Book 67, 2024
Winter Lost by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I took advantage of having a day off with no plans or obligations to read Winter Lost cover to cover. Woo! It's the 14th installment in author Patricia Briggs' "Mercy Thompson" urban fantasy series. The main character is Mercy Thompson Hauptman--coyote shifter, auto mechanic, and mate to Alpha werewolf Adam.
When Mercy's brother Gary shows up, disoriented by a powerful spell, it's up to her and Adam to travel to Montana in search of a resolution. On the way, they encounter a brutal winter storm, magical in nature, that strands them in a lodge with a small wedding party. There they learn that Gary may have stolen a powerful Fae artifact and stashed it somewhere in the lodge. The artifact is important to the wedding ceremony, and without it the very end of the world may result. As Mercy and Adam apply themselves to finding the object, Mercy must also deal with the debilitating effects of battling with the last artifact she encountered, the Soul Taker. Together, Mercy and Adam must sort friend from foe and learn to take some things on faith.
The book certainly kept me captivated. Briggs is a deft story teller, and this story featured layers upon layers. It deviated from the norm, in that it wasn't wholly in Mercy's first-person point of view, and there were time skips. I can't say as that I liked that, but it did add nuances to the story that wouldn't have existed had we only been seeing things unfold through Mercy's eyes. I also prefer it when Mercy and Adam interact with the pack, but for most of this book they were separated from the others. However, we did get to see what was going on with the rest of the wolves, as told in short, "interlude" chapters.
Favorite lines:
♦ It's always an uncomfortable adjustment when the rules of the world get rewritten over the course of a conversation.
♦ "I saw a frost giant about a couple of horses." I had a sudden thought. "The eggs didn't make it, did they?"
♦ "Of course he's an extraordinary idiot. Take any skill and add years of practice and you get extraordinary."
A bit of a departure for this series, but it worked and I enjoyed it. Five stars.
