VW mechanic Mercy Thompson doesn't think of herself as living a very exciting life. Sure, her next-door neighbor is a werewolf, her ex-boss is a gremlin, and she fixes cars for vampires - oh, and she can turn into a coyote - but in general, her life pretty quiet. Until, that is, a young homeless man turns up on her doorstep looking for work. Suddenly Mercy's peaceful existence has disappeared down a rabbit hole, and what's a coyote girl to do but chase right along after it.

Patricia Briggs is one of my favorite authors. Mercy is quick, clever, competent and likable, and this series is a lot of fun. ( )

Werewolves, Vampires and shape-shifters...if that's your cup of tea then you'll enjoy this book. Great pacing and story telling. Briggs has a flair for this type of work with mostly crisp writing and well-defined characters. ( )

Mercedes Thompson is my favorite Heroine of all times. She is just the right amount of ballsy and even though sometimes she makes stupid mistakes they are some what believable.

Mercy is a shape-shifter what they call a Walker in a world were witches, fae, vampires are known creatures. She can turn into a coyote. Her neighbor is the alpha of the local werewolves pack and has claimed her as a mate among the pack for her protection. So that the wolf guys will not harm her. They aren't foolish enough to upset their alpha, the drop dead sexy Adam Hauptman. Adam and Mercy have this love-annoy relationship. He threatens to eat her cat, while she annoys him to no end by keeping an old and dilapidated VW Rabbit in her back yard in his house's view.

Mercy meets a young wolf at her car shop and the adventures starts from there. Someone is attacking humans and turning them into werewolves. Mercy wants to find out who, exactly is doing this.

I loved the way Mercy's long-term relationship with werewolves unfold. I was so enthralled with this book from pretty much the first sentence. "I didn't realize he was a werewolf at first." Maybe it was just me but I could not put this book down.

Mercy and Adam have a complex relationship more than neighbors, but no where near the mates that Adam claimed her as. Adam has a hilarious, punk rockish but lovable daughter, Jesse, that Mercy just adores, as do I as well. And when ex-lover Samuel, son of Bran, enters the picture after Mercy has to make an unexpected and un-wanted return home to Montana, you will think Adam and Mercy's complex relationship is a walk in the park.

Moon Called is a great book. I give kudos to Briggs for the world she created while not getting caught up in petty descriptions and background filler information. Briggs finds an entertaining way to tell us all we need to know as we need to know it.

The characters are very well written and believable. And boy there are a lot of characters to know. Luckily they are easy to remember. The tri-city, where Mercy resides, wolf pack are characters who's importance that ranger from major to minor but you will remember every single one. And Bran's Montana pack (Bran is the Alpha of the entire North American wolves) will introduce themselves as they show what relevance they have to Mercy's past.

All in all I have nothing but great things to say about the opening book for the series and you won't regret reading this book. I love the huge Native American culture that is infused in this book and the magical beings that this world has, both openly and hidden in among the public. ( )

The first book of the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs. When my good friend first told me about this series of books, I was highly skeptical. "Really? A shapeshifter who hangs out with werewolves, is friends with a vampire and works with a fairy?". My friend practically had to beg me to read it. I'm so glad that I did. Despite the rather ridiculous premise, these books are absolutely compelling, and surprisingly well written. I suggest these books to anyone.

Mercedes Thompson is a walker, a descendant of Native Americans and has the ability to turn into a coyote and detect magic and block it. She gets drawn into a fight with werewolves because of her neighbor. Turns out she helps out a lot and practically saves the day, and only sustains mild injuries.

This book was so much like the first couple of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake books, it has the same tone and sort of the same concept, but different...lets just hope she doesn't turn the series into nothing more than completely gratuitous sex scenes in book form. I liked the tension between Mercy and the local werewolf alpha, Adam. I like the whole idea of the story but it felt a bit like something was missing as well, although, I can't quite place what. Mercy is a strong female lead and I liked that as well. We will see what the rest of the series has in store.

Also posted: http://www.bibliophilicbookblog.com/2... ( )

This was a cut above the urban fantasy clones I've been reading lately - the political system of the werewolves was interesting, and romantic conflicts didn't make we queasy, and there was no gratuitous werewolf sex. I will read further in this series. ( )

Reading Patricia Briggs is like being struck by a rattler. You don't feel it at first and then you are completely taken over. Simply put, you are entwined in a fantastic story that has led you down a merry path. I'm pretty stingy with praise for literature-but this is the best supe novel I've read since Kim Harrison's Dead Witch Walking.

