Unlike the first two, Iron Kissed stumbles. The pace is still there but it’s not as strong plot-wise as the first two. This time around, the focus is on the fae, but the story almost suffers from a lack of imagination because we learn so little about them. I’m also still not clear on who was the real “winner” of the love triangle because Samuel and Mercy are still thick as thieves.

I thought the introduction of a hate group was interesting and could have been a great parallel to real life (even in 2008), and was excited to see what it would be like to have a big bad that’s firmly anti-fae and against everything that Mercy is and loves. However, it fell flat for me; because each book follows the same pattern (inciting incident>investigation>resolution), by the time we found out who was the villain, there weren’t enough pages left to make the character feel anything but one-dimensional.

I also really didn’t love that the culmination of the book involved sexual assault. For a series that is pretty chaste, it was a bummer that the most explicit scene so far is an assault. Considering how few female characters there are in the series and how much their lives are defined by the men around them, adding in SA felt gratuitous.

Because each book in this series is essentially an urban fantasy crime novel, the action started and did not stop until the end - it was a RIDE. Almost stronger than the first, Blood Bound focuses on vampires and boy was it fun.

The world building continues, this time showcasing everything undead and out for blood. There's more mystery time around and that made for a more interesting story. I still enjoyed being part of this world and watching Mercy make insanely stupid choices, though aspects of the story were a little grating. More so than Moon Called, the dated ideals come through - while a gay werewolf is totally fine, the idea of abortion? Not so much! Shoutout the early 00s for making religion permeate everything.

Mercy doesn’t really experience much character growth again, but this point in the series, that’s fine. She’s too busy trying to rescue wolves and be friends with fae and find a demon vampire - she doesn’t have time to think about or talk about or even have feelings. There’s a touch more romance than in the first book, but it’s very much so a subplot. Side characters once again slap.

My personal syllabus for the foreseeable future is to read as much early 00s fantasy series written by women. Beyond meeting that criteria, all I had heard about this series is that some people consider it the blueprint for a lot of romantasy these days.

Moon Called is the first book in the wildly long and ongoing Mercy Thompson series. The series itself was apparently unplanned and that’s most notable in the narrative structure; there is not really any overarching plot that ties everything together and instead it’s Mercy herself that acts a linchpin. Though these are urban fantasy, I would liken them more to crime novels in that each book focuses on a specific crime/incident, the resulting invention and its resolution. All of the covers are bonkers and extremely of their time (doesn’t impact the stories but does make me chuckle).

I was pleasantly surprised by Moon Called; it’s a very solid book one. Briggs does an excellent of setting up the world, dropping in elements that continue building without feeling heavy-handed while still keeping the driving pace. There are a few moments where her personal opinions somewhat bleed in and feel very early 00s (which continues for a number of the books), but overall it was a romp and a half. The side characters are well developed and interesting, almost more so than our FMC.

Mercy is sort of not like other girls but mostly she’s a loner by choice who makes friends surprisingly easily and has created a nice little life for herself in the Tri-Cities. She doesn’t go through allll that much growth throughout the story, but she has clear motivations and she’s fully fleshed out. We get to watch her be kind of a badass while also being sorta dumb.

This is a spoiler of sorts, but I was expecting the romance to be more of a focal point given how I had seen this series billed. Instead, it was basically at the end, clearly setting up for a slow ass burn, and involved a love triangle with Mercy’s teenage sweetheart Samuel who just happens to be older than her in a weird way (how old he is and what that means is constantly brought up, only reinforcing the yuck factor).