Patricia Briggs – Night Broken

The eighth book in the Mercedes Thompson series, published March 11, 2014
Genre: urban fantasy
Cover: ugly



An unexpected phone call heralds a new challenge for Mercy. Her mate Adam's ex-wife is in trouble, on the run from her new boyfriend. Adam isn't the kind of man to turn away a person in need - and Mercy knows it. But with Christy holed up in Adam's house, Mercy can't shake the feeling that something about the situation isn't right.
Soon, her suspicions are confirmed when she learns that Christy has the farthest thing from good intentions. She wants Adam back and she's willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen, including turning Adam's pack against Mercy.
Mercy isn't about to step down without a fight, but there's a more dangerous threat circling. Christy's ex is more than a bad man - in fact, he may not be human at all. As the bodies start piling up, Mercy must put her personal troubles aside to face a creature with the power to tear her whole world apart.


I loved this book, the blurb tells a lot, and I did not read it before I started reading this book. The day starts badly for Mercy, when Adam’s ex-wife Christy calls. Her new boyfriend is stalking her, and she is very scared for him. And of course Adam offers her his help. With some pack members as witnesses to the conversation, Mercy really cannot refuse having Christy stay with them. She really sounds scared of the man. But Mercy is also not planning to give up her place at Adam’s side.
From the first hour that Christy has arrived, she is trying to take over the house though, starting cooking dinner, inviting pack mates, and ordering her daughter Jesse about. Christy is a master manipulator, and just the way she asks questions and makes remarks, make Mercy unable to fight back. She would only be seen as a jealous bitch, and as her position in the pack is not at all stable, she cannot do that to Adam. But she does draw the line when Christy starts using their bathroom, instead of sharing with Jesse.

Eating dinner that smells like Christy all over is just impossible for Mercy. Especially as Adam seems to love it. Mercy is not a good cook, but she is a great baker. But with Christy taking over in the kitchen, she does not even have the solace of baking cookies. And so she tries to stay out late in her garage, working on cars, with help from Tad, Zee’s son.
When Christy does not even feel safe with four werewolves guarding her, and wants Adam to work from home as well, Mercy is not happy at all. Especially when Christy starts answering Adam’s phone, and ordering her to shop for some groceries.

Christy is not the only problem Mercy has to endure though. The powerful Fae Lord who declared the Fae separated from humans, wants the walking stick that Mercy has. His father Lugh made it, and he wants it back. But Mercy has given it as a gift to Coyote when it became bloodthirsty and started attacking people on its own. He gives Mercy one week to retrieve the walking stick. Mercy has no idea how to find or summon Coyote. Asking for help from other walkers she met recently, she finds out she has a half brother in prison, and he might know more. Taking Glory with her, she visits her half brother, who sometimes suffers from visions. Unfortunately, the only way he knows how to summon Coyote, is to be interesting enough. And that is not something he ever wants to be again, as Coyote always messes up his life, and is the reason he is in prison in the first place.

Christie’s stalker is very real though, he has not only murdered another sort of boyfriend of hers, but he has set fire to her apartment building, and some people have died in that fire. And now he has shown up at Mercy’s garage, while Mercy is working there alone. Tad has already gone home for the evening, but Mercy just did not want to face the situation at home just yet.

And now she will find out the hard way that Christie’s stalker is not human at all. So why did Christie never mention it? She has put the whole pack at risk, this is not something they can fight either. The whole battle has been captured by the security cameras Adam had installed, and Adam and Tad are only just in time to safe Mercy. With some help from the Fae they find out what they are fighting, but defeating it is not simple, at all. Especially now that the creepy Cantrip agency wants to arrest Mercy and Adam and take them in for “questioning”.


I loved this book very much. I have read a lot of reviews that focus completely on Christy and how she wants Adam back, and how Adam does nothing to show support to Mercy. And I agree, that he could have done something at times. But there is so much more happening in this book. The situation with the Fae Lord, and that Mercy has a brother. Coyote does shop up eventually, and messes with them, but he is also there for Mercy when he is least expected to be. Warren and Kyle play a nice secondary role in this story, and in the end, I think Mercy has gotten a whole lot of respect from the pack.
And Mercy does get a little bit of revenge on Christy and she does tell her the truth, until Christy dissolves in crocodile tears.

I liked Mercy, she was strong, and did not give in to her urges in engaging Christy. Yes, Christy is a b*itch, but she was never pack, and she is weak. Only caring about her self, always blaming other people, especially Adam, for whatever happened to her. Jesse is living with her father because her mother has neglected her a few times too many, but they all seem to have forgotten that.

I do have one minor complaint, it is never explained why Christy keeps answering Adam’s personal cell phone whenever Mercy called him. But in my opinion, this book brought the magic back for me, after liking the last two books a little bit less than the first five in the series.

10 stars.

© 2014 Reviews by Aurian