I happened on this book when I was doing laundry in my building. We have a spiffy common room for the residents, a hub if you will, with gorgeous couches and a bookshelf. I picked up the book and never put it down. I read it in a few hours and the next day ran over to Borders to pick up Book 2. I had never heard of Patricia Briggs before that first book.

Kudos to Briggs' editor who must be an absolute control freak. The story is very tight, economical, compact and packs a whallop. The pace is perfect and the suspense is drawn out just enough, Plenty of showing instead of telling the story like other authors.

What is even more painful is the way that Briggs dangles the Sam/Adam relationship. She gives us a tiny sip and makes us want more. And she doesn't overdo it...doesn't give us the milk for free. Clearly she is making her fans work for it. I can't wait until Iron Kissed comes out-Briggs reveals that Mercy will have to make a choice. This book comes highly recommended. None of the flowery crap that is churned out by other supe authors. Elegantly crafted.Copyright(c)Nicola Mattos ( )

Being raised by a pack of werewolves gave Mercedes (Mercy) Thompson a certain perspective into their world. Living across the street from one of the top alphas (Adam Hauptman) left Mercy with a constant reminder of what she was, a coyote, a shape shifter, a skin walker that knew of no one else like herself. Having a gremlin for a friend (Zee), a vampire that she kind of trusted (Stephan Uccello), and all of Adam’s pack around her all the time, and then a boy named Mac (a werewolf that had escaped from some sort of testing facility) showed up in her shop looking for work and he needed help. Getting some of the details left Adam injured and Mercy unable to trust his pack, so taking things into her own hands, she enlisted the top alpha of North America (Bran Cornick) and his pack.

Book 1 ….. Interesting combination of werewolves and vampires and witches - oh my! Great action and really interesting characters with some previous history but the reference to the past were done well. Not a romance (in my definition of romance), but there is definitely options. I was not sure about Mercy at first, but she grew on me as a character. There is just something about all that alpha male, all of them wanting to protect and help Mercy - she is going to end up being a very strong character with extraordinary powers that no one can predict (just a guess on my part). I am eager to get my hands on the next of these interesting stories (Blood Bound). ( )

Mercy Thompson is a skinwalker, which means she can change into a coyote without the call of the moon. Growing up with werewolves always made her the outcast. Now she owns an auto repair shop with the area Alpha Male living behind her, and a newly turned werewolf shows up at her shop looking for a job. When she finds him dead on her back porch one night, she puts aside all her past feelings and asks help from her handsome neighbor, Adam. Getting more than she bargained for, Mercy gets help from anyone she can including her vampire friend, Stefan, and former boss, Zee, a fae. ( )

LOVED THIS BOOK! It's got action, adventure, romance, comedy, suspense, and a really good heroine. This is a must read. The other books in this series are AWSOME aswell. , Blood Bound, Iron Kissed, and Bone Crossed. Also check out Cry Wolf and Hunting Ground. ( )

A little slow going in but picked up to speed in no time and was very engaging!! ( )

"Moon Called" by Patricia Briggs is a modern fantasy set in the Tri Cities area and is full of werewolves, vampires, fae, and the main character is a skin changer! For those of you not familiar with the Tri Cities, it's part of my home state, so that was a lot of fun for me. This is the first book I've read by Briggs and I'm really looking forward to reading more.

Mercedes, the main character, is a skin walker. She's of Native American descent and can easily change back and forth between her human form and coyote form. She didn't grow up in a Native American community though, no, she was raised by Werewolves. As a result, she knows way more about their culture than most, and she's on friendly terms with the local pack.

Actually, Mercedes seems to be able to make friends with just about anybody. Her former boss and friend is a fae, she regularly does car work for a local vampire, and she's quick to befriend a new werewolf when he shows up on the scene. Things go crazy not long after that as blood is shed and Mercedes finds the people she loves in terrible danger.

One thing I really appreciated about this story is that it's not your typical "oh it's fantasy so we have to throw some dirty, nasty sex scenes in." There is some romantic tension (and I loved it) but it's a pretty clean read. The cover art doesn't really reflect that though. ( )

The main werewolf series by Patricia Briggs features Mercedes Thompson, a Native American VW mechanic who can turn into a coyote and who was fostered with werewolves when she was a child. As far as she knows, she's the only (skin)walker around, since the colonization of the New World led to the extermination of its native magical creatures by the European magical types, just like the real history of American Indian cultures. The stories are set in the Tri-Cities of Washington State.

