeling. Or maybe I’m depressed and choosing to act chipper despite it. Unless you happen to realize that gothic metal is my “I’m feeling great!” music and Christian teen pop means I’m really, really ignoring those thoughts of personal worthlessnes that are completely unfounded, you would be completely unable to tell anything’s wrong to look at me. I’m a good actress.

But if I were missing a hand or blind or something, people would know. It would be the elephant announcing my issue. Jude Watson had a Jedi blinded in her Jedi Apprentice series, and yes, that affected the character, but the emotional aspect was actually rather straightforward (and not just because they’re juvenile books).

Direct emotional trauma as occurs from rape doesn’t announce itself to the world and is more convoluted. Speaking as a writer who isn’t yet an author, emotional trauma helps you add depth to a character. Rape is common in real life, so it’s a common choice.

Unfortunately, that does mean that it sometimes gets relegated into being no more than a device for exploring the character (which means the writer really needs to take a break and resensitize herself), but that’s not what I got from Iron Kissed. That Tim was pissed at Mercy for presumably leading him on was built throughout the book. His actions were a power grab for personal self-worth, which he evidently found dependent on female desire of him.

The secretly broken characters are often the most popular with readers/viewers. (Doctor Who, anyone?)

And re: Mercy bouncing back so “quickly” from the rape, I haven’t been raped. What I have is a lot of experience dealing with misbehaving emotions. Frankly, so does Mercy, from growing up around werewolves who could detect her emotions. There’s a point where you have to decide that you’re not going to let your emotions rule you and manage your life for you.

That was what Mercy did at the end of the book. Is she making a choice in spite of her current inclination? Yep. Is she still emotionally messed up? You betchya.

Now, on the topic of the love triangle… I like how it was handled. Samuel may be extremely dominant when he choses to be, but part of his entire problem is he’s old enough that he’s not exactly caring much, anymore. He’s trying to, desperately is for his da’s sake, but when you hit 1300 and have nobody “special” who hasn’t died, some even by your own hand from you trying to make them like you, you’re bound to be weary of living. (I pulled that number from Cry Wolf-’he may be older.)

Mercy ultimately would have been another DEAD wife. That Samuel would be willing to give up before he gets ripped into shreds-’again-’speaks to his depression and fatigue. And may even be part of the reason for his extreme protectionism that Mercy realizes would have driven her crazy.

Frankly, my impression from the books was that Mercy always was leaning more towards Adam than Samuel, but she didn’t want to be the reason Samuel took a permanent swim. So she didn’t let herself think about it-’she knew the answer if she stopped to think about it, certainly, but she didn’t want to go that far. (Like a girl who finds out before her 16th birthday that she’ll likely never be able to have kids. Avoiding the full consideration and musings on if she wants them spares herself a lot of pain.)

Mercy thought only she was really affected-’other than the two males involved. When she saw that she’s ultimately tearing up an entire pack from her indecision, she let herself verbalize her choice, since her indecision was ultimately causing more harm than whatever decision might.

Its not that I am overly sensitive, because I am not, but why take this girl that I have grown to love in the last two books, and have her raped? Bad taste in my mouth.

Okay, Brandon. If it makes you feel that way in a book, how about real life? Look around you. One in four of the women you meet every day, including SOME WHO ARE RELATED TO YOU have been through this. Does THAT leave a bad taste in your mouth?

It’s not gratuitous, it’s a common occurance, something that, as Lesley W. said, is true to the character of the villian of the piece.

Mercy rejects him as a man, so his retaliation on some level has to reflect that. She's made him feel like nothing – she's chosen Adam over him, for him to regain his sense of worth, he has to bring her down to be less than nothing, so he regains his power.

That’s what rape is mostly about.
Fighting back is what interesting, viable protagonists are about. It could be rape, it could be your parents gunned down before your eyes, bruce wayne, it could be having been selfish once and seen your uncle/foster father killed because of it, peter parker. There are always emotionally wrought reasons for it in fiction, just as there are in life.

The handling of the details I found quite well done, there was so little that some people didn’t realize until they were done that it had occured. I particularly liked the fact that Mercy already had the strength to resist him, and continued after she should have been jelly. It wasn’t using the attack to “make her a kick ass fighter”. Fighting per se isn’t what she’s about, any more than any other coyote.

