REVIEW: ‘Blood Bound (A Mercy Thompson Series)’ by Patricia Briggs

Blood Bound (2007) by Patri­cia Briggs is an urban fan­tasy novel and the sec­ond book in the Mercy Thomp­son series.

Just in case you haven’t read the first book, Moon Called, here is a brief syn­op­sis for you: Mercy Thomp­son is a mechanic who is not human. She’s a coy­ote or  “walker”  who changes at will; coyotes are an ancient enemy to the vam­pires because their vam­piric tricks seem to fail on them. 

Mercy grew up in a were­wolf pack before strik­ing off on her own to the Tri-Cities.  The sto­ries thus far have been nar­rated by Mercy her­self. Mercy is a inter­est­ing char­ac­ter. She’s col­lege edu­cated and runs her own mechanic shop. She is also a pos­si­ble love inter­est to a cou­ple of sexy were­wolves, too. One is a for­mer love and the other is her next door neighbor.

In Blood Bound, Mercy and the gang find them­selves faced with evil. It seems that the vampire’s have some nasty demon-ridden vam­pire that is caus­ing havoc on the city and to their own vam­pire com­mu­nity. This is a dan­ger­ous time for the seethe to have a uncon­trol­lable vam­pire sor­cerer caus­ing vio­lence and bring­ing unwanted atten­tion to their world. Espe­cially since the “vam­pires” are not pub­licly known to humans yet.

Unlike the were­wolves and the fae, who were outed to the world at large by force or neces­sity, the vam­pires want to remain hid­den. In Briggs world of mon­sters and ghosts, there may be even more inter­est­ing crea­tures out there we’ve yet to see who choose to remain dor­mant or hid­den from humankind. The mys­tery of ‘what else is out there’ makes this series even more of an excit­ing adven­ture to read.

The blend­ing of fan­tasy and real­ity is done really well. You can tell that the author takes spe­cial care to build a world that is com­pletely famil­iar yet dif­fer­ent. There were some scary moments in this book. I must applaud the author for giv­ing this reader a few chills and thrills for my buck. There were some ten­der moments, too, that’s more or less apart of the roman­tic thread of the story. 

It’s almost a shame to read a book in a day after wait­ing for it to arrive after a year. I really enjoyed read­ing Blood Bound. Briggs is a solid writer who knows her craft well. She writes a solid fan­tasy with a solid grasp of her world. Excel­lent char­ac­ter­i­za­tion but I am fear­ful of this “tri­an­gle” that she is hint­ing at when the novel closes.

Also, I must agree with one of the review­ers at Ama​zon​.com that men­tions Mercy con­stantly sav­ing the day. I found it ironic myself that Mercy being the least pow­er­ful of all the super­nat­ural crea­tures is the only one who could destroy the demon.  Of course when trou­ble comes call­ing, the fae and the were­wolves are there to help her out of trouble. To con­clude this review, I must say that this story moves at a pretty good pace and I enjoyed read­ing this story very much. Despite a few minor quib­bles, I’d grade this entry an A read. Good job Ms. Briggs.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Patri­cia Briggs, Blood Bound Review, Vam­pires, Werewolves

For Fur­ther Reading

• REVIEW: ‘Iron Kissed (A Mercy Thomp­son Series)’ by Patri­cia Briggs
• REVIEW: Moon Called by Patri­cia Briggs
• REVIEW: ‘Liv­ing Dead in Dal­las’ by Char­laine Harris
• My TBB List or Nov­els Worth Mentioning
• Win a Copy of Bone Crossed by Patri­cia Briggs
• Neil Gaiman’s ‘Grave­yard’ Tells The Story of a Boy Raised By the Dead
• REVIEW: ‘Club Dead’ by Char­laine Harris
• REVIEW: On the Prowl by Briggs, Wilks, Chance, Sunny
• TBR Day: Danc­ing With Were­wolves by Car­ole Nel­son Douglas
• REVIEW: Dead Until Dark by Char­laine Harris