- The Mercedes Thompson Series
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The Mercedes Thompson Series is a series of urban fantasy novels written by Patricia Briggs that follow the adventures of Mercedes (Mercy) Thompson, a Native American shapeshifter who was raised by Werewolves. The series is set in the Tri-Cities area of Washington state in an alternate world in which Werewolves and certain types of the fae have been forced to reveal themselves to the public. The series follows Mercy, a VW mechanic by trade, as she learns her true nature and is caught up in the affairs of the local werewolf pack, led by Adam, the Alpha who lives next door, and the local vampire seethe, a member of which she has befriended.
Silver Borne debuted at #1 on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list,[1] dropping to #6 in the second week,[2] and #11 in the third week.[3]
Contents
Characters
Mercedes (Mercy) Thompson/Hauptman, the daughter of a Blackfoot Indian and a white teenage mother. Mercy is a mechanic and a "walker"—a Native American shapeshifter who transforms into a coyote, sees the spirits of the dead, and has an inborn resistance to most magic (vampire or otherwise). She bought her moderately-successful and beloved auto repair shop from Zee, a member of the fae who is glamoured to appear as an old man, who was forced to reveal himself to the public.She loves adventure and is a major dare devil. She also never submits to Adam.
Adam Hauptman, the Alpha of the Tri-Cities werewolf pack. He lives next door to Mercy, and at the opening of the series, they have a playfully antagonistic relationship. Adam operates a well-known security firm and is divorced with one child; a teenage daughter named Jesse. It's eventually revealed that, in order for Mercy to live in the Tri-Cities without danger from the local pack, Adam claimed her as his mate in name only prior to the beginning of the series, though his feelings had always been more than friendly... apparently even during his unsuccessful marriage. Adam is a dominant wolf, and fourth in line for the title of the Marrok. He is described as having an aura of power and sophistication, as well as being "hot". He thinks Mercy should listen to him and has a sexy wolf form.
Jesse Hauptman, Adam's teenage daughter. She, at the beginning of the series, divides her time equally between Adam's ex-wife, and Adam, though by the end of the fourth novel, "Bone Crossed", she becomes a permanent resident. Jesse is a very outgoing and optimistic girl with a tendency to dye her hair unusual shades to receive a reaction from her father.
Stefan Uccello, a vampire who is also Mercy's friend. He owns a VW bus decorated like the Mystery Machine from Scooby-Doo (despite the canonical Mystery Machine being a Chevy van). Stefan was alive during Renaissance Italy and is known as the "Soldier" amongst other vampires. Stefan remains the only vampire searching for an alternative food source to human blood. His feelings for Mercy are a point of conflict in the series, though he shows great affection to her at various points in the series.
Samuel Cornick, Son of the Marrok, who knew Mercy while she was growing up and tried to marry her when she was only sixteen. He comes to live with her, but their on-again, off-again romantic relationship is one of the early core elements of the series. He has graduated from medical school various times and works at Kennewick General Hospital.
Bran Cornick, The Marrok, is the Alpha werewolf of all the werewolf packs in North America. He took Mercy in when she was a toddler and helped raise her. It is because of him and Mercy's foster parents that she knows more about werewolves than she has to.
Zee, aka Siebold Adelbertsmiter (Adelbertkrieger), is the fae who previously owned the garage Mercy runs. He is a Metallzauber (though he calls himself a "Gremlin"), a fae with an affinity for metals. He moved to the United States from Germany long before the term "gremlin" came into being.
Darryl, a werewolf who is Adam's second in the pack and mated to a werewolf named Auriele. He is a mixture African American and Chinese bloodlines, and a lead scientist at a research center.
Warren, a homosexual werewolf (who is dating Kyle, a well-known divorce attorney) and one of Mercy's closest friends. He is also Adam's third in the pack,though he should be his second.
Ben, a werewolf exiled from London for being a suspect in a series of brutal rapes that placed unwanted and unneeded attention on the London pack. Adam accepted him into his pack, and he was soon initiated as an official member of the Tri-Cities pack. Ben is described briefly in "Moon Called" and "Blood Bound" as being a sexist character. It was only later in the series that we discover that he was abused as a child, which could possibly be the cause of his prejudice against women. By the end of the third novel, "Iron Kissed", Ben proves to be a different person than he portrays, and confides in Adam about how he wants to be friends with Mercy, but doesn't know how to, as she is female.
