Title: River Marked
Author: Patricia Briggs
Series: Mercedes Thompson #6, Mercy-verse #17
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Werewolves
Pace: Medium
Format: Novel
Publisher: Ace fantasy
Year: 2011
5th sentence, 74th page: Figuring out why he’d been mad should have been a lot easier.

Welcome to Patricia Briggs’s world, a place where “witches, vampires, werewolves, and shapeshifters live beside ordinary people”. It takes a very unusual woman to call it home – and there’s no one quite like Mercy.

Getting to the altar wasn’t easy for coyote shifter Mercy Thompson and Alpha werewolf Adam Hauptman. And yet Mercy clings to the hope that their Columbia River honeymoon will be drama-free.

She couldn’t be more wrong.

Being a different breed of shapeshifter – a walker – Mercy can see ghosts, but the spirit of her long-gone father has never visited her. Until now. An evil is stirring in the depths of the Columbia River – and innocent people are dying. As other walkers make their presence knwon to Mercy, she must reconnect with her heritage to exorcise the world of the legend known as the river devil…

In the past Mercedes Thompson books, Mercy’s Native American heritage doesn’t seem that integral. It serves to keep her apart from everyone else, creates her unique powers, but generally it isn’t touched upon. Until River Marked that is. Finally, some of Mercy’s heritage and cultural background begin to come to light. Not being American, I’m not sure how true to the actual experiences of Native Americans Mercy’s are, but I enjoyed the journey nonetheless.

I liked that Coyote plays a big part in this story, as does the Native American devil that is about to bring about the destruction of the world. They play well into what (little) I know of Native American culture and just further build upon the world that Briggs has painstakingly created. It layers the idea of immigration and European-based fae onto the natural magical beings of the Americas. I loved how this story took a completely new turn into the world of Mercy, but also helped to build it further along the same lines. I could only wish to be as adept at such beautiful and complex world building.

Adam and Mercy finally seem to be gaining their “happily ever after”. Yet, as with this entire series (and, really, every good series), that isn’t the case. Mercy’s ability to love and do the right thing, at great cost shine through, as does Adam’s love for her. Although I’ve enjoyed the courtship of these two throughout the rest of the series, it really isn’t until this book that I actually get their relationship. Their support and love for one another, coupled with the respect that they have for each others’ personalities shines like nothing else throughout this story.

And, although I loved visiting the Native American heritage of Mercy, it is the love between Adam and Mercy that shines through most vividly.

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Title: Silver Borne
Author: Patricia Briggs
Series: Mercedes Thompson #5, Mercy-verse #15
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Paranormal fantasy, Strong women, Werewolves
Pace: Medium
Format: Novel
Publisher: Ace fantasy
Year: 2010
5th sentence, 74th page: Sam wagged his tail, and the police officer straightened up, his face going impersonal and professional.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Briggs brings the extraordinary world of Mercy Thompson to life so vividly that “readers will believe in shapeshifters, fae, and vampires.”

When Mercy Thompson, mechanic and shapeshifter, attempts to return a powerful fae book she previously borrowed in an act of desperation, she finds the bookstore locked up and closed down.

It seems the book contains secrets – and the fae will do just about anything to keep it out of the wrong hands. And if that doesn’t take enough of Mercy’s attention, her friend Samuel is struggling with his wolf side – leaving Mercy to cover for him lest his own father declare Samuel’s life forfeit.

All in all, Mercy has had better days. And if she isn’t careful, she may not have many more…

More of the fae come out to play in Silver Borne, and while Bone Crossed made the vampires look more scary, Silver Borne manages to highlight just how scary the fae can truly be. It helps that it is in this storyline that Mercy fears what she is up against, it makes it that much easier for the readers to feel the same way.

Mercy’s romantic entanglement with Sam is officially at an end, but her new journey with Adam is just beginning. And both situations leave a trail of confusion and trials in their past. Although Sam doesn’t feel that way about Mercy anymore, there is still something missing in his life, which leads to him being completely out of control throughout the majority of this story. There is a sense of his loss, not necessarily in being non-romantic with Mercy, but not having anyone to be in love with, for lack of a better term. The loneliness he feels as Mercy moves onto the next stage of her life leads to some very interesting complications, but there is also something saddeningly familiar about it. Contrastingly, Mercy and Adam seem to be about to start a great new adventure together… if somebody else wasn’t so keen to mess around with it. And that in and of itself leads to far reaching consequences that neither of them could have predicted.

For those people who haven’t had a chance to read the novella Silver, it provides a great backstory into this novel. Not only Ari, one of the fae who is introduced along the way, but also into the history of Sam (and his loneliness) and the thing which Mercy is being forced to protect. Although it isn’t necessary to understand what is happening (I hadn’t read it when I first read Silver Borne), it does make the story, particularly the last challenge a little more understandable. After all, it takes an entire novella to tell the tale that is only briefly introduced and explained in a few paragraphs…

Image source: Goodreads