My book reviews for the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs, starting with book 12, Smoke Bitten. Please be aware that these reviews may contain spoilers for earlier books in the series.

I am Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman. My only 'superpowers' are that I turn into a thirty-five-pound coyote and fix Volkswagens. But I have friends in odd places and a pack of werewolves at my back. It looks like I'm going to need them.

Centuries ago, the fae dwelt in Underhill. When they were cast out, they left behind their great castles, troves of magical artefacts . . . and their prisoners. Without the fae to mind them, those creatures roamed freely through Underhill wreaking havoc. Only the deadliest survived.

Now one of those prisoners has escaped. It can look like any creature it chooses and if it bites you, it controls you. It lives for chaos and destruction and can make you do anything - even kill the person you love the most. Now it is here, in the Tri-Cities. In my territory.

This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

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Once again, Patricia Briggs delivers a wonderful foray into the world of Mercy Thompson and friends in Smoke Bitten. Compared to previous adventures, this one was not all fun and giggles. The pack is in danger again, nothing new, just a normal Tuesday after Mercy declared them protectors of the city, but in this book, Briggs reminds us that having supernatural powers doesn’t make you immune to the ups and downs of everyday life.

I’ve always found Mercy to be a refreshing change from other Urban Fantasy protagonists, as she remains genuine, keeping a vulnerability that we as the reader can relate to. In Smoke Bitten, this was even more noticeable as the events of previous books began to take a toll on Mercy and her relationships with others. Events that have happened before this latest crisis are pulled back into focus as they’re revisited, and just with real life, some are sorted out, and others have to be put aside for another day.

Feeling overwhelmed and alone, we see Mercy stripped down to her core, and while it’s incredibly brutal, Briggs’ writing is tremendous in treating the situation with heart and realism. Anyone who has ever felt like they’ve hit rock bottom and completely utterly alone will recognise themselves in Mercy, and that is the magic of a fantastic writer.

The darkness in Smoke Bitten is, therefore, two-fold, as Mercy fights for her pack on two completely different fronts because the monster doesn’t stop coming just because you’re having a bad week. For those who may be worried that there’s too much personal drama and not enough supernatural action, don’t be. This is a Mercy Thompson story like no other so far that draws on fantastical elements from various sources to create a foe that is absolutely terrifying and unpredictable.

The vampire Wulfe is missing. Since he’s deadly, possibly insane, and his current idea of “fun” is stalking me, some may see it as no great loss. But, warned that his disappearance might bring down the carefully constructed alliances that keep our pack safe, my mate and I must find Wulfe—and hope he’s still alive. As alive as a vampire can be, anyway.

But Wulfe isn’t the only one who has disappeared. And now there are bodies, too. Has the Harvester returned to the Tri-Cities, reaping souls with his cursed sickle? Or is he just a character from a B horror movie and our enemy is someone else?

The farther I follow Wulfe’s trail, the more twisted—and darker—the path becomes. I need to figure out what’s going on before the next body on the ground is mine.

This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

Soul Taken by Patricia Briggs is the thirteenth book in the urban fantasy Mercy Thompson series about the eponymous character, a coyote shapeshifter.

In Soul Taken, Briggs delivers a smasher of a book that is fittingly spooky for Mercy Thompson’s thirteenth outing. It’s Halloween, and the local cinema is showing a B horror movie based on the local legend of a mythical figure called The Harvester. In true Mercy style, there’s of course more than a little truth to the local legend and Mercy and the pack soon find themselves right in the middle of things. It’s not just them this time, though; one of the vampires is missing.

It’s Wulfe, a vampire that Mercy and her allies never know what to expect, nor the true scope of his powers. He’s a wildcard, and to make matters worse, the leader of the vampires has given the pack an ultimatum: find him or there will be war with the vampires. Marsilia’s strange ultimatum isn’t the only thing that doesn’t make sense, and as Mercy and the Pack start to look into things, they find even more questions.

Soul Taken dips a bit more into the horror genre than previous books, and mixing it with the pop culture of horror movies takes the edge off it for readers who might not like their books that dark. It also allows for some excellent conversations with Jessie and Mercy on the subject. The world-building of this book was delicious, and I enjoyed every single moment of it. I especially loved learning more about characters that we’ve known for a long time. This series just keeps getting better!

