Silence Fallen: A Mercy Thompson Novel, Book 10

** spoiler alert **I read all twelve extant novels of Patricia Briggs's Mercy Thompson series before I began seriously using Goodreads in late 2020. I have not previously reviewed any of them. Number thirteen, Soul Taken, is to be released Tuesday, 23-Aug-2022, one week from today. Of course I have pre-ordered it and plan to gobble it down as soon as it appears on my kindle. Because it's been so long since I read a Mercy Thompson novel, I'm re-reading the last three, Silence Fallen, Storm Cursed, and Smoke Bitten, to get myself back up to speed.This is, therefore, a convenient occasion to write down my overall impressions of the entire series. Mercy Thompson was my introduction to urban fantasy, and is still my favorite.Silence Fallen is a good place to do this, because it is the first explicit acknowledgment of something that has been in progress since book one, Moon Called. Silence Fallen begins with Mercy's kidnapping by the European vampire lord Bonarata. Bonarata kidnaps her because he is becoming alarmed by events in Mercy's home turf, the Columbia Basin, and Wulfe (a Columbia Basin vampire) tells him that she is the most powerful magical person there. Now, Wulfe is not a liar, but he traffics in misleading truths. We thus come to realize that Mercy is, indeed, the most powerful magical person in the Columbia Basin, but not in the superficial way that Bonarata imagined.How did she get there? In book one, Moon Called, we meet Mercy and she gets into trouble with the local werewolves. In book two, Blood Bound, she gets into trouble with the local vampires. In Iron Kissed she gets into trouble with local fae. At this point I began to perceive a pattern -- probably you do, too. I was becoming alarmed for Mercy. Mercy is a VW mechanic and Blackfeet Nation Native American who has the ability to turn into a coyote. She is not especially powerful, either physically or magically. Yet she's making enemies of the most powerful magical persons in the Columbia Basin. How's she going to survive?Well, she survives by becoming more powerful herself. That should have been an obvious guess, because it's what happens in every fantasy series centered on a single character. But I was taken by surprise because Mercy doesn't do it in the usual way. The usual way is to level up in each book by acquiring new magic and new superpowers. A little of that happens to Mercy, but mostly not. Mostly Mercy becomes more powerful the way that real people in The Real World become more powerful: by making friends and forming alliances.To understand this, you need to understand something else about the Mercy Thompson series. They are not primarily books about magical creatures. They are about politics and palace intrigue. The pillars of magical society in the Mercyverse are the three groups I've mentioned: werewolves, vampires, and fae. (This is a simplification -- there are other magical beings. Mercy herself, for instance, is none of the above.) Werewolves and vampires are territorial -- they live in local authoritative polities ("packs" and "seethes", respectively) with roughly the scope of a city. The power struggles within these polities have the feel of a Renaissance Italian city-state. The fae are more diverse and chaotic, but there is a body, the Gray Lords, that exerts some authority over the fae by main force.Mercy gains power because she is a good friend, someone who gets things done, and who you can absolutely rely on. By the time of Silence Fallen she has become the wife of Adam Hauptman, the leader of the Columbia Basin werewolves, and she has negotiated a pact by which the local vampire seethe and fae lords can be relied on to protect the people of the Basin from magical dangers. Mercy, although she doesn't entirely realize it herself, is the de facto head of state of this little city-state she has effectively created by accident.So, Bonarata kidnaps Mercy. With her usual resourcefulness she gets herself out of that problem and into another. Adam flies to Italy to get her back. We get a lot of Mercyverse-canonical political maneuvering, complete with battles physical, magical, and psychological. It's as gripping a story as I have come to expect from Briggs.

