Apr 7 2006
REVIEW: Moon Called by Patricia Briggs
Dear Ms. Briggs:
So where have you been all my reading life? Oh, hanging out in the sci/fantasy aisle? Well, get your pub to move you to the romance aisle. You get tons more traffic. And paranormal romance right now? Very very hot.
I bought your book based on the banging cover and the cool blurb. I am a sucker for the urban fantasy since the seminal work by Emma Bull, War of the Oaks (which all you romancelandia fans should definitely read).
Moon Called features Mercedes Thompson who is a walker, a natural born shapeshifting coyote. She has no magic to speak of. She is not super strong, merely fast. Her trade is a mechanic and she has a number of interesting friends. Her next door neighbor is the local Alpha. She fixes the vw bus of a vampire. Her mentor is a gremlin.
The plot revolves around the kidnap of Jesse (the Alpha neighbor’s daughter) and the severe maiming of Adam. Mercy thinks that there may have been a coup attempt and instead of calling his pack for help she takes Adam to the Marrock. The Marrock is the leader of all werewolves in North America. Mercy lived with the Marrock until she was 16 when she went to live with her mother. Mercy left because the Marrock’s son wanted to marry her but only, Mercy believed, because she could bear him children. Werewolf females cannot bear children. Mercy is a coyote, though, and could. Mercy loved Samuel too much to mate with him for that reason alone –” at least at the age of 16.
The mystery is fairly good and there were some good red herrings but the ending –” the reasoning behind what was done –” didn’t cut it for me. But because of the overall good of worldbuilding, I’ll overlook the weak suspense ending. I like that Mercy is no Anita Blake –” she needs help to save herself. She doesn’t gain more powers at the end. She is not in bed with either Samuel or Adam or both. While I do see a love triangle emerging which is my least favorite thing but I like both male leads enough that I wasn’t bothered by it greatly. Maybe because Mercy herself acts so reasonably about her feelings. I like a sensible heroine and I thought Mercy fit that bill. Thanks for writing this book and I can’t wait to see the next Mercy story. This is a A-. Not perfect but I will be re-reading it.
Best regards,
Jane
P.S. I also loved your Hurog series: Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood. So did my DH. He is currently cursing romance readers all over since he learned that your next four books will be Mercy books. I am sure you won’t mind that I put in a request for his sake for one more Hurog book.
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Apr 07, 2006 @ 21:49:01
I’ve vote for two or three more of everything especially the Hurog books. Loved them. I agree that the suspense was rather weak and when the explanation behind the plot was finally revealed, I was like what? But overall, a good story.
Apr 07, 2006 @ 21:55:46
I re-read the ending part about three times because I just didn’t get it. I still don’t know if I get it.
Apr 18, 2006 @ 18:56:53
I was probably the only person who groaned with disappointment when I heard Briggs was writing urban fantasy. Ugh!! Really, we don’t need more werewolf/vampire books!
However, this one was a pleasant surprise. I should have known Briggs could pull it off. This wasn’t a great book, but a good book. A solid B or B .
Apr 18, 2006 @ 18:59:01
I had never read her before. I did end up buying all the Briggs books I could find after this book came out. I loved the Hurog series and would welcome an addition to that.
Apr 18, 2006 @ 19:25:37
I think you’ll like her other books. She does terrific characters, especially her heroes.
The first book in the Raven duology was excellent, but the second one was weak (the weakest of all her books, IMO).
Confession: I’m a huge Briggs fan. I buy two new copies of anything she writes to support her and make sure her publisher keeps buying her books. I don’t think I need to do that any more since they’re republishing her earlier work, which used to go for $50 on eBay.
Mar 19, 2007 @ 04:23:42
i bought the book cause of the cover and the blurb and was captured from page one.
loved it :)
Moon Called « Jorrie Spencer
Mar 25, 2007 @ 19:19:38
[...] of Dear Author gave Moon Called an A-. Keishon gave it an [...]
Aug 18, 2007 @ 10:40:56
There is a forum for patricia briggs at http://www.hurog.com/forum