Authors - Patrica Briggs

I admit it I do judge some books by their covers. Moon Called the first in the Mercy Thompson series was just that way for me. I was at Barnes & Noble's searching through the sci-fi / fantasy section for my then favorite female author Octavia Butler (more about her another day), and came upon a beautiful cover of a strong female with tattoos and edginess. Some readers of this series write to the Briggs family claiming that the covers do not correctly portray the character. While that may exactly be true I relish the embodiment of Mercy that cover artist, Daniel Dos Santos, has brought to the books.

Mercy is a shape shifting (coyote) auto mechanic who falls in love with the local pack leader and befriends vampires and the fae. She is tough, smart, and lovable. The local pack leader is over protective, dangerous, and handsome. "Why the Alpha werewolf had chosen to buy land right next to me, I suspect, had as much to do with the werewolf's urge to dominate those they see as lesser beings, as it did the superb river front view he had out his front window." (Moon Called) The weirdest maybe even lamest part about the story line is that everyone seems to love Mercy. Even if they're mad at her they end up on her side. Read a chapter from Moon Called.

Alpha and Omega is spin-off series from the Mercy books. They are written with the same edginess and passion. The focus of this series is directed at wolves as shape shifters with other life or non-life forms thrown in to enhance the story. The main female character is Anna a werewolf. Briggs portrays the strength of Anna's wolf as an Omega, one that can calm other wolves, through her rescue and her ability to bonce back and become a loving mate. Oftten times it is hard to remember which book is which and the stories blend together which may tend to be the problem with this type of serial fiction.

Briggs' other books, the more stand alone ones, are okay. But they are slow reads. It feels like she (Briggs) wishes that her first books would have done better and that she pushes them out to market to try to make this true. It's not. Her urban fantasy is the best. I'm gonna call her older books nature fantasy. Her nature fantasy characters are not edgy, quite often they are wimpy.

Another one of those authors that surprise you. She writes in the genre of today that his become a big hit, vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, urban fantasy. Anticipating her books yearly, I reread them right before a new one comes out because of course they are on my bookshelf.