In the first book, Moon Called, Mercy gives a job to a teenage runaway who also happens to be a werewolf. When some bad guys show up to reclaim the fugitive, things get messy. The plot races forward from there. She introduces Mack to the local Alpha, Adam Hauptmann, who also happens to be her neighbor. The bad guys show up at the Alpha's home, Mack ends up dead, Adam is nearly dead, and his human daughter is missing. The action proceeds from there. An important note is that Samuel Cornick reappears in Mercy's life. She was desperately in love with him when she was 16, but his father the Marrok broke it up, and she left the werewolf pack and ultimately became an entrepreneur and an independent woman. But now she maybe has to deal with that emotional baggage. SPOILER Mercy ends up with a broken arm.

So why do I like this series? Multiple strong minority characters including African American, Native American, multiracial African-Asian, Latino, gay, and probably others that I'm not bringing to mind right now. Most of the characters are still white and straight and male, but not all of them, and the minorities are liberally scattered through the series in important roles, not just a token here and there.

There aren't as many women characters; certainly, Mercy doesn't appear to have any female friends (besides Adam's daughter). She apparently had problems in her youth with the female werewolves in the pack, and the female werewolves in the present-day storyline are mentioned only in passing with the exception of Honey, who appears to be developing into a friend after initial antagonism. The only other female characters who get any time are Jesse, the teenage human daughter of Adam, the local Alpha, and Marsala, the mistress of the local vampire seethe.

It is nice to see a plucky female protagonist succeeding in a patriarchal society (and the werewolves are that), and that this character is realistically portrayed, including the physical and emotional and mental costs of coping with crises. However, it is a little disturbing that these costs are escalating throughout the series, which the characters themselves point out. I recently came across a discussion of the
Women in Refrigerators pattern in comic books, which was later expanded to other fictional media . Other characters are taking real beatings too, but they're men with supernatural healing powers that Mercy lacks. I'm not saying that Patricia Briggs is being sexist here, but this escalation of horrors for Mercy is troubling.

Other reasons I like the series--engaging characters, generally good dialogue, interesting ideas like the fae reservations, certainly fast-paced action stories with a good dollop of romance and emotional depth. It's not set in one of the obligatory major urban areas--New York and California really don't need any more attention. The Pacific Northwest needs to be better represented in fiction, in my opinion. The character is blue collar and worries about paying her bills. She also has a sense of humor. These are all things I can connect with, though my collar's been bleached in the last couple years. ( )

Moon Called is the first book the Mercy Thompson series and presents us a world of shape shifters, feys, vampires and likes.

Mercedes “Mercy” Thompson doesn't really fit in any category: she's a walker. Walkers are an almost disappeared species originating in north America along with the natives. They were known to hunt vampires when they first came in America, and vampires would return the favor. Mercy shape-shift into a coyote and isn't controlled by the moon. She was raised by a foster family in a werewolf community and her difference didn't make it easy.

She's now a mechanic specializing in German vehicles, owns the garage and is happy to mind her own business. Life is about to get spicier when a young werewolf shows up on her door steps looking for a job.

The world is very well built, lesser feys came out of the closest due to science progress, but superior feys, witches, vampires and werewolves are still hidden. They live in a very structured system: Wolves lives in packs ruled by the strongest Alpha, Vampires runs the economy taxing other supernatural beings and Witches gets their profit magically hiding all these activities. The balance is at stake tho with increasing advances in technology and forensic investigations and trouble is around the corner.

Briggs' suspense and conspiracies are very well written and we are left hanging until the very end.

Really liked Mercy with her strength and struggles, the males in the story are great to, gotta expect some macho and testosterone filled discussions among them. I am ordering the following books for sure. ( )

June09: Rose just a little above the other romantic fantasy out there.

Characters: I actually liked the main chick, but all the males were boorish.
Plot: Kinda flat, mostly exposition, but did the trick.
Style: I really liked her writing style and the way she made the lead a person. ( )

When I first heard about this book I thought the premise was kind of stupid and it was going to be another one of those steamy paranormal romance novels.

Boy was I wrong! I enjoyed this a lot. The pack mentality and politics of the werewolves was well thought out, and Mercy's place among them interesting. She's not a wolf and isn't subject to the pack's rule and they just don't quite know what to do with her because of it.

I look forward to the next book... heres to hoping it doesn't degrade into some emo love triangle fest. (I admit there is a love triangle but its not the total focus of the story like some Urban Fantasy novels) ( )

An "Anita Blake" ripoff, but with all the juicy bits removed. ( )

I liked this one a lot. Mercy is a mechanic and a sklinwalker, but while her position as a walker makes life a little strange for her, her garage and work make life interesting for her. However, when a strange teenage boy arrives, asking for a few days' work, smelling homeless and like a new werewolf, Mercy decides to help him by contacting the local Pack's leader, Adam.

