Review: Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs

Title: Blood Bound
Author: Patricia Briggs
Series: Mercy Thompson, Book 2 (Mercy Thompson World, Book 5)
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Release Date: 30 January 2007

Mechanic Mercy Thompson has friends in low places - and in dark ones. And now she owes one of them a favor. Since she can shapeshift at will, she agrees to act as some extra muscle when her vampire friend Stefan goes to deliver a message to another of his kind. But this new vampire is hardly ordinary - and neither is the demon inside of him.

A quick note about the narration. This narrator is one of the few that I enjoy for one of my favorite novels. Her voice for Mercy is easy and comfortable. She does a fairly good job with the other characters voices, and the reading style is straightforward and simple.

What a fabulous sequel to Moon Called. Mercy continues to be the smart, capable, and still slightly vulnerable heroine that I grew to love in the first book. People she cares about really matter to her. She'd do damn-near anything for those she loves.

I said it in the review for Moon Called, and it continues here. The world-building is wonderful. Strong, compelling, and feels absolutely real. Briggs' wolves act like wolves, her fae are not sparkles and light, and the vampires - whom we get much better acquainted with in this book - are devious, powerful, and (most of them) likely evil.

The mystery in this one though is where it's even better than the first. The first book, I can freely admit, is a bit convoluted in the plot that is the main storyline. This one is much cleaner, building slowly, with a bunch of twists and yet doesn't feel too messy. The bad guy is seriously scary (creeped me out a bunch), and there's enough surprises that it kept me guessing.

Adam, Samuel, Stefan - *sigh* I love them all. I admit when I first read this I was a little worried about the 'love-triangle' turning into a 'love-square'...And though there are guys a-plenty that are interested in Mercy it's actually easy for me to understand why. She's pretty freaking awesome.

I never worried about the love-triangle (or square for that matter), because it was always obvious to me who she'd end up with. But I know that some have a serious aversion to love-triangles of any kind (I'm usually this way too), so I'll give a slight non-spoiler: there's a choice made in book Iron Kissed.

There's one other character I just have to mention. Ben. I love him. He can be such a misogynist, such an asshole, but I love him. More and more with each passing book. It started near the end of book 1, but everything in this book just continued to make it grow (and it only gets better as the series goes on).

Grade: A-

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