Bone Crossed (Mercy Thompson book 4) by Patricia Briggs (book review).
‘Bone Crossed’ is book four in the ‘Mercy Thompson’ series of books by Patricia Briggs. Given that I’m reviewing a book that’s pretty far into a series, I would suggest that there are going to be spoilers for those people who haven’t read the previous three novels.
This book starts in the exact place the previous one left off. In fact it even started with the exact same wording for a few paragraphs so there is no lost time between these two books. This time, Mercy is in trouble (as always) because Marsilia, the queen of the local vampire group or seethe as they’re called in this series, has discovered that Mercy killed not one but two of her vampires during a previous adventure. This means Marsilia is after Mercy’s blood…literally and she will kill anyone in her way including one of her own council. I’ll leave you to figure this out, we don’t want too many spoilers.
I really enjoyed the way that Briggs allowed Mercy to recover from her mental and physical injuries following her run in with Tim. Briggs didn’t make her into a complete basket-case, nor did she force her recovery too quickly, she just accepted that Mercy was going to be a bit broken for a while, just as a normal person would. This was also reflected in the way that Adam reacted to Mercy and her mental scars, he gradually helped her to realise it’s OK to have panic attacks and that he didn’t want to make anything worse by moving too fast or too slow with her. In other words, Adam became even more perfect as Mercy’s new mate than he was before her big decision and I personally think she made the right choice. I’m also really glad that this love triangle part of the books is now over and wasn’t dragged out for too long as has happened in other series. There are residual elements to do with how everyone now gets along with each other but this I found to be interesting rather than annoying.
Even though there are a lot of deep and meaningful moments in this book and more than a few scary sections, there is also Brigg’s trademark sarcastic humour coming through Mercy to break it all up a bit. There is another gut-churning vampire trial complete with stabbing chair, not something I enjoy reading about to be honest. Mercy also has to deal with a ghostly infestation which is something I found interesting if a little scary to read.
Although this was a good book, I think I enjoyed the previous one, ‘Iron Kissed’, a little bit more. Possibly because there was a lot more Fae action, whereas in this book they only get a very small look in. I really hope that Briggs’ goes back to the Fae again as they really are my favourite set of characters.
Overall, this series is getting better and better, there hasn’t been a particularly weak book so far and I can’t wait to read more about Mercy Thompson and what sort of trouble she manages to get into in the next books in the series.
Sarah Bruch
October 2014
follow me @shelbycat
(pub: Orbit. 292 page paperback. Price: £ 7.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-84149-686-3)
check out websites: www.orbitbooks.net and www.patriciabriggs.net
