River Marked Review by Elizabeth L.

River Marked by Patricia Briggs

Rating: ★★★★★

Mercy Thompson has been tricked. She's been fooled into believing that a shot gun wedding to Adam was her own idea. But her mother and Adam's daughter are far more cunning then she gave them credit for. She should have known better. On the bright side, everything turned out better than she could have expected and her and Adam get to sneak away to a campground on the Columbia River in a gorgeous new RV. As soon as she learned that the RV was lent to them by a fairy and that the state of the art campground was owned by a fairy, her and Adam should have turned right around back to the Tri-Cities. Fairies don't just do favors. They always expect something in return. Sure enough, turns out something evil is lurking in the waters. It soon marks Mercy's leg, and the idyllic honeymoon turns into something entirely different. It becomes a struggle to survive and save lives.

Mercy has grown to accept that her life will be full of danger and death, but this outing offers something more. Answers. The local tribe of Native Americans throws in their lot with Mercy to avenge the death of one of their own and to make the river safe once more. Among them, yet apart, Coyote appears. As in THE Coyote. He has answers, if he chooses to share them that is. He sheds light on Mercy's past and the father she never knew. He also provides some help with a certain walking stick that is inordinately fond of showing up in random places, not always trying to trip Mercy, but usually succeeding none the less. For a piece of wood it is very helpful. With Mercy and Adam trying to save the innocent as well as each other, this is going to be Mercy's toughest battle yet. Without a pack, without knowledge of those whom she must trust, with magic she never knew she possessed, a very magical fake Stonehenge and some nasty otters, her goodbye letter to Adam might end up being read this time.

With a long running series you always run the risk of it going stale. Look at Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels. The most recent book in her series lacked a plot, I think mainly due to the fact she has reached an unwieldy number of characters that everyone cares about and that must be included. That's a sarcastic must by the way. Catching up with everyone took up all 300 some pages with nary a hint of plot. Charlaine needs to break the mold, do something different and escape all her characters that are controlling her narrative. Charlaine, look to Patricia Briggs. Patricia Briggs did just that in River Marked. Briggs took Mercy and Adam away from the pack and into unfamiliar territory. Not only did this allow us to see how the couple actually function as a couple, but it allowed a breather from pack politics and vampire machinations. Charlaine, take note! That little scene with Stefan, we got caught up with him and then moved on to a story with structure, we didn't spend an entire book dealing with Stefan's depression and worsening state that resulted from his maker's betrayal.

What else made this novel work for me? Well, we finally had some answers! Mercy was able to find out more about her powers and what she is capable of. She's been in desperate need of a "How to be a Shifter" guide for awhile, and Coyote got to be that guide. The evil that was faced, while yes, it did tie into the fae, it wasn't solely fae, it was something else. Her books tend to be vampire/fairy/vampire/fairy, alternating the menace from book to book. It's a little nice to say, evil river demon isn't it? Such a refreshing new evil. I really have fallen for this series, and that walking stick, and I felt that this was an enjoyable quick read, yes, I did ignore homework, which is a rarity for me. River Marked also provided breathing space for character development without a pack breathing down our neck. Briggs has an innate ability to let her characters grow and change naturally. We have seen the bond between Mercy and Adam grow, we have read along with all Mercy's exploits, and I have to say, if Briggs keeps this up and is able to keep these characters real and the stories fresh, I'll be reading it for a long time to come.


River Marked Reviewed by Misty B.

River Marked by Patricia Briggs

Rating: ★★★★★

This one...started off a little weak to me. I love these books (it's easily my favorite urban fantasy series), so I was awaiting its release pretty eagerly -- it's not often I pre-order books, afterall. I was so ready to jump back in, but this one was kind of a slow burner. I did end up liking it, as always, but there were some things that left me feeling a little let down.