What follows is fast-paced and exciting, and an interesting look into a new world of supernatural creatures. I'm eagerly awaiting the next book! ( )

This book was great!! I am new to this series but can't wait to read the rest. I thought that her mythology behind werewolves was the best i have read. For me, Anne Rice made vampire seem possible (at least in the early books) and Patricia Briggs has made werewolves seem possible. She only touched on other creatures...i can't wait to get more deeply into that. ( )

Mercy Thompson is an auto mechanic. She’s also a shape shifter and lives next door to a sexy werewolf, Adam, in a world where supernatural creatures are being forced out of hiding due to advancing science. When a new, teenage werewolf who isn’t affiliated with Adam’s pack shows up in Mercy’s shop, she finds herself in the middle of both a werewolf war and a love triangle as she goes back into her own past for some answers.

I very much enjoyed this book. I liked this version of AU America; every urban fantasy has a slightly different twist on it and this one is great. It makes perfect sense to me that werewolves, vampires, and the like are about to be outed via modern science. If we can cure diseases, surely we can investigate other physical phenomena. Since most urban fantasy gathers werewolves into packs like this one, it was a wonderful move to set Mercy slightly outside the pack. She turns into a coyote but shares few of the advantages that werewolves have; she is not necessarily more human than they are but she is one step outside of their society while still being in it enough to be a part of the action.

Mercy herself is a great character. She is brave, a bit stubborn, and clearly a tomboy, but still has a romantic heart and is very easy to relate to. I had a soft spot for her the minute I learned she’d majored in history. She’s determined to get to the truth of the mystery she’s unearthed and she doesn’t back down when threats emerge. I think her struggles with the men in her life only enrich her character more; we learn about her history and simultaneously can witness for ourselves just how much she’s grown and changed.

The plot rockets along in this short book, which comes in under 300 pages; there were a couple of times when I felt that Mercy was explaining a little too much but as something of a set-up for the world, I’m used to it in the first book of a series. I’ve been reading a lot of these lately. By the time I hit the middle, I needed to know what happened, and by the end, I didn’t want to give it up.

I can’t wait to read Blood Bound. I immediately went and ordered it online and now I’m just waiting impatiently for it to arrive. I really, really enjoyed this book. I can’t wait for the relationships between the characters to deepen, for another story to start, or to learn more about the world. If you like urban fantasy, I highly recommend giving this series a shot.

http://chikune.com/blog/?p=1052 ( )

Mercy Thompson is a walker which means she can change into a coyote she is not like the werewolves that need the moon to change she can change anytime she wants.Her next door neighbor is the alpha wolf and when a new untrained werewolf shows up at her door things go from bad to worse,as she tries to figure out whats going on.With the help of a hippy vampire and a gay werewolf she saves the day!This series is one of the best out there Highly recommended!! ( )

Really interesting read. Well drawn characters. Engaging plot. A heroine that you root for and want to win. I did feel that the hints leading up to the discovery of the plot were scarce and difficult to pick up on, so much so that it's hard to believe the characters even made the connections to solve the mystery. Otherwise, well done. ( )

I LOVE the main character, Mercy, and I love the urban fantasy world the book takes place in. I have never read about any Native American types of magic before and this one took me in completely. I have read this book so many times because it is so fascinating and so much fun to read. Mercy is such a strong female lead and my favorite novels are the ones where the women can stand up for themselves. Awesome book. ( )

Moon Called, the first of Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson novels, portrays a detailed, well-planned universe in which the the rapidly developing capabilities of forensic science necessitated the outing of the "lesser fae" (fairies and brownies and pixies and their ilk) by their own leaders some twenty years earlier. So the eastern Washington in which Mercy Thompson runs her car repair business resides in a United States in which the supernatural coexists, if not comfortably and amiably, at least somewhat openly side-by-side with the mundane.

Moon Called, however, does not deal with the lesser fae, but rather with the greater fae--werewolves, shape-shifters (Mercy's special talent), and vampires--about which the world at large is still ignorant (if suspicious).

The plot involves kidnapping, drug running, and internecine warfare. And, although Moon Called is certainly an excellent, quite bloody, actioner, it's got more going for it than the action alone. Briggs does an excellent job of building her world, explaining the social intricacies of life among the werewolf packs, the plight of the lone wolf, and the treatment of modern women in these ancient societies. All of the main characters are nicely developed, particularly Mercy Thompson, a likable, smart, talented woman, who knows the rules but doesn't always play by them. ( )

Fantastic characters and gorgeous scenery. It was very easy to connect with this book. ( )