Magic

Storm Cursed by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One by one,
Two by two,
The Hardesty witches
Are traveling through.
With a storm of curses,
They call from their tomes;
They will drink your blood
And dine on your bones.

A good title for this book could have been „Trouble with Witches“.

Zombies, vampires, werewolves, the fae, the mentioned witches and other critters that you have to figure out for yourself… And Mercy—“Not that clever. But I am a coyote and apparently stupid lucky.”—Thompson. I loved having so much of Zee, he has always been one of my favourite characters.

I had a lot of fun reading this! It might not have been terribly complex or twisty. But it had a cohesive plot, well-drawn characters, great action scenes, suspense, things to smile and laugh about, tension and some scary moments. Good fun, I was entertained!

Anything else would be spoilers.

Additionally I salute Patricia Briggs for ensuring that all of Zee‘s spells were worded in perfect German*. They sound much better and more poetic in German, rather than in the translated English, by the way.

*You wouldn‘t believe how much badly translated German can be found in English language novels. It’s terribly jarring, if you speak the language.

Water, be my friend,
come and stay by my side.
Flow, release, bind, grab,
entangle the witchcraft, catch it,
diminish the curse, decay the spell,
take it away, hear me.

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Not much of a homecoming

Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson: Homecoming by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I am a huge fan of the series, so I had to give this a try.

The story was ok as a prequel to the series, although the telling of it was disjointed. As I fan I wondered about the changes to the book canon. Wouldn‘t it make sense, if this fitted into the series?

Not a lot of world building. I doubt I would have understood what was going on or who they all were and related to each other, if I didn‘t know the books.

Mercy looks different in every chapter. Her face changes, her body shape changes. Sometimes she is muscular, sometimes she looks like Barbie with runner‘s legs. Big boobs, small boobs, pointy chin, square chin, malnourished looking, at times badly proportioned. Very odd.

The other humans or werewolves weren‘t terribly well done either. I suppose it‘s silly to expect them all to be anatomically correct, but sometimes the drawings looked a bit too amateurish for my taste.

Bottom line, don‘t bother. I will certainly not get another of these comics. Apparently they have also done comics for Laurell K Hamilton, so those are out as well.

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Full points to Mercy Thompson

Silence Fallen by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“I’m a mechanic; I fix things that are broken. I turn into a thirty-five-pound coyote. I have powerful friends. But when it comes right down to it, my real superpower is chaos.”

Changing points of view, that’s a new one for this series! I liked it, although I am not quite sure about the off-set timeline. It added an interesting dynamic, but probably made it unnecessarily complicated.

Nice revelation there at the end, makes me want to re-read the whole damn book right away… I missed all the clues, if there were any.

Some great character additions. Libor was fun. Lots of vampire politics, which I usually find tedious, but they were well done here. Great visuals, good plot, entertaining, three very late nights of not wanting to put this down…

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Holy Avon, Batman!

Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There is humour…
Holy Avon, Batman, I thought as worry relaxed into annoyance-tinged humor, I’ve been attacked by a multilevel marketer.

And profound stuff…
Death is not to be feared. Death is easy. It is living that is brutal.

And swearing…
“My croaking fat frog will shag my fucking Aunt Fanny before I’ll go now,” he said.

And a very nice, feel-good ending…
“Nudge,” he said.

I took me a while to warm up to Adam, but by now I love him. And Mercy still is an excellent character. The Pack dynamics are very well done, truly believable, UF for grown-ups, without silly drama. Love the fae, love the settings, good action, great world building.

Still going strong. Looking forward to the next book.

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Revisiting Alpha & Omega

Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“I was never afraid of monsters until I became one. Now I’m afraid of my own shadow.”

Anna is a little whiney in this one. I know that some people get put off by that. But she is not really a special snowflake, she comes into her own eventually and it’s done in a convincing way.

I think to appreciate the story best, reading the Alpha & Omega prequel is a good choice. It moves on from the pretty smoothly.

Entertaining, good action scenes, good characterizations. And it fleshes out the world of Mercy Thompson quite nicely. For someone wanting to read both series together in chronological order, this is a pretty decent list:

http://www.patriciabriggs.com/books/t…

*~*~*~*~*~*
First read in 201o

Original review:
This series is a spin-off of the Mercy Thompson books. The first one is set back in Aspen Creek and centres around Charles Cornick and his new mate Anna. I was hesitant at first if it would be as good as the Mercy books, so it sat on my shelf for a while. But it is really good, I’ve had a lot of fun, it actually kept me up half way through the night.

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