Kyle Brooks, a human and the best divorce attorney in North America. Kyle is one of Mercy's closest friends as well as Warren's boyfriend. --Qwertyiop1533554 (talk) 23:43, 31 October 2011 (UTC)Ash
Books
As of August 2011, there are six books in this series, but Briggs has announced plans to publish nine installments in this series.[4] [5]
The sixth book titled River Marked is the most recently published.[6] It was announced on Patricia Brigg's website on September 8, 2010 that she had taken a journey to a town called Mary's Hill, a place rich with Native American history, to help her as she writes the sixth Mercedes Thompson book, River Marked. River Marked was released in March 2011.[6][7]
Moon Called (2006)
The story begins when a fifteen year old teenage werewolf named Mac comes to Mercy's garage looking for work. One night Mercy sees Mac struggling with two people, one of whom is a werewolf. She saves Mac, killing the werewolf while the other man gets away. She learns Mac's real name is Alan MacKenzie Frazier and he had escaped from some rogue werewolves who had kidnapped him for some vague drug experiments. Mercy calls Adam for help and he takes Mac to his home. Later that night Mercy is awakened by voices outside her house. She opens her front door to find Mac dead on her doorstep. She rushes to Adam's house to find Adam badly injured and fighting with another werewolf in his wolf form. Mercy shoots the other werewolf. Adam's daughter Jesse has been kidnapped by the rogues. Mercy returns Adam, and Mac's body, to the Montana enclave of the North American werewolves, where she was raised.
In Montana, she meets up with Bran and Samuel. Samuel, a doctor and more dominant than Adam, helps him recover. Samuel returns with them to the Tri-Cities. There they at the house of Adam's "Third", Warren. Once there, Mercy and Samuel find some vampire involvement in the events that had taken place at Adam's house. They seek the help of Stephen, local vampire and friend of Mercy. Stephen takes them to the vampire clan "seethe" to meet their leader, Marsilla. After a short confrontation with Marsilia, Samual is bitten and they flee. Mercy learns being a "walker", she is immune to vampire magic.
Returning home, Mercy is attacked by three werewolves. One of them, David Christansen, was a friend of Adam when they were both still human. Christansen and his group split off from the rogue werewolves over the amount of bloodshed. Christansen tells Mercy the rogue group is led by Gerry, a member of Bran's pack. Gerry is trying to prevent Bran's plan to go public about the existence of werewolves (the Fae revealed themselves to the mortal world several years ago.) By kidnapping Jesse, Gerry hoped to blackmail Adam (who also opposes going public) into fighting Bran for leadership of all North American werewolves. Mercy, David and his group rescue Adam and Jesse from the rogues, in the process killing all the rogue werewolves. During the rescue operation Samuel kills Gerry, in the process learning that Gerry's true motive was to save his father from Bran. Gerry's father, a recently turned werewolf, is unable to cope with his new killing nature. Bran, as leader of all werewolves, would be responsible for destroying Gerry's father before he became an insane killer.
The end of the book leaves Mercy confused over her developing feelings for Adam and her rekindled feelings for Samuel. Her relationship with Samuel was part of why she left the Montana enclave in the first place.
Blood Bound (2007)
In Blood Bound we learn that Mercy is somewhat resistant to some magics such as vampire compulsion or werewolf pack control. Because of her magic resistance, vampire friend Stefan calls upon her to help him deliver a message to a visiting vampire who has failed to pay the proper respects to Stefan’s seethe. Stefan is fearful that the visiting vampire has some type of magic that can compel him to do things he wouldn’t ordinarily do and that Mercy is hopefully immune and will be able to report back to his seethe should anything happen to him.
Stephen takes Mercy to a hotel in her coyote form to see the visiting vampire. There things go wrong when they find that the vampire is a sorcerer controlled by a demon and he has killed everyone in the hotel. The vampire puts Stefan in a trance like state and makes Stefan believe that he has killed a human too, but Mercy is not affected by it. She saves Stefan and herself by biting the vampire.
She awakes at her house with Samuel and Stefan attending her. Stefan again asks for her help so that she could testify what had happened in front of his vampire Marsilla. Stefan takes her to his seethe along with Warren and Ben as Mercy's escorts. They testify while sitting on a magical chair which senses truth. Though Stefan is spared from punishment, he is asked to destroy the possessed sorcerer-vampire. He chooses another vampire, Daniel, to help him.
