Gabriel, Mercy’s new assistant at the garage, is clever and young without being irritating or needlessly present in the story. Briggs uses this time to show a little more of Mercy at her element-fixing cars at the garage, stirring up the werewolves sent to guard her-and to show some of the intricacies of the world she is building.

There’s a lull in the action, from Mercy’s point of view, as she waits for the hunting party to catch their quarry. When Mercy gets a late-night visit from the demon vampire, she realises that her friends are in the vampire’s hands and she has until sunset to save them. After one of the werewolves turns up barely alive, Adam, the pack alpha, and Samuel, Mercy’s werewolf housemate, go hunting themselves. Unfortunately, werewolves turn out to be highly susceptible to demon magic, which causes them to lose control.

This new vampire is deadly, and Mercy reluctantly agrees to leave the hunting to stronger creatures. (As I mentioned in my review of Moon Called, this series is book crack.) After Mercy’s adventures in the first book, she’s asked to return a favour by accompanying her vampire buddy, Stefan, on a mysterious errand that ends in gruesome violence when they discover a demon-possessed sorcerer turned vampire on a killing rampage. Mostly we’re just along for the ride-but it’s still a fabulous trip.īlood Bound is the second book of Patricia Briggs’s hugely popular urban fantasy series featuring Mercy Thompson, a coyote shapeshifter nominally mated to a werewolf and formerly employed by a fae mechanic. The pacing and plotting are not as balanced as in the first book.

Mercy thompson book 2