Patricia Briggs – Moon Called

The first book in the Mercedes Thompson series, published January 31, 2006.
Genre: urban fantasy
Cover: nice, strong.



Werewolves can be dangerous if you get in their way, but they’ll leave you alone if you are careful. They are very good at hiding their natures from the human population, but I’m not human, I know them when I meet them, and they know me, too.

Mercy Thompson’s sexy next-door neighbour is a werewolf.
She’s tinkering with a VW bus at her mechanic shop that happens to belong to a vampire. But then, Mercedes Thompson is not exactly normal herself … and her connection to the world of things that go bump in the night is about to get her into a whole lot of trouble.


Felicia is reading this series at the moment, or listening to it, and her reviews really made me want to re-read the series myself. And so I picked up the whole series from my top shelf, dusted them off, and started reading the first one. It was nice to remember how it all began. Sadly, I did not review the first 5 books, so I have to write a new review as well, otherwise I would probably have just read them all in one week.


Mercedes Thompson is a skinwalker, or walker, a coyote shape shifter. She is not bound to the moon like most werewolves are; she can change at will and back. She also doesn’t have the superstrenght and stamina werewolves have, but she is fast and her senses are much stronger, even in human form. She was raised with werewolves though, as her single mother did not know what to do with her when she found a coyote pup in the cradle. Life as a coyote amongst territorial werewolves was not easy for Mercy, but she was protected by Bran, the Marrok, himself. Bran is the alpha of the alpha’s and controls almost all the werewolves in North America. When she was 16, Mercy had to leave the pack though, and she moved back in with her mother and her new family, who knew nothing of her existence. Still, they welcomed her in.

Now, Mercy is a mechanic with her own garage in the Tri-Cities. She goes about her business, staying away from the werewolves and other preternaturals as much as possible. But her former boss and owner of the garage is one of the Fae, her neighbour is the local werewolf Alpha, and she is repairing a vampire’s bus. But when a young and apparently homeless werewolf walks in, trouble follows him closely. She could use Mac’s help around though, ever since her previous help left her to go to college, paperwork has mounted, and it would be very handy to have someone hand her the tools she needs while repairing a car.

But the men who bought him to experiment on, want him back, and Mercy has to expose herself to protect Mac. They need Adam Hauptmann, the Alpha, to help Mac now that Mercy has killed another werewolf. He doesn’t take it kindly that she kept this rogue young werewolf from him for so long, but he agrees to help Mac take control of his wolf. But that same night, there is a fight at Adam’s house, he is almost deadly wounded, his young daughter is missing, and Mac is lying dead on Mercy’s doorstep. Mercy doesn’t know what to do, she doesn’t trust Adam’s pack as she doesn’t know all of them, and she just has this feeling. So she takes Adam to the only safe place she knows, to Bran. He will be able to keep Adam safe, and help her get Jesse back. He needs to know what is happening anyway, and he will deal with the Alpha who is selling young wolves.

Lots of action, lots of theories, but the plot is most certainly impossible to figure out on my own. Even re-reading it I did not remember. Even though the big strong wolves want to keep little weak female Mercy out of the action, it is Mercy who saves them, and the day.


I do love this series very much, it is one of the first Urban Fantasy series I started reading. There is only one new book a year, so you should be able to keep up with it fairly easy once you start. Patricia Briggs has created a strong world with vampires, werewolves, Fae and witches, and Mercy, and perhaps some new surprises. I love how she mixes them all and gives us a great heroine in Mercy to like and to root for. The small coyote against the big wolves, but she knows how to handle them and stay safe.
And for you incurable romantics, yes, there are two romantic possibilities in this series, and no, not really a love triangle. No love scenes though, not until she has chosen.

8 stars.

© 2013 Reviews by Aurian