Mercy Thompson, car mechanic and shapeshifter, must stop a disaster of world-shattering proportions in this exhilarating entry in the No. 1 New York Times bestselling series.In the supernatural realms, there are creatures who belong to winter. I am not one of them. But like the coyote I can become at will, I am adaptable.My name is Mercy Thompson Hauptman, and my mate, Adam, is the werewolf who leads the Columbia Basin Pack, the pack charged with keeping the people who live and work in the Tri-Cities of Washington State safe. It's a hard job, and it doesn't leave much room for side quests. Which is why when I needed to travel to Montana to help my brother, I intended to go by myself.But I'm not alone anymore.Together, Adam and I find ourselves trapped with strangers in a lodge in the heart of the wilderness, in the teeth of a storm of legendary power, only to discover my brother's issues are a tiny part of a problem much bigger than we could have imagined. Arcane and ancient magics are at work that could, unless we are very careful, bring about the end of the world . . .

This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

The day I don’t enjoy a Mercy Thompson book is going to be a very sad day indeed, and once again, I thoroughly enjoyed this latest novel by Patricia Briggs. Winter Lost comes after the very dark Soul Taken, and all the characters are reeling from the events of that book. While Mercy, Adam, the Pack and their allies triumphed and the Soul Taker was destroyed, Mercy was left with gaping wounds in her magic and soul. While she’s trying to deal with them in her own way, aka stubbornly hoping it will fix itself, she’s terrified that the situation is permanent and what that now means for her.

Meanwhile, Bonarata, the most powerful vampire in the world, who kidnapped Mercy in Silence Fallen, is continuing his obsession. Already on edge, Mercy is forced to endure harassing phone calls and hanging up on Bonarata has deadly consequences. With the threat of him lurking and Mercy not at her best, the last thing Mercy and Adam need is her brother Gary turning up at their door, unable to communicate. 

All paths lead to Montana, where Gary was last working on a ranch. Mercy and Adam head to the ranch to see what they can find, and a massive storm hits, cutting them off from everyone and everything. They find themselves at a lodge with a group of strangers, and soon realise there’s more going on than they realised.

While Winter Lost connects to everything that has happened in previous books, what I liked about this one was that it took a step back and gave Mercy and Adam some breathing space instead of piling on another huge Tri-Cities crisis. That’s not to say the stakes in Winter Lost aren’t big – they are! – but they’re focused on something specific rather than it being a continuation of the ongoing scenarios.

In this book, Briggs also introduces ‘interludes’ between Mercy and Adam’s chapters, and these are short scenes that include other characters and tell the reader about events that take place outside the current events and timeline. Some happen before the book’s events start or before a particular scene, while others show what is happening to The Pack while Mercy and Adam are in Montana.

In the last few books, the dynamics of the Pack have been changing, especially since Sherwood’s identity and memory were restored. In Winter Lost, Adam leaves some of the dominant wolves in charge, letting them work things out for themselves while also ensuring there’s a third wolf to act as a tie-breaker vote if needed. One of the interludes shows us how some of the characters got on without Adam, and it was a brilliant scene.

A lot is happening in this book, and Briggs’ fantastic world-building shines through as she weaves myth and urban fantasy together. There’s a great mixture of humour, quirky characters and witty dialogue as always, that balances the difficult, hard-hitting topics. I’ve seen some readers complain about the way Briggs has been depicting Mercy in the most recent books, particularly her vulnerability, and how Mercy is trying to be more open with Adam. I’m all for it.

Relationships are hard work, especially long-term relationships, and you don’t just hit a certain milestone and go aha, that’s X amount of years, we can communicate perfectly now! People change constantly, and in a world like Mercy and Adam’s with magic and Pack bonds, it’s even more complicated. It makes a lot of sense that at this stage in the series, and in their relationship, this is where Briggs is heading.

I mentioned that the stakes were big in Winter Lost, albeit differently, and I liked the way that Briggs played around with myth and belief. It was very much a case of ‘well, this could happen and no one wants to find out if it’s true or not!’, rather than complicating things and saying for certain that it would happen. That was my read on it anyway, I’m sure each reader will have their own.

Briggs has never been one to shy away from representation, with one of her main characters being gay, and the issues other male werewolves have with that character discussed in previous books. In this one, it was great to see her feature a transgender character working for Adam, and there was also an inner dialogue about a character possibly being neurodivergent. While the character isn’t neurodivergent, I very rarely see authors have their characters acknowledge the possibility. Instead, it’s comments about being “slow” or “weird”, which is what another character says, and this inner dialogue was used to correct that, which was extremely appreciated!

I enjoyed Winter Lost a lot, and there were many new characters that I hope we see again. I also hope that Briggs includes interludes in each book from now on, as they were very interesting and often hilarious.

Thanks for reading my book review for Smoke Bitten by Patricia Briggs, the twelfth book in the Mercy Thompson series.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of my reviews if you’re looking for some more book recommendations 🙂 You can also now sign up for my newsletter to get an email each month with a list of my new reviews!

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