Shifting Shadows (Mercy Thompson)

by Patricia Briggs

[EBookObsessed]

The Mercy Thompson series are told in the first person by Mercy. A few of these stories are fill in scenes from her books that didn't fit since there were told by Mercy. So it gives you extras views but it will give spoilers if you haven't reached those stories yet.

We also get to spend time with Warren and Kyle as well as Ben. It is nice to get a little deeper into these characters. Ben is challenged to not swear for a month and it is quite entertaining to see him almost struggle to speak without his expletives. There is a back story on Samuel and Ariana.

As you can probably guess, Alpha and Omega is the novella which began the Alpha and Omega spinoff series. We never spent much time with Charles in any of Mercy's book but we kind of knew him as Bran's scary powerful and unsocial son. I hadn't jumped on his spin off but now I have picked up the first three audiobooks in this series and am looking forward to those.

The remaining stories involve vampires, ghosts, witches and fae which will all follow the world building rules which is presented in the Mercy Thompson series. These were all very entertaining stories. It reminded me of Stephen King novels when he would give you a full back story on a character who was just crossing the street (and about to be killed), but by the time King killed off the guy, you were so intrigued and invested in this guy you were sad he died. I enjoyed these little peeks in the windows of others who live in Mercy's world.

I found it interesting that Patricia Briggs gives a brief description of what prompted the story or what guidelines she was presented in the previously published stories. For example, for the story Gray , she needed to write a story featuring a color and a holiday. It is interesting the stories that are created for the different anthologies that these stories were originally part of.

THOUGHTS:
I am a big fan of Patricia Briggs' writing and Mercy Thompson and friends. So I enjoyed all the stories presented in this collection. If you are looking for a new paranormal/urban fantasy author, this would be a great way to check out Patricia's work without making the full commitment to an entire series.

I have listened to this entire series by audiobook. Lorelei King brings Mercy and the gang to life for me. She has a very natural narration style and gives voice to a cast of characters. This was my first time listening to Alexander Cendese, but I thought he did a wonderful job narrating for Samuel and for David.

Received a review audiobook from Brilliance audio in exchange for an honest review.