Fire Touched by Patricia Briggs

Title: Fire Touched (Mercy Thompson, 9)
Author: Patricia Briggs
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Orbit (8th March 2016)
Blurb:

MECHANIC. SHAPESHIFTER. FIGHTER.

Mercy Thompson is back, and she’ll soon discover that when the fae stalk the human world, it’s the children who suffer . . .

Tensions between the fae and humans are coming to a head. And when coyote shapeshifter Mercy and her Alpha werewolf mate, Adam, are called upon to stop a rampaging troll, they find themselves with something that could help avert out-and-out war: a human child stolen long ago by the fae.

Defying the most powerful werewolf in the country, the humans and the fae, Mercy, Adam and their pack choose to protect the boy no matter what the cost. But who will protect them from a boy who is fire touched?

Rating: ***** (5 stars)
Review:

FIRE TOUCHED is the ninth book in the fantastic Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs. Tension between the fae and humans risk coming to a head in this book when the pack are called upon to stop a rampaging troll from wreaking havoc in the Tri-Cities. Mercy and her husband Adam, the pack’s Alpha, find themselves caught in the middle of something that could cause in a war.

This book was very hard to put down, even though I wanted to make it last for as long as possible! FIRE TOUCHED is another brilliant addition to Mercy’s story, and I really enjoyed watching events unfold. It was a tense and fun read, with the return of some familiar faces as well as the introduction of some new ones. If you like a bit of fun to your reads, then you should definitely give this series a try – Mercy doesn’t take herself too seriously.

Writing this review has been quite difficult, because I want to say how fantastic I found this book and why – but that risks spoilers! And I also want to be coherent, and a couple of drafts for paragraphs have just become rambling gushing about the series in general, rather than this book in specific. So let me say this: I loved this book. I stayed up way past my bedtime to read it, taking one chapter at a time in an attempt to make it last – and to be honest, that didn’t work: I read it in less than a day! If you have read and enjoyed the rest of the Mercy Thompson series then you will love this one too. It contains everything a fan of this series will love, and enough twists and turns that you will be kept guessing.

One of the things I like about this series is the cast of characters that make an appearance, and this book was no exception. I really enjoyed the return of some familiar faces, and some of the new characters definitely seemed interesting. I also enjoyed the fact that Briggs referenced events of her Alpha and Omega series, reminding us that both series take part in the same world.

Like in the rest of the series, Briggs weaves an interesting and complex story that slowly unfolds on the page – even having read the blurb for FIRE TOUCHED I was surprised by some of the things revealed in this book. The story felt very cohesive: FIRE TOUCHED was very much its own story, and at the same time felt very much like it was part of a series. I thought the story was interesting and compelling, and there’s set up in it for a few potential stories in this world, which I’m hoping Briggs will explore.