Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs

[sparkymonster]

So. I read Moon Called by Patricia Briggs. It's the first book in a series that is sort of a mix of urban fantasy and romantic paranormal adventure. The lead character, Mercy Thompson, is a shapeshifter who can turn into a coyote (the book uses the terms "skin walker" and shifter). She is also half native. Which is where things get sticky

Comments

[maschalismos]

Man, you find some info on that, you let me know, please? I've been trying to figure this out for months now and I'm coming up empty.

[sparkymonster]

Hrmph. HRMPH.

I am really questioning what was the point of Mercy being half Native?

[sparkymonster]

*vomits*

Sorry. Being the exoticized eroticized other makes me a little queasy at times.

At least she wasn't a kitsune. I guess.

But seriously. It some how reminds me of an author who shared with us that the only influence that native peoples has on the US is names of places.

[zvi_likes_tv]

When she went to track him down, she found out he died a few days after they hit it. When baby Mercy starts shapeshifting as a baby, the mom takes her to the tribe the dad belonged to because they know how to raise shifter babies.

I'm not sure she was able to track the dude down, or if she did, she was able to do it through the rodeo. When she needed to turn her little coyote baby over to somebody else, she turned the baby over to werewolves, which come from Europe. There is some wolf/coyote conflict

[sparkymonster]

I was trying to remember how tracking him down worked. Wikipedia is vague on the situation and says she turned Mercy over to his tribe. Which seems to be false.

The series' explanation for this is that when the European magical people came to America, they killed most of the American NDN magical people because the Americans could do things they could not...Mercy, having been raised by white people/werewolves, knows nothing about her heritage and has never bothered to seek out any info, despite the fact that she is (a) a history major and (b) sometimes threatened by vampires because she's a coyote shapeshifter.

Uh...uh...uh....

WHAT THE FUCKING HELL? SERIOUSLY??? That makes zero sense.

[sarafinapekkala]

IIRC, they never find out anything about her father's heritage, at least not in the first book. She's raised by werewolves, but they're originally from Europe.

[delux_vivens]

Mercy's mom had a random one night stand with a native guy she met at a rodeo.

Was he a grass dancer?

*runs away from maerhys*

[steelgrrrlmai]

you oughtta get a swat for that.

[delux_vivens]

*pouts*

it was germane to the discussion!