Let's start with the things I really liked:
Stefan is back! It may be a somewhat minimal role, but I was suffering some serious Stefan withdrawal. And I actually like the reasons he was gone, because it made it more true. I was just talking about this the other day (with Miss Eliza, if I'm not mistaken), and Patricia Briggs is really good at making me feel the impact of serious things that happen in the books because she realizes that they are lives that are being messed with. Yes, I know they are fictional lives, but all the same -- if something traumatic happens in 1 book, it shouldn't be completely forgotten by the next. There are aftershocks, always. Things change people. Mercy went through something completely horrible, and Briggs saw it through in a really authentic way; she didn't brush it under the rug once it had served its literary purpose. The same is true of Stefan, and I applaud her more for showing the same diligence and veracity with even her minor characters. It lends everything strength, and makes me feel like she's not going to be the type of author (*cough*Laurell K Hamilton*cough*) who keeps raising the stakes and raising the stakes and raising the stakes -- only to have her characters discover some superpower or some magical something that saves the day, and then move on like it never happened or doesn't matter. If there's no danger and no real impact, what's the point? I hate Deus Ex.*

Sorry, didn't mean to go off on a tangent there... Moving on.
Another thing I really liked, and I have to warn you, it's the teensiest bit spoilery, and it's a really cute part of the book that I don't want to spoil for you, so if you haven't read it yet, scroll past this next bit real quick...
....
....
Are they gone? Okay, I loved Mercy's surprise wedding. That was the cutest effing thing ever, and it so perfectly suited the characters and the story. Again, it's another of those little touches that makes the book and the world feel real to me, and makes me believe that it really is real to Briggs, and that she knows these characters inside and out. It made me smile and feel a little squishy, it was so sweet and cute. And I'm not so prone to squishiness.


Alright, spoilers over. Now we get into the mixed stuff. I did like that Mercy's Native American heritage was explored, and that the insertion of this new mythology is going to expand the world and give Mercy something new to work out. But there was part of me that disliked it a little bit too, or at least, the way it was handled. I really liked the parts that dealt with Mercy's father -- that was fascinating and funny. But there's part of me that feels like Briggs started with the bar too high, and it tread a little too close to that Laurell K Deus Ex territory that I asterisked up there ↑↑ (yes. I did just use "asterisked" as a verb. My adv. comp. teacher would kill me if he knew.) I would have liked a little more build up to the craziness, but I did like what happened. I just wonder where there is to go from here. I don't doubt that there is somewhere to go, but I just don't want to see this go the way of Anita Blake. That's all I'm saying.

Along the same lines, Briggs hit one of my major pet peeves (and whaddya know? It's another one Laurell K is good for...) I absolutely hate when an author feels the need to continually cover ground that's already been covered. This probably isn't fair, it's probably not solely the fault of the author -- publishers want to sell books, namely the one that just came out -- they don't want people to have to deal with the pesky idea of starting a series from the beginning; that might discourage sales (thought it might encourage library visits...). Therefore, there tends to be a lot of redundancy and blahblah to get through in each successive book in a series, mainly to bring new readers up to speed. I haaaaaaaaate this. I get the reason for it, but it lessens my hatred not a jot. If you want to know what's happening in a series, read the goddamn series. I don't want to be told the same things over and over and over. It makes me feel like: a) the book's not being written for me or for the characters, but for the next available wallet, and b) the writer either doesn't trust themselves to get the point across and make everything clear, or doesn't trust the reader to get it. Briggs did a fair bit of this in River Marked (and she writes fairly short books, so there wasn't a lot of room to waste on this kind of nonsense); she also extended it to a continual repetition of the bond between Mercy and Adam. We. Get. It. Show, don't tell, damn it.

Now, I'm probably just being super sensitive because this is such a big pet peeve of mine. Many people may not be bothered by it, or even notice it for that matter. But I think it bears warning, in case you're a little angerball like me who will feel the need to compose angry letters in your head that you're never going to send.
I don't think that these negative traits were bad enough in this book to keep me from enjoying or recommending the book, but I am going to be watching you, Ms Briggs, so I'm putting you on notice -- trust your reader, trust your self, and tell your publisher to stuff it. Readers want a good book, not a good primer for the series. [Don't let it happen again. I don't like scolding you like this.]
;}

So there you have it. It's a mixed-bag review, but I love this series, and this book is no exception, for the most part. I may be a little, eensy, weensy bit wary for the future of the series, but I recommend it wholeheartedly for now