Bone CrossedPatricia Briggs
Berkely Trade
Copyright: 2009
9780441016761
From the cover of the book:
Welcome to Patricia Briggs's world, a place where "witches, vampires, werewolves, and shapeshifters live beside ordinary people" (Booklist). It takes a very unusual woman to call it home - and there's no one quite like Mercy Thompson.
By day, Mercy is a car mechanic in the sprawling Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington. By night, she explores her preternatural side. As a shapeshifter with some unique talents, Mercy has often found herself having to maintain a tenuous harmony between the human and the not so human. This time she may get more than she bargained for.
Marsilia, the local Vampire Queen, has learned that Mercy crossed her by slaying a member of her clan - and she's out for blood. But since Mercy is protected from direct reprisal by the werewolf pack (and her close relations hip with its sexy Alpha), it won't be Mercy's blood Marsilia is after.
It'll be her friends.
Bone Crossed is the fourth, and currently the last book in the Mercy Thompson series. However, I believe that there is another in the line-up for later this year.
The book starts immediately after the end of Iron Kissed, making it seem more like one book in two volumes, and the action starts almost from the first page. Mercy's mother turns up, having read the articles in the paper about the events of Iron Kissed, and then, minutes later, Stefan, the vampire, pops into the room, literally, having been tortured. From there things don't let up for an instant.
As with the previous books, there are some interesting twists which are revealed at the end of the book, but serve to keep the reader guessing. Some things are left to guess, but not revealed entirely, so there are some hints of things to come, and we learn more about the world that Patricia Briggs has created: more about the Walkers, more about the magics of the werewolves, and more about the vampires and their politics.
The last line of the blurb is right, it is Mercy's friends who are under threat the most in this book, although not all of it comes directly from the situation she's found herself in. Much of the story is set outside of the Tri-Cities area in a neighboring city, which is under the control of a seriously scary vampire. One that Mercy is supposed to stay away from...
Patricia Briggs has written up an intriguing world, where legends can be real, but not everything has been revealed yet. Vampires are still hidden from official view, and there are several reminders that there's more to the Fae than has been revealed as yet - at least to the government.
It would be neat to see what kinds of effects the revelations of the supernatural existing and being legalized in the U.SA. are having on other countries. Are they following suit, or taking a wait and see approach?
The one thing I found was that Bone Crossed was too short for a hardcover. The previous books in the series are all mass market paperbacks, and I'm definitely going to wait for this one to come out the same, as I more or less read it in a day.
The other books in the series:
Moon Called
Blood Bound
Iron Kissed
Also reviewed at:
Books and Other Thoughts: Bone Crossed
Edited to add: this book fills one of the categories in the What's In A Name challenge.
3 comments:
I'm glad you enjoyed this one! I like your question about the effect all this would be having on other countries - that would be an interesting angle for her to explore in a future book.
It would be. And, it would be something new as well. I can't think of any other series that has gone beyond the USA in terms of reactions.
Hamilton has a little, but only behind the scenes as it were, not as a direct part of any of her books as yet (at least in the Anita Blake books).
You're right - there are the vampires that come from Europe in the Hamilton ones. Odd that isn't more dealt with, isn't it, considering the premise that so many series have, of these things suddenly coming to light. I'll be a lot more aware of it now, at any rate!
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