Moon Called - Patricia Briggs

Moon Called
Patricia Briggs
Ace Fantasy
Copyright: 2006
9780441013814

From the back of the book:

Werewolves can be dangerous if you get in their way, but they'll leave you alone if you are careful. They are very good at hiding their natures from the human population, but I'm not human. I know them when I meet them, and they know me too.

Mercy Thompson's sexy next-door neighbor is a werewolf.

She's tinkering with a VW bus at her mechanic shop that happens to belong to a vampire.

But then, Mercedes Thompson is not exactly normal herself... and her connection to the world of things that go bump in the night is about to get her into a whole lot of trouble.

Yes, this is yet another re-read. I've read Moon Called a couple of times in the past, along with the rest of the series (Blood Bound, Iron Kissed, Bone Crossed, Silver Borne and River Marked to date) and loved it every time.

Mercy Thompson is quite the character, and involved with a very interesting world. Where in most of the paranormal worlds (either in the romance genre or the urban fantasy) the supernatural is either well known about or completely kept secret, in the world Mercedes Thompson lives in, it's in that middle-state. At the moment, the Fae are out (for the most part, anyway) and werewolves are something of an open secret, although not officially known about as yet. Not even a hint of vampires or anything else, although they do exist.

All of that adds a whole new set of tensions to the normal set. How to keep these secrets, how to maintain the image that is needed. Dealing with bigotry and prejudice, etc. The whole series (and the spin-off series Alpha and Omega) keep me turning the page, even on re-reading.

From the start, we're thrown right into her world with a bit of a mystery, and we're kept going from there. Who is Mac, who's after him and why? What do they want? The pace never really lets up, although there are plenty of funnier moments to lighten things up - Mercy's parts car, for example. Every time she's annoyed with her neighbor, it gets funnier. I think, by the end of the series, it's missing three of the four wheels and has graffiti scribbled all over it.

If you're an urban fantasy fan and you haven't given Patricia Brigg's Mercy Thompson series a try, you really should. It's one of my favourites and I can't recommend it enough.