I was a little worried when I saw that Mercy’s bond to Adam, and the Pack, was going to be broken. Again. The blurb makes it sound much more familiar than the reality of the circumstances are. I was thankful for that, because I might have been a bit frustrated had I been compelled to deal with the broken bond again. Honestly, for me, Mercy and Adam are so tightly wound that I know there is nothing that can break them apart. And that’s just the way I like it.Fair warning: Mercy and Adam spend the majority of this book apart and out of contact. It’s not as bad as you might fear though, because we get ALTERNATING POVs. That’s right. You read correctly. Nearly every chapter switches back and forth between Adam and Mercy. It’s an interesting storytelling tactic, not least of which because the timeline isn’t linear. Patricia Briggs jumps around a bit in the timeline, and as the Author’s Note at the start says – pay attention to Mercy’s notes at the beginning of each chapter. The flow of the story worked very well for me, but if you don’t pay attention it might get a bit confusing.__This wasn’t the first time chocolate got me into trouble.__I’ve read this book twice now, the first time I could hardly process my feelings, so I had to re-read the entire series and then start again with fresh eyes. I’m not sure I’m beyond the fangirling still, to be honest. I loved this book. I get so frustrated with the relationship drama in some series, though I know it’s a popular way to keep the drama tense and the story fresh. Part of what I enjoy so much in this series is that the relationship is never the source of the drama. There are always outside factors that are driving the plot. It makes things so much more interesting.__I’m a mechanic, I fix things that are broken. I turn into a thirty-five-pound coyote. I have powerful friends. But when it comes right down to it, my real superpower is chaos.__Mercy continues to be one of the most subtle kick-ass characters that I read. She truly believes that she’s weaker than most everyone around her, and that is kind of true. I mean, she isn’t as strong or invulnerable as the vampires or werewolves. She doesn’t have as obvious of magic as the fae. But what she does have is an indomitable will. She survives. No matter what.Better than that, though, is the fact that she does it without hiding or cowering from what she believes to be right. As Honey said about her previously, once Mercy has your back, she has your back. She will never give up, and she will do everything in her power to help you out. Despite the consequences to herself. Maybe that’s not as kick-ass as some other characters (whom I love as much), but you can’t deny that Mercy gets things done.__“I only get weirder the longer you know me,” I told him, quoting one of the T-shirts I’d gotten for my last birthday.__A large part of what makes this series so great is the characters. They’re incredibly complex. The werewolves aren’t just strong and turn into wolves. They are more prone to violence, and have to work hard to keep control of their tendencies in that direction. The vampires aren’t just sexual blood-drinkers, they’re dead and they kill people to survive. It’s hard to justify it, even within the world, even knowing some of them are much better than others. The fae aren’t simply powerful fairies. They’re the stuff of nightmares that our fairy-tales tried to warn us about.And even still, with such generalizations, there are individual differences. Some characters, in all factions, are supremely intelligent and able to move the world like it’s their own personal chessboard. Some are manipulative as hell. Some care, but pretend they don’t. The machinations that each character is sometimes hiding makes them all fascinating. There are layers and layers to these characters, and often I don’t see them all until the end.All these different characters, jockeying for position and power, playing a game that is larger than may even be understandable, make the world a fraught place – full of danger and intrigues around every corner.__[He] thought of himself as a peaceful man. But he couldn’t deny that there was beauty in violence, a battle between two well-trained warriors.__We’ve spent the entirety of our time with Mercy (and Anna and Charles) in the United States, which makes sense. But I found it really cool to visit Europe here. Especially Prague, which is a city that tugs at my heart. Though I’ve never been, I can say that the book set the feel for Prague, and Europe in general, making me feel and imagine that I could be there with Mercy. I appreciate the atmosphere that it built.I was on the edge of my seat both times reading this book. The plot is full of tension. Mercy and Adam were still separated; outside forces were continuing to subtly guide events; and I was always wondering when the other shoe was going to drop.__Water is wet and vampires are treacherous.__I am struggling with how much to say about anything that happens here. There are a couple of things that I don’t even want to allude to. Forgive me for being a bit light on details about the specifics of the plot. I will say that Silence Fallen is an excellent addition to the Mercy Thompson world, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Start at the beginning, you'll be addicted to Mercy and friends quite quickly! Never a disappointment, full of excellent stories, a great plot, and a cast of characters so varied it's amazing Ms. Briggs can keep them straight. One of my top 5 authors!💜✋🐺#lupuswarrior#lupusawareness

This is my favorite so far. This time not all that happens is in mercy and i love it.Really a great book super fun and full of adventures. Also i love "matt smith" didn't connect but now i have to reaf it again...C. C.

I absolutely loved this book . I highly recommend it , I have read a couple of her series and can't wait for the next book in this series to come out!

I have read and loved all the books in this series and also in the related Alpha & Omega books. This is quite definitely one of the best.The author takes the story to Europe where Mercy is kidnapped and separated from her pack and especially from her husband Adam. The author then follows both Mercy's story and Adam's as he negotiates werewolf politics and tries to find his wife. The split narrative which allows us to see things from Adam's point of view and not just Mercy's is a definite development in the series and I have enjoyed the last couple of books which have done this. I thought that the two streams went together well with a lot of tension as one person knew something which the other didn't.I liked the change of venue too and thought that the author was inventive in how she used the Eastern European setting and how she developed a new history for the werewolves who come from that area.This book finally confirms something that we have seen coming for a few volumes and shows us that Mercy is not exactly who we thought she was. I liked this too and it opens out ideas for future stories. I do like a series that expands and develops its stories and characters as you go along. This is why I would not recommend this as your first Mercy Thompson book. You will enjoy it, of course, but you will miss some of the subtleties - start with the first book and work your way towards this tenth volume.This is good quality urban fantasy with a good, fast paced plot and lots to enjoy. The alternative world is well drawn and believable and this book fits in well with the rest of the series.

I really enjoyed this book. It is another book where Mercy is separated from her pack. Lost and alone she has to survive against the big bad vampire.The story is split between what is happening to Mercy and what is happening with her rescuers. The problem this gives the author is one of timing as we need to be in two places at once. Patricia Briggs has solved this by telling first Mercys part of the story, then we go back and see the same time period from Adams point of view. For this to work each chapter has to be headed up with the time period we are in along with some comments from Mercy..I found this ok to read and got into the swing of it really fast. I have read other reviews where this is not a popular device. I thought it was brilliant. One of the previous books where Mercy was separated from the pack lacked something for me because it was so long before we had any input from them. This worked better for me.I think this series is getting better with every book now. I have to say the series as a whole is well worth reading but this book is not the place to start because of the complex back story and the unusual way of telling the story.

When Mercy is kidnapped by Marsilia's old lover and taken to Milan. Adam mounts a rescue mission with the help of Marsilia, Stefan and Elizavadeta! Whilst they were travelling, Mercy manages to escape and finds herself in Prague! Can she stay safe long enough for Adam to find her? Will her gift of seeing the dead help? This read was a wild ride of excitement, fear and laughs! Can't wait for the next book!