Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Moon CalledA Month of Romance Audio Favorites Selection

Narrated by Lorelei King

My daughter introduced me to the wonderful world of Patricia Briggs when she published a fantasy series on a world called Sianem. I was captivated and disappointed that she was, at the time, a tough author to find. And then she started the world of Mercy Thompson, a coyote in a werewolf’s world, and she (and millions of her readers) never looked back. When I began to look over some old classics that form my “comfort reads” (those books you go back to, time and again, when you crave some reassurance in a world gone mad), Mercy Thompson and Moon Called popped right up.

Moon Called is the first in the Mercy Thompson series. It is a contemporary setting, with dashes of fascinating fantasy characters, and always includes a lot of action, suspense, and a thread of passion. Unlike some of the fantasy novelists, Briggs makes her characters human enough to be relatable, and inhuman enough to be interesting. It is this genre and gender-defying storytelling that has drawn so many readers across so many nations to join the following of her series.

Mercy Thompson, as far as she knows, is the only one of her kind – a coyote shifter. After shifting into a coyote cub in her crib, her mother lost no time in finding her a foster home with the closest thing to her type of supernatural, the werewolf pack in Montana, home to the head of the North American alpha. Always feeling like the outsider and stepchild of the pack, Mercy was asked to leave when she fell in love with the alpha’s son, Samuel Cornick. Coyotes, the adaptive tricksters of Native American mythology, were known to be survivors and land on their feet, and Mercy shows her stubborn unconventional nature by setting up a business as a European car mechanic in a small town and settled, not-so-accidentally-enough, next door to the local pack alpha, Adam Hauptman. One of the best characteristics of Briggs’ writing is her ability to define her characters through their internal dialogue.

“I turned into my drive with a crunch of gravel and stopped the old diesel Rabbit in front of my home. I noticed the cat- carrier sitting on my porch as soon as I got out of the car.

My cat, Medea, gave me a plaintive yowl, but I picked up the note taped to the top of the carrier and read it before I let her out.

Ms Thompson, it said in heavy block letters, Please keep your feline off my property. If I see it again, I will eat it.

The note was unsigned.

I undid the latch and lifted the cat up and rubbed my face in her rabbit-like fur.

“Did the mean-old werewolf stick the poor kitty in the box and leave her?” I asked.

She smelled like my neighbor, which told me that Adam had spent some time with her on his lap before he brought her over here. Most cats don’t like werewolves — or walkers like me either. Medea likes everyone, poor old cat, even my grumpy neighbor. Which is why she often ended up in the cat carrier on my porch.

Adam Hauptman, my neighbor, was the alpha of the local werewolf pack…

He didn’t like having my old single-wide bringing down the value of his sprawling adobe edifice — though, as I sometimes pointed out to him, my trailer was already here when he bought his property and built on it. He also took every opportunity to remind me I was only here on his sufferance: a walker being no real match for a werewolf.

In response to these complaints, I bowed my head, spoke respectfully to his face — usually — and pulled the dilapidated old Rabbit I kept for parts out into my back field where it was clearly visible from Adam’s bedroom window.

I was almost certain he wouldn’t eat my cat, but I’d leave her inside for the next week or so to give the impression I was cowed by his threat. The trick with werewolves is never to confront them straight on.”

Despite her promise to her foster family to stay out of trouble, Mercy’s dual nature of meddling and helping shows itself when she rescues a rogue werewolf. She suddenly finds herself in the middle of fae-werewolf-vampire intrigue that requires her to ask for help from the sexy next-door-neighbor, Adam and the wolf-that-got-away, Samuel. When Adam’s human daughter gets kidnapped and he is almost mortally wounded, all hell breaks loose and Mercy is the only one agile enough (and the only one that has built bridges of trust across all the different species) to navigate the intrigue.

I love reading (or listening to) Patricia Briggs; she has just enough characters, sub-plots, and details to keep the plot interesting, and never makes me stop and concentrate on the rules and strictures of her fantasy world. She has built a powerful fan following, and it is no accident. This is not a formulaic “alpha-meets-lifemate-and-has-puppies” book or series; the plot develops initially as a mystery and kidnapping, and lets any romantic interests develop over time. This enables us to feel all of the uncertainty along with the characters, so just as a good mystery keeps you guessing on “whodunit”, this story keeps you guessing as to where Mercy will place her heart. In the meantime, there are plenty of noteworthy events (kidnapping, murder, vampire bites, werewolf pack lore, fae magic) going on to capture a listener’s interest.

Lorelei King is a very popular narrator and is very talented at her pacing and natural flow. She did a great job with the different voices, and her male voices were natural and unforced. She is not generally on my list of absolute favorite narrators because I keep thinking she sounds slightly smug, and I once thought her vampire voice initially sounded like Count Chocula. Once I got used to her pacing and the tone, I was lost in the story and really enjoyed the narration. I have listened to a different reader (Holter Graham) read another Briggs’ series, before I listened to Lorelei King, and I actually slightly prefer his delivery of Briggs’ work. However a female narrator matches the primary protagonist and first person setting for Moon Called, and Mercy does have a natural self-confidence that this narrator has down cold.

Victoria


Narration:  B+

Book Content:  A

Steam Factor:  Glad I had my earbuds in (you will keep the earbuds in the for violence, not the steam)

Violence:  Escalated fighting (although I don’t remember anything too graphic)

Genre:  Urban Fantasy

Publisher:  Penguin Audio

4 thoughts on “Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

  1. Yes, I think Lorelei King does best in the “spunky and slightly irreverent” heroines!

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