River Marked (Mercy Thompson No.6) by Patricia Briggs

Title: River Marked (Mercy Thompson No.6)
Author: Patricia Briggs
Pages: 326
Published: March 1st, 2011
Read: March 1st, 2011

Synopsis: Car mechanic Mercy Thompson has always known there was something different about her, and not just the way she can make a VW engine sit up and beg. Mercy is a shapeshifter, a talent she inherited from her long-gone father. She’s never known any others of her kind. Until now.

An evil is stirring in the depths of the Columbia River—one that her father’s people may know something about. And to have any hope of surviving, Mercy and her mate, the Alpha werewolf Adam, will need their help…(from goodreads.com)

I hope you all haven' t missed me too much *wink wink*. I've been super busy with work and reading that I just hadn't had enough time to update the blog. It's only sad because I miss the interaction with the other bloggers, but in all reality, I have more time for reading and writing when I don't blog as much (even though I do miss it when I'm away).

Anyhow, this brings me to my post which is my review of River Marked *squee*! I've been waiting forever for this book to be released. Okay, well, maybe not forever, but it seemed way too long which isn't saying much because I'm ridiculously non-patient. Anyways, it was finally released and I had it downloaded to the good old Kindle immediately.

I really really really enjoyed this book. All those fans of Mercy Thompson know what I mean when I say that I just can't ever get enough of her. If you are not a Mercy fan, I'm sorry. If you'd like to be, but don't really know what it is, you can check out my review of books 1-3 HERE and books 4 & 5 HERE. Needless to say, I adore her and all the characters made up of Mercy Thompson, Walker.

This book in the series, albeit a bit different than the others, was still wonderful. I won't go into too much detail because I don't want to give anything away, but we do get to meet a lot of new characters AND we get to find out some detail about Mercy's past. Well, actually, this is a bit of a surprise, the part we learn, but still, it's good. Most of the story takes place while Mercy is on vacation so we don't get to see a lot of the characters we've grown accustomed to.

That is my biggest complaint about the book and only because I love all the characters that Briggs has created and written. I wholly miss Stefan and Warren the most and we didn't even get to see Sam at all, which I was kind of looking forward to getting a glimpse of him with Arianna since he was such a huge part of the series for all five books.

It's definitely understandable why we didn't see a ton of them as Mercy and Adam were on vacation away from it all, so Briggs is definitely forgiven on that front. Especially because we were able to see so much more of Adam *prrrrrr*. That man is truly lickable in all sorts of ways. Thinking about him is getting a bit hot and sweaty, especially thinking about his lean body with all those contorting muscles moving...*clears throat*...sorry, my mind has run away to Adam land. Back on track now, forgive me.

As I was saying, this book takes place with mostly Mercy and Adam and we get to meet a slew of new characters including Coyote (kind of like spirit Coyote but really alive in a physical form). I know for a fact I'm really REALLY going to like that man/Native America Spirit Guide. Also, we got to meet 2 more walkers - but I'm not going to tell you who - and we learn a lot more of how the walkers came to exist on Earth and how they work. By that I mean how they are created and what kind of things they can do and so on. It was very very cool to read about and I felt that it added to the already wonderful character development of Mercy.

So, to finally cut this review off because I could possibly go on all day, I loved the book and recommend it to Mercy Thompson fans everywhere. Anyone looking for an excellent series that is amazingly well written and there is a uniqueness to the werewolf/vampire/fey world that you haven't quite seen before, you should pick up Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series.

Rating: 5/5
Quotes:

I wiggled my hips into a more comfortable position and tried to think like Adam--a very smart person poisoned by testosterone. (Mercy)

The old man grunted. "Indians go anytime they want to--it is our place." He tapped me. "She's Indian, no matter what she believes. My grandson is Indian. The two of them can take one Anglo wolf who belongs to an Indian coyote girl."

He stretched and tossed the empty pop can to Adam--who caught it. "Time for this old Indian to go." He looked at me again. "If you are going to use white man's words to describe yourself, 'avatar' is more accurate than 'walker.'"

He took his bad and indicated the little pot with his chin. "Better you keep that, little sister. A coyote will get herself hurt a lot if she runs with wolves."

And then he left.

Adam kissed my knee, which should not have done anything to my pulse. I mean--the kneecap is as far from an erogenous zone as I know of. But it was Adam, so my heart rate picked up nicely.

Coyote told me a few stories about himself. He used the rude versions, too. Potty humor shouldn't be funny to anyone over the age of twelve--and then only to the male half of the species. But somehow it was different when Coyote told it, both sly and innocent at the same time.