Storm Cursed (Mercy Thompson #11) - Patricia Briggs, Lorelei King

I came late to the Mercy Thompson series. I read the first book, "Moon Called"in January 2017, nearly eleven years after it was published and was hooked immediately. This was Urban Fantasy as I'd always hoped it would be. I've been playing catch up ever since and it's been tremendous fun.

 

"Storm Cursed", book eleven in the series, was the first one I'd had to pre-order (OK, was too impatient NOT to pre-order) so I'm finally up to date.

 

I did wonder how this book would go. Many series start to fade by the time they get to book eleven. Book ten, "Silence Fallen" had tried to stay fresh by moving the venue to Europe and telling some of the story from Adam's point of view. It was fun but I hoped for a return to a Mercy-centric story.

 

When "Storm Cursed" arrived, I pushed my current book aside and dived in.

 

It was wonderful: familiar but vibrant and with enough new things to keep it fresh. I love that feeling of coming home to a book.

 

The good things were:

 

  • "Storm Cursed" goes back to telling the story from Mercy's point of view. I like being inside her head. She's not quite the same Mercy. She's a little more cautious, a little cannier, a lot more powerful and very, very aware of her need for friends and allies.
  • The witchcraft-centred plot worked well for lining Mercy up to call on all of her allies, vampire, fae, goblin, even her half-brother, to win the day.
  • Mercy's snarky humour still works for me and the action scenes delivered.

 

The things that didn't work well:

 

  • Pack dynamics haven't moved on. I struggle to believe that Mercy is still getting hassle from the likes of Mary-Joe
  • Yet again, Adam, the Pack and Bran get sidelined. I see that this puts Mercy centre stage but it's wearing a little thin.
  • Yet again we have evil but incompetent government folks making a mess. I know that, given the current occupant of the White House, the government being evil and incompetent might be taken as a given but in Mercy's world I'd hoped for a little development.
  • The whole thing with the cutlas seemed odd. An M16 or even a Ka-Bar knife I could see coming in handy but a cutlas only works in video games.

 

I'm a fan, invested in the series and I had a good time but… I do wonder where we go from here.

 

Nevertheless, I'll pre-order book twelve when it becomes available. In the meantime, I'll catch up on the Alpha Omega books where I've only read book 0.5 and book 1.