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.