FIRE TOUCHED by the redoubtable Patricia Briggs is book
9 in the Mercy Thompson series and book 13 in the
Mercy Thompson world. Briggs is one of my top all-time
favorite paranormal authors, sharing that throne of glory
with authorial heavyweights Anne Bishop and Ilona Andrews.
Her writing is crisp and compelling, and I love her
turns of phrase. The world building is incredibly lush and
subsuming. Mercy Thompson stories feature
werewolves, vampires, witches, and fae jockeying for
advantages over the humans they coexist with, which makes
for all kinds of entertaining political shenanigans and
magic as the different factions compete to control the
others.
Mercy is a Volkswagen mechanic with a
keen ability to sense magic and is a walker who can change
into a coyote form. I am so invested in Mercy and her
Alpha
werewolf mate Adam. In FIRE TOUCHED, Mercy and Adam,
together with
their pack, must face off against the Fae to keep a
previously human boy safe.
Tensions between the fae and humans are starting to
peak. The humans have tried to banish the fae to
reservations to keep them corralled, and the fae have
retreated to plot their domination behind the closed
walls. Mercy and Adam are called on by the humans to stop
a rampaging troll who is running amuck on a large
suspension bridge outside the Tri-Cities. Mercy's fae
friends show up at the bridge, bringing along a centuries-
old being who looks like the 10 year old child he used to
be before being kidnapped by the fae and held in fairyland.
The fae friends ask Mercy and Adam if they can keep
the "child" Aiden safe from the evil fae leaders, the Grey
Lords. Can Aiden be the key to outmaneuvering the fae
factions and preventing an interspecies war?
Briggs' deft hand keeps the tension high but well-
spaced, which gradually heightened the clenching in my gut
while reading. I could not stand to stop reading (not
even to eat dinner) until I finally finished the book. The
bad guys are so creepily dangerous that it makes my skin
crawl deliciously. I especially enjoy Mercy's character,
in this book and always. She has issues of abandonment due
to problems while raised in a different werewolf pack, and
Adam's pack has not completely accepted her yet. This, in
addition to her stubbornness, sometimes makes her choose
the less smart action when she's confronted with
difficulties. It makes her a very sympathetic character.
I root for her so hard in every book as she uses her
scrappiness to keep up, since she is a small woman and a
tiny
coyote, with the huge werewolves and other big monsters
around her.
FIRE TOUCHED joins the other Patricia Briggs books on
my 'keeper' shelf as a fantastic urban fantasy adventure.
Briggs keeps coyote walker Mercy and werewolf Alpha mate
Adam fresh and exciting as the supernatural war that is
swirling around them comes closer to its seemingly
inevitable boiling point. FIRE TOUCHED made me pull
out and reread all the previous books in the series as soon
as I finished this new release, just so I could stay
immersed in Mercy Thompson's world a little longer. It's
undoubtedly a wonderful world to lose oneself in as a
reader.
Tensions between the fae and humans are coming to a head.
And when coyote shapeshifter Mercy and her Alpha werewolf
mate, Adam, are called upon to stop a rampaging troll, they
find themselves with something that could be used to make
the fae back down and forestall out-and-out war: a human
child stolen long ago by the fae.
Defying the most powerful werewolf in the country, the
humans, and the fae, Mercy, Adam, and their pack choose to
protect the boy no matter what the cost. But who will
protect them from a boy who is fire touched?
© 2003-2025 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy