Product Description

'I didn't realize he was a werewolf at first. My nose isn't at its best when surrounded by axle grease and burnt oil ...' Mercedes Thompson runs a garage in the Tri-Cities. She's a mechanic, and a damn good one, who spends her spare time karate training and tinkering with a VW bus that happens to belong to a vampire. Her next-door neighbour is an alpha werewolf - literally, the leader of the pack. And Mercy herself is a shapeshifter, sister to coyotes. As such, she's tolerated by the 'wolves but definitely down the pecking order. As long as she keeps her eyes down and remembers her place, the pack will leave her in peace. Hardly a normal situation, but then, Mercy 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23153 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
'The best new urban fantasy series I've read in years' Kelley Armstrong 'Plenty of twists and turns ... Kept me entertained from its deceptively innocent beginning to its can't-put-it-down end' Kim Harrison, bestselling author of Dead Witch Walking 'Terrific!' Jennifer Rardin 'I enjoyed every minute of it. I love Mercy and can't wait for her to kick some more ass' Lilith Saintcrow 'The characters are excellent; and the plot keeps the pages flapping' Booklist

About the Author
Patricia Briggs graduated from Montana State University with degrees in history and German. She worked for a while as a substitute teacher but now writes full time. Patricia lives in the Pacific Northwest.

Customer Reviews

A fantastic book with a wide variety of characters
I loved this book! I first read it a couple of months ago and have read it twice again since - it's fun to revisit the characters and the events.

Mercy Thompson is a car mechanic who has a secret - she's a Walker, which means she inherited the ability from her native American father to turn into a coyote. This is unusual, but her neighbours and friends are even more unusual. Stefan is a customer in her repair shop - and he's a vampire. Her next door neighbour is a werewolf. She knows a Russian Witch and also a number of other fae people. The fae have come out into open society but the werewolves, vampires and some others are keeping quiet still, to see how it goes.

Mercy's life is turned upside down by the arrival of a young lad at her garage asking for work. Mac isn't all that he seems - pretty soon Mercy realises he's a brand new werewolf, and with his arrival in her life comes a great deal of trouble. Her next door neighbour, Adam, is seriously injured and Mercy has to rescue him at great personal danger. Mercy has to return to the place where she grew up, amongst werewolves, and there is murder and kidnapping and danger for her as she has to rely on other people to help her.

What's so brilliant about this book is the cast of characters and the way that Patricia Briggs portrays their lives. Yes, people are werewolves but she shows how they fit in to the modern world, how they try to maintain relationships with humans and yet the times when they know they have to keep separate. There's a slow-burn love story between Mercy and a very attractive character (I won't give away who it is!) and also an exploration of what it must be like for Mercy as a weaker shape-shifter than the werewolves around her. Her brush with the head of the vampires is pretty dodgy too.

I'm really looking forward to the next book in this series - if it's as good as this it will be brilliant.

Great start to a new paranormal/fantasy series...
Set in a world where the minor fae have 'come out' to humans, whilst the more powerful fae, and supernaturals such as werewolves and vampires keep themselves hidden from human eyes. Moon Called is an impressive start to a new werewolf / shapeshifter series. When a newbie werewolf arrives at Mercy Thompson's garage looking for work, it sets a chain of events in motion that will bring her past and present together, and have repercussions for all those around her.

Mercy makes an appealing heroine, not least because as a skinwalker she changes into a coyote (much weaker than a werewolf); meaning she has to rely more on her brains and cunning to get her out of trouble. And sometimes she just has to deal with the consequences of her actions.

This is a wonderful story, populated with well-drawn and interesting characters. One of the things that makes it so fascinating is the detail in the complex relationships between the members of the various werewolf packs and how Mercy fits into that equation.

The only problem I had, was that the vampire section seemed a little superfluous to the plot. (As the second book deals more with them, this was probably to serve as an introduction, but I thought it took the action away from the werewolves and wasn't strictly necessary.)

Although the werewolf hierarchy that Patricia Briggs writes about is familiar, she manages to make the world Mercy lives in, unique. Moon Called reaches a satisfying conclusion but we are left with enough dangling plot threads to make us look forward to the next book. If you like Kelley Armstrong and Kim Harrison, I think this is another series that you'll love.

Great Reading
Mercy Thompson lives next door to a werewolf and fixes cars in her garage for a vampire, she's also not "quite" human herself so when a "new" young werewolf comes to her for casual work she takes him in and lands herself in a lot of trouble, which means returning to the place where she was raised and having to deal with past issues!!

A great story and you won't want to put it down - I hope there is a sequel.