REVIEW: ‘Bone Crossed’ by Patricia Briggs

Bone Crossed (2009) by Patri­cia Briggs is the fourth book in the Mercy Thomp­son series. Were­wolves, fae, vam­pires and other hid­den crea­tures live among humans or so says Mercy, the nar­ra­tor of this series. By the way, I’ll try not to spoil it for you if you haven’t started this series yet.

Mercy is a shape shifter or a “walker” who can change from human to coy­ote at will. Com­par­a­tively, her phys­i­cal strength is the low­est amongst her super­nat­ural friends but she has cer­tain abil­i­ties ascribed to her like agile speed and the abil­ity to see and con­trol ghosts. She also has a keen sense of smell that helps her detect stealthy preda­tors look­ing to do her harm.

Aside from being a shape shifter, Mercy is a VW mechanic liv­ing in the Tri-Cities. She was adopted and raised in a were­wolf pack before strik­ing off on her own. There are two men in her life. Her neigh­bor, the Alpha of the Colum­bia Basin Pack, Adam Haupt­man and her room­mate Samuel Cor­nick, a physi­cian, a lone-wolf and an ex-flame. After three books, Mercy has finally picked her guy, entrenched her­self deeply into the super­nat­ural com­mu­nity and has gained her­self some pow­er­ful enemies.

In “Bone Crossed,” Mercy’s past actions has come back to haunt her. The vam­pires, who remain hid­den from pub­lic view, have labeled her a trai­tor and are after her. This action stems from an inci­dent that hap­pened two months ago that Mercy knew would come back and get her killed. So now, her shop sports the art­work of two bones crossed on her garage door, pub­licly mark­ing her as an enemy of the seethe. Clearly out­matched, Mercy turns to her friends who have no prob­lem with pro­vid­ing her with protection.

The vam­pire seethe in the Tri-Cities are a secre­tive soci­ety who go to great lengths to keep it that way. Humans have come to accept that were­wolves and faeries exist but vam­pires still enjoy rel­a­tive anonymity. Mar­silia, the vam­pire who runs the seethe, finds her­self the tar­get of a power strug­gle and uses her wits to flush out her betray­ers. Unfor­tu­nately, Ste­fan, the vam­pire who pro­tected an “out­sider” had to endure the brunt of her wrath which resulted in his being sev­ered from the seethe.

With the wolves and vam­pires declar­ing war on each other, Mercy thinks it’s best that she dis­ap­pear. She gets pre­sented with a oppor­tu­nity to do so when an old col­lege neme­sis vis­its and tells her she has a pol­ter­geist in her home. It is later decided between Mercy, Samuel and Adam, that Mercy should go to Spokane and help her friend with her ghost trou­ble. But, before she leaves, she learns that a pow­er­ful vam­pire lives in Spokane. Think­ing that she can help her friend and stay under the vampire’s radar, she finds her­self unsuc­cess­ful (on escap­ing his notice.)

The author does a good job of inter­weav­ing the two story arcs together. The atmos­phere was scary where it was sup­posed to be and humor was added to lighten things up a bit. The writ­ing is solid and you can tell the author took great care in merg­ing the world of mon­sters and humans together to make it feel real. The sus­pense through­out the story was engag­ing as was the ten­sion and build-up towards the climax.

The events in pre­vi­ous books, namely, Iron Kissed, gets addressed. Mercy’s last run in with dark magic left her bruised and bat­tered up good. Her heal­ing process never felt forced or con­trived in here con­sid­er­ing the after­math of what she went through in the last book. I know some read­ers were put off by how Iron Kissed ended but the author needed to show that bad things can and do hap­pen in this world. That the mon­sters in here are the real deal and that even Mercy is mor­tal and vulnerable.

Besides this inter­est­ing world full of mon­sters, the romance in here is an added bonus. I liked Mercy’s choice and feel that the two of them have the poten­tial to be a great cou­ple. Their scenes together were inti­mate and nice and their bond is strong. Noth­ing really explicit in here, just sexy, heated flirt­ing and kisses which was enough for me. There’s the brood­ful Samuel of course. I feel for him but as long as he’s with Mercy, he should be ok. And Ste­fan. We learn he’s a sol­dier and that his heart is tied up elsewhere.

If you haven’t started this series, why not? Yes, the mar­ket is sat­u­rated with sto­ries that con­tains every vari­a­tion on the theme of were­wolf and vam­pires. But you know what makes this series stand out from the rest? The writ­ing. Patri­cia Briggs knows her world and she knows her char­ac­ters. There’s a dif­fer­ence when you’re writ­ing what’s pop­u­lar vs. writ­ing from the heart. Briggs has the win­ning for­mula on what makes her sto­ries stick out from the offal that’s out there. My grade, A.

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BONE CROSSED con­test win­ner is JANICU, #4 from the bot­tom since the com­ments refresh new from the top. I want to thank you all for enter­ing. I feel that Ms. Briggs book is worth the hard­cover price but I real­ize that not every­body can afford hard­cover prices. I bought my ebook copy and will be giv­ing away a lot of the gen­tly read ARCs that get sent my way. Jan­icu, your book will get sent your way as soon as I know where to send it at avid book reader [at] gmail [dot] com.

For Fur­ther Reading

• REVIEW: ‘Blood Bound (A Mercy Thomp­son Series)’ by Patri­cia Briggs
• REVIEW: Moon Called by Patri­cia Briggs
• 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: ‘Liv­ing Dead in Dal­las’ by Char­laine Harris
• REVIEW: ‘Iron Kissed (A Mercy Thomp­son Series)’ by Patri­cia Briggs
• REVIEW: Eclipse by Stephe­nie Meyer
• REVIEW: ‘New Moon’ by Stephe­nie Meyer
• Christa Faust, “Money Shot”