That being said, I felt a small stumble over the resolution of the triangle too. That’s it? “You don’t really want me for your mate, just your pack”? But not beating a drum about it is perhaps a bit more like our mundane lives than the wrought things we expected, and make it that much more resonant with some of us.

But I don’t think it’s a case of taking a nice girl and having her raped – which I agree would be reprehensible.

And more that she (Mercy) is at the whim of a character who does see that as an outlet for his own feelings of inadequacy and inferiority.

We are in Mercy’s POV, so we know the thought processes behind her visits to Tim, and we know that Mercy is not malicious in her intent. Tim, however, does not know this. Tim has a whole set of motivations and desires that we aren’t privy to. At the point of Mercy’s betrayal he ceases to see her as a person and from that moment on he can (in his own mind) do what he likes to her.

It’s not just a case of being true to Mercy’s character, I think for the story to be believable it’s necessary to be true to Tim’s character as well. Mercy rejects him as a man, so his retaliation on some level has to reflect that. She’s made him feel like nothing – she’s chosen Adam over him, for him to regain his sense of worth, he has to bring her down to be less than nothing, so he regains his power.

Right on, Woman. I just read all three books in about a week and a half, but I won’t read the fourth. There was no reason for the rape, though it made me glad that she did not write a rape screen for Jesse in the first book. It also didn’t make me any happier that she had Ben tell his story about being raped as a child. In the end, this plot device was lazy and awful. BTW, has anyone noticed how many similarities there between Mercy and Sookie Stackhouse — fiercely independent young woman with slight magical ability attracts hordes of magical creatures with problems only she can solve/help with because of her unique abilities. Is terribly attractive to them all, completely unaware of her ability to bind them to her, kicks butt regularly, has little to no family around, living on the edge financially, has hints of greater power lurking underneath, drives broken down car. Geez.

I am young so I could just not have understood all that much but Mrs. Briggs did this scene for a good reason not to just make a quick ending. the love scene was great as well because nowa days this goes on a lot. there are love triangles everywhere and I am glad that it was solved in this fashion. to me it was kinda obvious that Samuel would be put to the side walk because Mercy, after she left the marrock pack, stopped loving samuel in that way. one reason she put up with him is that she didnt want to hurt him and he kept her from doing what she wanted to do which was to submit to Adam.

I hope you understand what i am talking about.

I cant wait to read more of her books:)

However, I choose to comment a bit late because I just read Vicki Pattersson’s The Scent of Shadows, which had the best handling of rape I’ve read in a long time. She both follows and subverts cliche in certain ways.

I think the reason I found this so obnoxious is that too often, sexual assault is used in fiction as a means of getting two people together–when the reality is usually the opposite–and has no real emotional fallout beyond the pivotal getting-the-two-people-together scene. Most women are not going to leap into the arms of a new lover six days later, and Mercy is already too close to “perfect” for my taste. This is probably the last I’ll read in this series.

After all that build up through two and a half books, the actual resolution was a letdown because again, it didn't seem like Mercy made an actual choice. I think I would have been more satisfied if Mercy had chosen one of the men instead.

I thought Mercy made a choice, actually. In that, she hasn’t wanted Sam as a mate for quite a long while. But she loves him and worries about what will happen if she rejects him, because he is old and fragile. So she can’t. I suspect Sam’s future will be addressed further in the next book.

I’m curious to see where book 4 goes. I’m not sure that Mercy and Adam will be having sex. For me, if Iron Kissed had a fault at all, (I enjoyed the book), it’s that I think it ended in the wrong place.

Then the last third of the book took a sticky turn that pushed *my* hot buttons. Yeah, I’d like to know know why Ms. Briggs decided to put Mercy through *that* particular horror. I’m not saying Mercy shouldn’t be put through hell – that’s what writers tend to do to their protags (especially in urban fantasy), but why *that* particular hell… There are so many other things that could happen to test Mercy. And why did it only take her 50 pages to start coming to terms with it??

I am still going to read Book 4, if only to see how things continue from here… Perhaps we’ll see something there that justifies the inclusion of this ‘plot device’ (because that’s what it felt like to me). I hope so.