Patricia Briggs, Moon Called

Moon Called

Patricia Briggs

Ace, Feb 2006, $7.99, 304 pp.

ISBN: 0441013813

In the Tri-Cities of Washington State, Mercy Thompson works in her garage on a vampire's car, with her payment being no monetary fee for protection money as normally demanded by the bloodsuckers. Besides being a mechanic, Mercy has her own supernatural skills as one of the few souls who is a skinwalker, able to take the shape of a coyote. Her harmonious day ends when fifteen year old Mac, a homeless werewolf, asks for a job. She hires him.

Mercy introduces Mac to her neighbor Adam Hauptman, also a werewolf who is the alpha leader of his pack. Mac also meets several of the other top shape-shifters. Not long afterward, Mercy finds Mac's corpse on her doorsteps. She visits Adam, who is drugged and his daughter kidnapped. The alpha of all the packs the Marrok's son Samuel, a mercenary werewolf, a vampire, and Adam's pack accompany Mercy as they search for the teen. However Adams is abducted next with, his friends realizing some might die in an attempt to rescue him and his daughter.

Fans of Laurel K. Hamilton and Tanya Huff are absolutely going to love MOON CALLED. The delightful heroine is not exactly ruled by raging hormones or her animal instincts, as she makes human impetuous decisions to help those she cares about, even if her actions place her in danger as often happens. The storyline is loaded with plenty of action, but Mercy makes the plot hum as she enables the audience to feel that Patricia Brigg's fine tale is plausible, vampires, werewolves, and fae. Oh my.