Book Review: Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

Review: Moon Called

Author: Patricia Briggs

Series: Mercy Thompson – Book 1

No. Of Pages: 288

Release Date: 1^st February 2006

Werewolves can be dangerous if you get in their way, but they’ll leave you alone if you are careful. They are very good at hiding their natures from the human population, but I am not human. I know them when I meet them, and they know me, too.

Mercy Thompson’s sexy next door neighbour is a werewolf.

She’s tinkering with a VW bus at her mechanic shop that happens to belong to a vampire.

But then, Mercy Thompson is not exactly normal herself...and her connection to the world of things that go bump in the night is about to get her into a whole lot of trouble.

My Thoughts:

This book does not live up to the hype, or the synopsis.

I was pumped to read Moon Called, I’d heard such good things about it, I love the cover, and everything about the book screams “awesome!” And yet, it’s not.

Mercy barely understands what she is, and the “whole lot of trouble” she apparently is supposed to get into she brings entirely on herself by running into the thick of it and being a stubborn mule.

I like what little we get to see of Adam – love interest #1 – although it isn’t much. He’s arrogant and pig headed, but in a good way.

Samuel – love interest #2 – on the other hand is annoying. He doesn’t love Mercy, but doesn’t want to let go either, which I don’t like, especially how it was written, because she is told that he doesn’t love her, but he feels a connection to her.

I had the gist of most of what was going on, I think, but the writing was sporadic and disjointed. The words didn’t flow together for me and I had to go back and re-read quite a lot before I understood what was going on, and that was only after I referred to my internal knowledge, not what the book offered.

The explaining of being a Shape-Shifter for example, we all know what that is. But in this novel it looks like the definition was half ripped out of a Native American encyclopaedia, and the other half was left in. The explanation just cuts off, and she jumps into something else.

Things jumped around a lot with no forewarning which is sad because this story holds an okay plot, from what I gathered. A lot of the secondary characters weren’t explained at all, the VW vampire for example, jumps in jumps out about three times in the whole novel, and we don’t really get a glimpse into who he is.

Tony, the way he was explained is still confusing me, I still don’t have a clue what he is or how he ties in, other than the fact that he’s a cop posing as a school teacher - which I don’t get either - who can seemingly look 40 years old one day and 20 the next, which for a human is impossible in my books, and in this.

A lot of what wasn’t explained, like Tony, was vague like it was just a little bit of page filler. There was a lot of padding out in this I thought, and the amount of times that we had to hear she was raised by werewolves, far out we got it the first five times.

Another repetition was the “werewolves are dangerous”, once again, we got it the first hundred times and the times where there was confrontation, but it had to keep being mentioned for no reason at all.

I liked parts of this book, I really did, and I want to continue with the series, I just might sweat blood with the effort if the other books are written like the first one was. I will read the others in the series because 1: I’ve already bought them and 2: there is that yearning to know what is going to happen.

That yearning is what drove me to finish the book as quickly as I did, I wanted to know how it ended, I wanted to know if there was going to be a tiny sliver of romance like the book promised – there wasn’t really, until the last three pages. That yearning has also kept Mercy and Friends on my mind, and it’s really annoying, but it means that deep down I want to finish what I started.

Others in this series:
Blood Bound
Iron Kissed
Bone Crossed
Silver Borne
River Marked

Others who reviewed this:
A Trillion Books
Sarah's Book Reviews