Book Review - Patricia Briggs's Smoke Bitten
Smoke Bitten by Patricia Briggs
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: March 17th, 2020
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy
Things have been rough since the witches, but that's nothing new. Things are always rough for Mercy. Yet Adam has always been there to share the load. Now he's remote and has shut down their mating bond. Mercy needs to find out why but at the same time she's scared as to what this could mean. Perhaps he doesn't want her anymore as his mate what with trouble always showing up on her doorstep. The newest trouble being their neighbors. They have died of an apparent murder-suicide. Only Mercy knows this couldn't be the case, especially once she sees a bite on the husband's arm. A bite that looks like it could be from a jackrabbit. When Mercy and Adam go out in search of this jackrabbit they come across two additional unsettling discoveries; there are unknown werewolves in their territory and the vampire Wulfe has taken to stalking Mercy as his new hobby. Though Wulfe turns out to be the least of their concerns, which in itself is concerning, because he saves Mercy from the effects of the jackrabbit's bite. She has no doubt that Wulfe's quick actions combined with her weird reactions to magic are the only things that saved her. And her survival has pissed off her attacker. So the pack congregate and formulate a plan. A plan that is having to constantly be reformulated and intensified as the threats and the imminent danger get closer and closer. If only Mercy was sure everything would be all right with Adam at the end of the day this fight would be so much easier; but Mercy's life isn't easy.
At this point it's getting hard to write reviews about Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series because I feel like there's nothing more to say about how much I love them without repeating myself. This series is hands down the best female driven urban fantasy series out there. Period. Every March I can't wait to get my hands on the newest book in Briggs' universe always wondering what creature will be the big band this time around. Because Briggs does tend to concentrate on a specific threat, Vampire, Fae, Werewolf, Witch, they rotate as the ultimate evil with occasional surprises thrown in. What makes Smoke Bitten so different is that instead of addressing just one big bad Mercy is addressing them all, showing not just the depth and range of Briggs' storytelling abilities to juggle many plot points but also underlining how complicated Mercy's life has become as protector of her plot of land. This makes Smoke Bitten feel not just a more ambitious book, but a more fully rounded book. You can't just pick and choose one crisis to deal with at a time, life isn't that accommodating. Therefore it feels like Mercy has grown up, she's able to handle it all, and in the end she saves the day as she always does, but never without sacrifice and never without her friends by her side. Friends, from Bran to Zee to Wulfe, who be they enemy or throne in the side, feel like my family.
Post a Comment