Briggs, Patricia: Blood Bound
Blood Bound
Writer: Patricia Briggs
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 292
I've been on a mass-market paperback kick this week (they fit easily in my purse), and the second book of Patricia Briggs's Mercy Thompson series felt like a good pick, especially since Moon Called was so addictive.
The premise: Mercy's vampire friend Stefan calls in a favor and asks her to accompany him on some vampire business, only she has to stay in her coyote form. Mercy doesn't understand what the big deal is, until they get there and realize there's more to this new, trouble-making vampire than meets the eye: he's also a sorcerer, and he's possessed by a demon. And unfortunately for Mercy, after this one encounter, the demon is stealing away all the people she cares about. It's up to her to stop him, but she doesn't know how.
Spoilers ahead.
For some reason, it seemed to take a while for this story to get it's feet off the ground. I think part of it was due to the fact that Mercy wasn't allowed to go after Cory until Samuel and Adam ended up missing and Marsilia requested her help. It also took me a while to understand the dynamics of what was happening. Much was explained via info-dumping dialogue, but often, I had to re-read explanations more than once, because I kept feeling like I missed something. One thing that did help was that Mercy knew little to nothing about vampire culture, so it gave the reader a logical avenue to learn more about them in this world.
That said, we did learn why vampires are so afraid of walkers, and it has something to do with how walkers can see ghosts.
There's got to be more to it than that. For starters, I don't recall ghosts being mentioned in Moon Called, though they may have and I just forgot. The sad thing about it is that having Mercy talk to ghosts threw me for a temporary loop: I would've liked to see her do this in book one too, so I could have an easier time accepting it in this world. But also, while ghosts avoid evil and that indicates where a vampire's lair might be, I still don't see how this is a threat. Mercy isn't a vampire hunter, so that particular trait isn't a good reason for the vampires to fear her kind, or particularly, her. So--there's got to be more to walkers than meets the eye.
This book also helped me understand some readers frustrations with the choices Briggs makes in terms of having nearly every prominent male character in love with Mercy. With Samuel and Adam, it makes sense. With Stefan, not so much. I don't mind him willing to do anything for Mercy because they're friends, but to have him in love with her as well? That's a bit much.
I did enjoy the complexity of the plot and how Andre essentially caused all this hell and it got out of control. Better still is how Andre and Marsilia truly believed Cory could be controlled, or at least, how a similar vampire/sorcerer mix could bring the end of Marsilia's exile. Andre, who knew how to do this again, needed to be stopped. I get and understand that. But I can't say I'm fond of Mercy turning all Buffy the Vampire Slayer on us and taking it into her own hands to find and kill Andre.
Yes, logically speaking, she's the only one who could. And it made for a rather nice conflict about killing from self-defense to actual murder. It's just...the ending of Blood Bound stretched out a wee bit too long because of her search for Andre, and it wasn't really a satisfying ending. Maybe that's just me.
My Rating
Worth the Cash: if you enjoyed Moon Called, you'll enjoy this one. Whereas Moon Called focused more on werewolf culture, Blood Bound focuses on vampire culture, and tightens Mercy's relationships to the fangs, fur, and fey communities. Hell, even her buddy Tony the undercover cop gets involved with this one a bit, so it's neat to see the supernatural elements and the human elements working together in one world. Not in harmony or anything, but together.
And what about romance? Still not much. There's the conflict between Samuel and Adam, but Mercy is determined to stay her own person and resents anything that could take that away from her. The end of this book doesn't really give the reader any clue how the love triangle's going to turn out, and that's a good thing: it's not what the book's about.
Next up:
Review: Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs
Book: The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
Graphic Novel: Mr. Punch : The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy by Neil Gaiman