Mercy Thompson is a mechanic who also happens to be a “walker,” meaning she can transform instantly into a coyote, complete with heightened senses. Although Mercy was raised by werewolves, and is on good terms with the local pack in her area of Washington state, she is not one of them. She is something distinct, independent, and, we learn, somewhat rare. Luckily for us, none of that prevents her from getting caught up in werewolf drama.
Listen, I am not a “werewolf book” reader. Or at least I haven’t been, the same way I have never been a “dragon book” reader. No slight intended to fans of either sub-genre of speculative fiction, but they have just never really appealed to me. But just like I can enjoy the heck out of The Hobbit or Game of Thrones despite the dragon stuff, I may have found a werewolf book that works for me.
Why does it work for me? Well, to come at it from the other direction, my hesitation about werewolf fiction is that it almost always turns out to be werewolf romance — which is fine if that’s what you’re after. And while I’m not above a little smut myself, I guess I just want it to be… integrated into an otherwise exciting plot. A steamy detour in the action rather than (ahem) the climax. To put it another way: When I read about supernatural creatures, I am not primarily interested in romance or resolving sexual tension, although a little of either is fine.
So with that perspective, I was a little hesitant about this book. Judging by the cover, it certainly seemed like it might veer into romance territory at any moment. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised when it ended up being a damn good story with plenty of action, three-dimensional characters, and (in my opinion) just enough sexual tension to be interesting. And even that is tempered by Mercy’s eye-rolling at the macho posturing of the werewolves vying for her attention.
There’s a lot to like in this book, but I have to mention a few negatives. First is the bizarre choice by the author to make Mercy a practicing Christian. That’s right, the part-Native American, part-supernatural coyote shapeshifter goes to church every Sunday. Huh? With all due respect to the diversity of religious beliefs people may have, and the very personal reasons they may have for adopting them, it feels really improbable (and borderline disrespectful) that a character with supernatural abilities rooted in Native American culture would be Christian. Thankfully, Mercy’s faith is almost completely inconsequential to the plot and only mentioned a few times. Those times are quite distracting, however. I have to assume the author had some personal religious hang-up that prevented her from writing a non-Christian protagonist. “Bizarre” is the only way to describe it.
My second issue with this book is that the first half or two-thirds was much stronger than the remainder. In particular, one chapter almost made me set the book down for a while: Mercy finally meets a character who is seemingly central to a previous major plot point, and instead of leaving anything to the imagination, the author has them embark on a convoluted, chapter-long conversation that attempts to explain who was responsible and what their motivations were. I could possibly forgive that if it actually clarified anything, but I found it very difficult to keep all the details straight. I ended up really wishing those revelations came more gradually, with Mercy driving the action rather than hearing about things second-hand.
Unfortunately, although the story picks up quickly afterward, that errant chapter explained things so badly that it kind of ruined the book’s resolution for me. It’s hard for me to know if the explanation was just too complicated to be satisfying — hinging on characters we’ve met once or not at all — or if the same information presented differently (more gradually, showing rather than telling) could have felt adequate.
That’s a shame, but ultimately the first part of this book was strong enough for me to want to see where this series (currently at 14 books!) goes from here. I’ll at least continue with book 2, although I have a sneaking suspicion that the romance will ramp up as the series goes on — but I hope I’m wrong.