With a Touch of Mercy

So, this is not the post that I had planned to write for today.  However, I was hit by a very nasty stomach virus that has had be sleeping for the last few days, and probably for a few more.  Pair that with sever dehydration... It has not been fun.  At all.  So I didn't finish the reread of the book that was supposed to be for today's post!  I'm bummed, but I'll be able to bring it out in the future, nice and polished, rather than hastily written.

Today, instead of traveling to Siena, Italy, we're going to head west to the  Tri-Cities of Washington.  The Tri-Cities--Kenniwick, Richland and Pasco--is the setting for Patricia Brigg's Mercy Thomspon books.  (There's also a great spin off series in the same universe that I'll be talking about in early march)  Mercedes Athena Thompson is what she calls a walker.  She's half Native American, with the unique ability of turning into a coyote.  Cool right?  Double coolness comes when you dive into Mercy's world and discover the fae, werewolves and vampires as well. 



The first book in the series is Moon Called.  It introduces us to many of the characters who are going to be so important to the whole series.  First off is Mercy, who in addition to being a walker is a full time Volkswagen mechanic.  She's brave, funny, and sarcastic.  She's strong too.  She can stand up and fight her battles, but she also knows when to let someone be angry and then just talk to them about it later.  Or get back at them later.  Her next door neighbor is Adam Hauptman, the local werewolf Alpha and owner of a security business.  He's got a teenage daughter, Jesse, who is a main character as well.  Jesse is one of those bright confident young women that you really hope your children are going to be.  When Adam is injured and Jesse kidnapped, Mercy does what she thinks is best and takes Adam to the Marrok, the Alpha of Alphas, so he can heal.  Bran Cornick, the Marrok, is a young looking, brilliant man and he also took part in Mercy's upbringing.  Although he wasn't her foster father directly, she really sees him as a father, and he sees her as a daughter, something he says in later books.  The oldest of Bran's sons in Samuel, and he and Mercy have a past.  Samuel is a talented doctor who patches Adam up so he can heal, but he's also a very dominant wolf who can help him keep control.  Samuel, Adam, and Mercy head back to the Tri-Cities to find Jesse and figure out what is going on.  With that mission over, Samuel decides to stick around in the Tri-Cities to pester Mercy for a bit. 

The second book, Blood Bound, gives us more information on the vampires, as Mercy's vampire friend Stefan calls in a debt.  What should be a harmless mission turns into the hunt for a murdering vampiric sorcerer.  This is interesting because while some of the vampires really set me on edge (Wulfe.  He's so creepy, yet I want to know his story), Stefan is a good guy.  He doesn't always believe it, going forward, but he genuinely does what he thinks is right and good.  To eventually deal with the sorcerer, Mercy is lent a few artifacts by her mentor, a metal working fae named Zee, and Uncle Mike, a strong fae who runs a bar I'd kinda like to go to.  She uses them on two monsters, which means that she owes a debt to the fae.

Zee calls that debt in at the beginning of Iron Kissed, when he is searching for a murderer on the fae reservation.  When she ferrets out the killer, Zee and Uncle Mike head out to talk to him, but find him murdered.  Zee is arrested by the police for the murder, but Mercy is having none of that.  She gets herself in to even more trouble by insisting that he is innocent and making the police look for another suspect.  As Nemane, one of the important secondary characters in this book says, part of Coyote's gift is chaos and stirring things up.  Mercy seems particularly good at it.

There are several other books in this series, and each one is individual.  For the most part, I see an overwhelming thread of "what does it mean to be human?" and "If you are not genetically human, can you still have humanity?", with that second question being much more theoretical.  A great example is Stefan.  He's a vampire, but he acts with humanity.  He keeps his menagerie (the people he feeds from) happy and healthy, but he still feeds from them.  It's a necessity for him.  Is it inhumane? 

Even if you're not looking for a deeper meaning, which I will admit, I haven't been as I've been rereading the series while sick this week, they're fun.  The books themselves are average length for adult books, but to me, they read very quickly.   In most cases, the next book picks up right where the one before lets off, or with a believable and explained time jump, which I appreciate.  It annoys me to  no end when a book is over, you pick up the next one, and for no apparent reason, its a year and a half later.  UGH.  Anyway.   I'm going to sign off now, get some more sleep, and I'll see you guys next week!