Fire Touched

Don't know if my binge reading got the best of me or if this one didn't grab me as much or as quickly as the others did.

In this installment we meet Aidan, a 10 yr old boy, who was captured and given to Underhill (not exactly sure who or what she is but sounds like she's a powerful handful for the fae to deal with). Now Aidan spent years.....and I do mean centuries (?) with her and was somehow transformed from a human boy to a human boy with the element of fire magic.

Joel, the large lava/volcano dog we met in #8, is back and trying to get a hold of him shifting and what it means to be a part of the pack.

The wolves didn't play a huge part in this story as they had in the past. We do have different sects of fae trying to overthrow the Gray Lords, start war with the humans so they can unleash their full powers and take over the world....yeah, didn't work as well as they hoped it would.

Other than Zee, Tad, Uncle Mike and Beauclaire every seems to be against the stand Mercy made with the pack's backing that they police their territory and protect those who seeks asylum with them. I got lost a little in the political players, who has what power, why certain things aren't a good idea to do around fae and all the double crossing left me a little...well confused.

But I must say I have found a new favorite, Baba Yaga. Oh heck yes I love that witch, fae, Gray Lord whatever the heck she is. She reminds me of a female Coyote. Always talks in riddles. Gives clues (helpful advice) in the form of nonsense. And show up at just he right time. Sad though, we lost Walking Stick....but he gave up his life to save Mercy. Good boy Stick.

Good thing is I have some down time until the next book....don't I? Think I'll go and visit some other authors world for a bit. Might come back and revisit this one see if a second reading clears up some of my fogginess. ( )

Cute installment in this series. ( )

it was alright. WHERE IS MY BOOK ABOUT BRAN. ( )

Please note, there are spoilers ahead for those who have not read books #1-8 of the Mercy Thompson series.

So here's the thing. I really did enjoy this book, but I think personally, I am starting to like the Charles and Anna series more (Alpha and Omega). And I think that's because we get to get both Charles and Anna's points of view. Briggs did something similar to this with Mercy and Adam for Frost Burned (Mercy Thompson #7) and I welcomed it. It was great to see what made Adam ticked. Since we are always in Mercy's heads at times, we only get her point of view on things. And I do love Mercy as a character, but sometimes she can't see the forest for the trees, and her character is at times inconsistent which drives me up the wall (i.e. regarding the werewolf Ben, how she says she likes/admires Thomas the vampire, but then in the next moment is calling him a monster to herself and saying how terrifying he is) so it's nice to be in another character's head.

In book #9 for this series, we have Mercy and Adam for once dealing with a lull in the Tri-Cities. We have Mercy finally recovered from the events that occurred in Night Broken (Mercy Thompson #8) when Mercy essentially died, but was brought back by her father, Coyote. After she and Adam receive a call from their human friend, cop Tony, they and the Pack go to deal with a troll on a bridge that is hell-bent on causing some damage. That one event ends up leading Mercy to proclaim that she and the Pack are proclaiming the lands where the Tri-Cities sit as sanctuary to all who seek it after a boy who is not a boy comes to the Pack to have them keep him safe for 24 hours.

So this action right there leads to the fae coming for Mercy and the Pack.

This book compared to the other ones in this series, was very lean. There didn't seem to be a lot of other things going on (thank goodness) and for once we had everyone focused on the main plot. There were some things still bubbling up here and there in the book, but for once we had a united Pack. I am going to say that makes me happy, because after the last book I was going to be happy if Mercy let the Pack rot for all of the crap she kept putting up with. So readers who were getting sick of that mess should be happy with the outcome in this book.

Told in Mercy's first person point of view, we just have her doing what she can to keep Adam, the rest of the Pack, and the boy who they decided to help safe from the fae (specifically the Gray Lords). To understand how the fae and werewolves got set against one another, I suggest you read, Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega, #4) because events from that book, get mentioned here. I really can't add much to my review about Mercy besides what I already said up front. I do think that switching up perspectives would be better for future books.

We get some additional new characters in this book, and more insight into other characters we have known for a while (Uncle Mike, Zee, Ben, Beauclaire, etc.) so that part was good. I have a feeling we will hear more about the vampires in the next book. Sigh. I really hope not, I am really sick of the books that deal with the vampires, or supernatural godlings as I call them. It was nice for the most part to focus on the werewolves and fae.

We do get a token phone appearance by Wulfie in this one, but we get Mercy and Adam's interaction with the vampire Thomas. I read about him a bit in the Mercy Thompson Shifting Shadows short story collection, and eh. I felt for him, but was bored by his story. So for me, getting more insight into Thomas was not something that I was clamoring for, I just liked how his purpose meshed quite nicely with what Mercy and Adam were doing. That way we didn't have to read about a side-plot involving the vampires dancing all over the place.

The writing is typical Briggs and we don't see any surprises here. I've read every book in the Mercy Thompson series. I do feel like she writes different for the Alpha & Omega books though. It seems to be more brutal since she is dealing with werewolves in that one. We do get more action scenes than we usually get, though they seemed to be written more lyrical without explaining what was really going on in some of them. There didn't seem to be that much dialogue in this one which is weird I know. I was glad to see that we had more of Adam and Mercy being in the same room though. The last book felt like they were barely together at the same time without someone being there. There were pretty funny moments involving the two of them, and it was nice to see them as a happily married couple instead of feeling like they were partners in battle all of the time.

The pace was really fast for one of Briggs books. There didn't seem to be filler in the book, but this book felt like filler to me. You will understand my thought process on that one if you read this book and get to the ending. By that I mean that this book was obviously setting up further plotlines down the road. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Alpha & Omega ended up setting up plotlines for the Mercy Thompson series, so it will be interesting to see how what happens in this book ends up affecting the timeline in the Alpha & Omega series. Based on what I read, for once the books seem to be on the same timeline though Mercy Thompson is now just a few months ahead of the events in Dead Heat.

I can't really discuss the settings here that much. We are either at Adam and Mercy's house or we get to see our merry band of wolves and fae in Underhill. I sometimes wonder if the Pack members ever go out and eat anywhere. We had Mercy and Adam bowling in one of the books. I really loved River Crossed because we got to see Adam and Mercy out of the Tri-Cities and exploring someplace new.

The ending is going to bring more changes to the world of Mercy Thompson and also is going to impact werewolves and fae relations. I guess based on everything that was happening, I was expecting to see more fighting and insanity from the Gray Lords. However, I guess we have to see what the next book will bring and what the repercussions are after the events in this book. ( )

Tensions are rising in the Tri-Cities. The fae have retreated to their hidden reservations but have let very dangerous fae escape. Humans are wondering what they will do next.

Mercy and Adam come to be at odds with the Marrok when they provide a safe haven for a young human boy who has escaped from Underhill and when they declare that the Tri-Cities are under their protection. Aiden spent a long time Underhill and was given some powers to help him cope. But now Underhill is unhappy and wants him back and a variety of fae, all with their own agendas, want to give him back.

Mercy and Adam are unwilling to give this person, who looks like a child, into a situation that he fears. The Grey Lords have different plans. As a matter of fact, many different factions of Grey Lords all seem to have different plans. Adam and Mercy have to deal with the ones who have plans that will bring harm to humans or werewolves.

Mercy gets to spend time with a number of the fae that she knows and likes and a few that she can actually trust.

This story was more about political maneuvering than it was about battles though there were a couple of those too. And Mercy did have a few occasions when she could let her snarky side out.

Fans of the series won't want to miss this one. ( )