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I dont want to give it away, but I am suprised that she came back from her experience as well as she did. I was a bit shocked at what happened in this story. I always love to read Mercy Thompson, but this one was a bit too exciting. Dont get me wrong, I did still enjoy the book very much. I was just a bit suprised at the outcome of it.
The plot is also excellent. Briggs is also great at world-building.
I have to admit I've come across Patricia Briggs books several times at the book store but never picked any up due to the length. I never wanted to spend eight dollars on a book I could finish in a day.
This is the first book in the Mercy Thompson series that I've read. The characters in the book are interesting and feel real.
This book is definitely worth it. Characterization is excellent.
After reading this I had to go out and buy the next book. It's complex, it fleshes out more of Mercy Thompson's world, and keeps the reader interest from the first page to the last.
This book was okay. It introduces a lot of detail about the fae world & I just didn't find that very interesting. A great deal of time is spent describing scenery, which is prevelant in the other books as well, but here it was distracting - it seemed like just as much time was spent describing livingroom decor as there was on developing the action. The Adam-Samuel issue was resolved here, and it felt artificial to me - not Mercy's choice, but how she got there.There were some moments that were very exciting and tragic, and the author handles most of it well, but overall, I think this one could have been better, but it's a must-read if you're following the series.
Everything seems so brilliantly paced, and everything is necessary.Now, one thing that almost knocked this particular book back to a 4 for me was a couple of Scooby Doo scenes. When friend and former boss, self-proclaimed gremlin, Zee, is later arrested, Mercy's search for the killer becomes more frantic -- and dangerous. This doesn't mean the books are bland and description less; rather, there is a base to work off of in the readers' mind so that they can supply all of the extraneous details. Hamilton and rolled my eyes or said "get to the point already." A 300-400 page book is often padded our to 600-700 pages. The result is that the books fly by and leave you engaged the whole time, and leave you hungry for the next. She doesn't pad her books and draw every scene out, milking ever last drop. Briggs seems to intuitively understand restraint.
As a writer, it's tempting to make the reader see exactly what you want them to by writing every little detail. Briggs understands that sometimes, things are better left to each individual's imagination, and so she uses a light hand during crucial situations. In Iron Kissed, Mercy is recruited by her fae friends to help sniff out (literally) a killer on the fae reservation. I know that scenework can be pretty, and you may love how someone describes something in such detail, but when they constantly do that, it gets old. I can tell you how many times I've read Anne Rice or Laurell K. Briggs doesn't do this. I ended up being sort of impressed by something that normally drives me insane. But the reason that this didn't end up knocking the story back to a 4 was that in both cases where Briggs does this, there was a reason that actually made it work and made sense in the context of the story, as well as expanding the readers` understanding of the characters in a way that worked, when anything else would have shown less and seemed clumsy.
In other (werewolf) news, Mercy comes to a resolution about Samuel and Adam, but will she live to see it through.This book crystallized in my mind for me some of the reasons that I love this series so much. It drives me nuts when a villain spills their guts to the good guy, thereby tying up all the loose strings that had you wondering; b) I hate it when one character in conversation to another summarizes the whole book, essentially recapping, and thereby tying up loose strings. This is effective for two reasons: 1), the reader inherently makes the story better for his/herself when applying imagination and preference -- this is why the book is always better than the movie. 2) all of the excess scenework that you have to wade through as a reader isn't there. These things seem lazy to me, generally. (More on this, but it gets spoilery, so it will be on the blog, here:[.].)
This is the last Patricia Briggs book I will read. Hamilton, Patricia, but still, you totally cop out on anything remotely sexual in these first three books. She has potential, but apparently must be worried that her kids will read her books, so she doesn't bother to write for adults. You don't have to write like Laurell K. Good for you. I hope your children enjoy reading your books, because I don't.
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