Moon Called is the novel that introduced Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson to the world and launched a #1 bestselling phenomenon...
Mercy Thompson is a shapeshifter, and while she was raised by werewolves, she can never be one of them, especially after the pack ran her off for having a forbidden love affair. So she’s turned her talent for fixing cars into a business and now runs a one-woman mechanic shop in the Tri-Cities area of Washington State.
But Mercy’s two worlds are colliding. A half-starved teenage boy arrives at her shop looking for work, only to reveal that he’s a newly changed werewolf—on the run and desperately trying to control his animal instincts. Mercy asks her neighbor Adam Hauptman, the Alpha of the local werewolf pack, for assistance.
But Mercy’s act of kindness has unexpected consequences that leave her no choice but to seek help from those she once considered family—the werewolves who abandoned her...
“In the increasingly crowded field of kick-ass supernatural heroines, Mercy stands out as one of the best.”—Locus
I didn’t know much about this series when I started this book, other than a few mentions here and there about it being good. It definitely lived up to the good things I’ve heard.
The world Briggs has built is a little bit different than the typical urban fantasy/paranormal universe. There’s vampires and werewolves, but there is also a whole class of fae that includes creatures other than faeries. There’s goblins and all sorts of "lesser" fae, and then there’s Mercy, who is a skinwalker. She’s sort of like a werewolf, but she turns into a coyote and she can do it whenever she wants; she isn’t slave to the moon.
Mercy was raised by werewolves, so she quickly spots the young man who comes to her shop looking for work for what he is — a were on the run. It’s her understanding of the weres and their politics that helps her survive the events of the novel.
Mercy is a strong lead, but she’s not reckless. She doesn’t take unnecessary risks, which puts her above some other strong leading ladies. Usually they’re assertive, but have a tendency to think with their emotions rather than their head.
The book was a little heavy on world-building and were politics, but that’s not unexpected in the first book of a series. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I will definitely be reading more in the series.
