Review: Night Broken

NIGHT BROKEN
Mercy Thompson #8
Patricia Briggs
Adult Urban Fantasy
352 pages
Ace
Available March 11th
Source: Finished copy from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
An unexpected phone call heralds a new challenge for Mercy. Her mate Adam’s ex-wife is in trouble, on the run from her new boyfriend. Adam isn’t the kind of man to turn away a person in need—and Mercy knows it. But with Christy holed up in Adam’s house, Mercy can’t shake the feeling that something about the situation isn’t right.

Soon, her suspicions are confirmed when she learns that Christy has the farthest thing from good intentions. She wants Adam back and she’s willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen, including turning Adam’s pack against Mercy.

Mercy isn’t about to step down without a fight, but there’s a more dangerous threat circling. Christy’s ex is more than a bad man—in fact, he may not be human at all. As the bodies start piling up, Mercy must put her personal troubles aside to face a creature with the power to tear her whole world apart.

MY THOUGHTS
The Mercy Thompson series is one of those series where returning to it is not a desperate, driving need, but yet once we’re there it settles around our shoulders with all the comfort of a warm blanket on a cold winter day. There’s a beautiful familiarity waiting for us from the moment we crack the spine, beloved characters ready to land themselves in various types of troubles for our amusement, and we can do nothing but smile when we settle down to read. Even installments that might have a particularly bothersome flaw don’t ruffle our feathers all that much or take away from our overall enjoyment because the strength of our tie to the series as a whole is simply too strong.

One of those aforementioned flaws is present and accounted for in Night Broken in the form of Adam’s ex-wife Christy, her manipulative and petty presence like nails on a chalkboard for the effect she has on Adam and the rest of the pack. Christy has an uncanny ability to render both Adam and majority of the pack completely docile, unwilling to say or do anything that might hurt her or cause her fake tears to flow, and while it’s easy to simply greatly dislike Christy and move on, it’s more difficult to do so with Adam's behavior toward her. Mercy is not the type of woman who needs a man to protect or defend her in any way, but there’s a point when Adam's lack of outspoken support for her becomes not simply a matter of keeping the peace within the pack, but rather shows a distinct lack of respect for his wife and mate. He expects Mercy to swallow behavior from Christy he himself would never dream of enduring were their roles reversed, so for the first part of this story Adam unfortunately loses a few of the points he's earned with us over the course of this series.

Where Adam loses points though, Mercy earns them with the way she handles herself, never fully backing down from Christy’s deliberate provocations but never rising to them either, instead she gives an inch or two before taking them back once again. We might wish for her to wrestle those inches back in more dramatic fashion as our anger on her behalf is quite impressive, but nothing knocks Mercy from the beautiful high road she’s so set on walking. Luckily for us though, about halfway through the focus shifts from Christy’s presence to the more pressing mystery surrounding her stalker, and we quickly leave all our frustrations behind in favor of diving headfirst into the adventure Ms. Briggs never fails to grant us with each Mercy Thompson novel.

Overall, even with Christy and her childish game playing this story is still delightfully entertaining, Mercy’s life as hectic and as dangerous as ever when she finds herself of interest to numerous very powerful entities. Adam does charm his way into earning our forgiveness by the end, so we're left with one of our favorite couples strong, in love, and back on track in our eyes by the time we reach the last page. We can only wonder what near-death experience awaits Mercy next, and I for one am greatly looking forward to watching her escape its cold, clammy fingers all over again.

Rating: 4/5
 

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This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.