Early Review--Night Broken by Patricia Briggs

#1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series has been hailed as “one of the best” (Fiction Vixen). Now, Mercy must deal with an unwanted guest—one that brings a threat unlike anything she’s ever known.

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 received this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review, I was in no way compensated for this review.


Night Broken is the latest in Patricia Brigg's bestselling Mercy Thompson series. I have to admit, I kind of fell out of this series two books ago. So it's been three years since I last read a Mercy book. I think it was because reviews of the current read at the time, River Marked hadn't gotten rave reviews from fellow bloggers. They admitted to liking it, but that parts sort of dragged and I thought I would just put it off for awhile and then one thing led to another and I just sort of stopped reading the series.

Luckily, for the most part, it seems that Mercy's adventures can be read as a sort of standalone. Granted there were events and characters mentioned that I didn't know the history behind what I was told, but for the most part I was able to follow along pretty smoothly.

Mercy's definitely got her hands full this time around. Adam's ex-wife Christy is apparently moving into their house "temporarily". Although, it does seems Christy has gotten herself into deep doo-doo. She apparently fell for a man who's a bit stalkery. What she thought would be a romantic fling turned into some seriously scary you know what. The guy become possessive over her in such a short time and even killed someone Christy knew. So she takes refuge at Adam's house while he and the pack try to figure out who this guy is and put a stop to him once and for all.

If that weren't enough, and having Adam's ex basically take over their house has really put Mercy into a bad mood. And I don't blame her. Christy is a high class manipulator and can get nearly everyone in the pack on her side. And when she hints that she wants Adam back...things get scary. Especially since it becomes clear the pack likes her more than Mercy, which is weird. Go figure. Christy is human, so why she would be better liked, I have no idea! Especially with how she treats her own daughter.

But I lost track, Mercy's other issues come with a Gray Lord giving her a week to give back the magical staff that she had given to Coyote for the time being. And if she doesn't give it back in a week, things are going to get rather dicey. Then there's a murderer running about and killing women and animals...it's a massacre. 

I think I was away from this series too long. While I still enjoyed the characters and all, I felt disconnected. It'd be like watching a sequel to a movie without having seen the first one. My time away from the series put everything at a distance for me that I found myself struggling to just enjoy the story. It wasn't a bad story either, but again, my time away prevented me from fully enjoying it.

There's a good heaping of action and danger and suspense! New characters walking onto the scene and a wondering if they can be trusted. And of course, the sizzling moments between Adam and Mercy. When I last read the series, they were just getting serious with one another and I think it was their honeymoon book that I stopped at. Mercy is still a fierce heroine that I enjoyed reading about. I love her character and I felt for her when Christy was successfully turning members of the pack against her, not that it was hard for her, since apparently the pack is still not too fond of her. You would think they would be by now.

I also enjoyed seeing Stefan again! Stefan was my favorite vampire. His love for Scooby-Doo pretty much cinched the deal! Although, nothing Scooby related got mentioned sadly. And I definitely missed details of events that happened between Stefan and Mercy. You get told inklings of what happened, but you still miss the big impact when you fall out of things like I did.

Regardless, I did like Night Broken, but I think my time away from the series prevented me from truly enjoying it. I'd still recommend this series to all Urban Fantasy fans though! It was one of my faves in the beginning!


Overall Rating 3/5 stars--but again, this is mostly just because I couldn't fully enjoy it since I missed out on two books. But it was still a decent read on its own!