Blood Bound (2007)

This series is like a disease of the best kind. I cannot put these books down. Stayed up late last night and then was late to work this morning because of it. Yes, it's all a bit overwrought and a little predictable in ways, but oh so much fun. GAH! Haven't been gripped this hard by a book series in a very long time. ( )

1097 ( )

I was initially going to read this for the demons square for Halloween bingo, however, it includes werewolves and I decided, two birds, one stone.



If you have been following my reviews you know that I devour the Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson books. I have all of the books either via ebook or one that I got in hardcover (never again, I realize I don't care for the feel of most hardcover books) and I tend to re-read my favorite parts of this series over and over again. One of these days I will get around to just posting a mega review or something. Until now, here is my review of book #2.

"Blood Bound" finds Mercy trying to get settled with the fact that she now is dealing with the fact that an old love has moved in with her (Samuel) and by the way, the alpha of the local werewolf pack is interested in her as well (Adam). If she didn't have to deal with vampires and a demon slaughtering people left and right she may actually get some time to repair some cars.

This book actually deals more with the vampires in the Tri-Cities than the prior one did. We have Mercy agreeing to help out her vampire friend Stefan which has her getting involved with local vampire politics with the head of the seethe Marsilia. I do like how Briggs in her series let's you know first and foremost vampires are predators. They are not sparkly and friendly (well except for Stefan, and only the friendly part).

When the werewolves gang up to take out a new enemy everyone in Adam's pack has to deal with it too.

I do love Mercy. She has become one of my favorite urban fantasy characters. I can read about her and Kate Daniels (see Ilona Andrews) all day. I will say though that this book includes my least favorite thing ever, a love triangle. Thank goodness that Briggs deposes of that triangle in book #3. I am not a fan of who should I be with in my long running series, see Janet Evanovich. Also, Briggs does a great job developing Mercy through this series. We are only provided so much information about her, but we find out about things real time for the most part just as she does. I rather have that instead of a info dump.

My favorite characters are in this one, Adam, Stefan, Zee, and Samuel. I do wish that we got more Samuel in the later books since he kind of disappears after Silver Borne, Mercy Thompson #5.

I do love the writing in this series. I always think that Briggs can make dialogue really work. I also have to say the flow for this one works. We also get to see a new dimension to Mercy's powers besides shapeshifting. I will echo something another BL member has mentioned here before, Mercy has I think zero female friends, which is weird. I didn't realize that when I was reading the series the first time. But honestly, besides Honey (in the later books) most of Mercy's friends are male. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I will still keep wishing that Mercy becomes closer to Charles's wife (see Alpha and Omega series) or other females such as Honey. I can see why she doesn't reach out to women more though since she is a male profession (auto mechanic) and her hobbies include self defense courses along with ghost hunting.

The setting of the Tri-Cities in Washington state is always a fun one to return to.

I did like the ending of this, but if you want to be wowed by this series, check out Iron Kissed, Mercy Thompson #3. That one almost wrecked me. It was really good. ( )

I love this series pretty hard. Mercy is such a great combination of strength, courage, and vulnerability and doesn't let her many suitors get in her way.

Yes, she has many suitors it seems. Normally, this would aggravate me. Right now, it feels like it's legitimately explained through the relative dearth of females and the desire to keep things pretty close in the magic community.

I'm sure glad these covers aren't lying around though. ( )

I enjoyed this second outing for Mercy Thompson. Lorelei King is an excellent reader with good vocal characterisation. Despite this I did find myself losing track of who was who among the minor characters, which was distracting. But this might have been due to my state of mind at the time of listening.

The main characters, Mercy (coyote shapeshifter), Stefan (vampire), Adam and Samuel (werewolves), are well drawn and engage your attention and interest. Werewolf culture has been given a lot of thought, much more so than the vampires who, with the notable exception of Stefan, are very traditionally drawn as uniformly evil.

Definitely worth a listen. ( )