Adam sends Ben and Warren to help Stefan but bans Mercy from joining them. After some days they find Warren badly injured outside a club with Stefan, Daniel and Ben missing. The next day Mercy finds Adam and Samuel missing too. Meanwhile, Marsilia asks for her help and assigns one of her strongest vampires, Andre, to assist her. As a "walker", she is able to see and talk to ghosts. With the help of ghosts and some research on her part she finds the sorcerer's lair. She and Andre go into the lair to find that Daniel is dead, but Ben, Samuel, Adam and Stefan are alive and imprisoned. Mercy is badly injured in the fight to kill the sorcerer-vampire.
Mercy finds that Andre was the vampire that turned the sorcerer's, but Andre is left unpunished by Marsilla. Marsilla wants Andre to turn another sorcerer for her personal gains. Considering Andre responsible for all of the sorcerer's actions, she finds his lair with the help of ghosts and kills him. Stephan and another vampire, Wolf, cover her crime from Marsilla by framing the cadre of humans Andre kept home for feeding purposes.
At the end of the book, Mercy is still confused by her feelings for both Adam and Samuel and, complicated by Stefan who has feelings for her as well.[8]
Iron Kissed (2008)
In Iron Kissed we find Mercy at a crossroads in her relationships with the two men in her life, Samuel and Adam Hauptman. Both are dominant werewolves, although Samuel has no pack and Adam is the alpha of the Tri Cities werewolf pack. Mercy must decide which one she loves more because Adam has declared his feelings for her and her lack of definitive response is weakening the clan.
When her mechanic mentor, Siebold Adelbertsmiter (AKA Zee), calls upon her to repay a favor to the Fae, she is grateful for the distraction. There have been several unsolved murders on the Fae reservation and the magic which the fae can call on without incurring the wrath of the Gray Lords has been insufficient in finding the perpetrator. Mercy is called in to use her nose to see if she can find an identifying scent of the murderer.
She does and completes her task only to receive a call that Zee has been accused of murder himself. Zee is a surrogate father figure for Mercy and the possibility that he will be a scapegoat spurs her into finding out who is the real murderer. This investigation triggers a whole set of terrible consequences for Mercy.[9]
Bone Crossed (2009)
Bone Crossed begins with the arrival of Stefan, Mercy's vampire friend, on the floor of her living room, flayed, starved, and barely recognizable. He warns her that Marsilia, the Mistress of his seethe, is aware of her involvement in the death of one of her get, Andre, and tells her to run. The Mistress has had a pair of crossed bones placed on her door, magicked so they can't be removed, as a sign to other vampires and minions that she is a traitor. While Stefan is recovering, he accidentally floods Mercy's mind with his, reliving the deaths of his menagerie, and Adam brings her into the pack to snap her out of it. The vampires place a magical trap in Uncle Mike's, the fae tavern, that kills one of the pack, though she is revived. The wolves need to negotiate peace with Marsilia, and Mercy needs to get out of town.
Amber, a friend of Mercy's from college shows up to ask Mercy if she will come to their house to investigate her son's claims that there is a ghost in the house. Mercy discusses it with Adam, Samuel, and Bran who tell her that there is only one powerful supernatural creature in Amber's home city of Spokane, the vampire Jim Blackwood, called The Monster. They believe that he will not notice her, so she will be safe there. Unfortunately he is one of Amber's husband's biggest clients, and he has an invite to the house, including dinner the first day she's there. In the two nights she is at the house, he bites her and exchanges blood with her twice, claiming her as one of his "sheep," of which she learns Amber is another. The second night she wakes in the middle of the night to find that Stefan is there, and Amber's son Chad is in a room full of frost, frozen to his bedclothes, and not breathing. They save Chad and advise the family to run, heading back to the Tri-Cities. Stefan exchanges blood with Mercy to claim her from Blackwood.
When they get back two more rebellious vampires from the seethe, not made by the Mistress and not easily disposed of because of who their maker is, come to Stefan separately to ask him to help them remove Marsilia. He refuses, keeping his word to the Mistress. Shortly after both have made their requests Marsilia summons the wolves, and Mercy to a 'meeting' to discuss peace. At the meeting she questions Bernard and Estelle, the rebellious vampires, with an old chair that tells truth. She then questions Mercy and Stefan, her questions proving that he is no longer hers: this makes his testimony that of a third party, and she uses it to have Estelle killed and Barnard returned to his maker.
Almost immediately after that, Amber's husband, Corban, appears, tasers Mercy, and brings her to Blackwood because The Monster has Chad. He has killed Amber, but keeps her corpse around to do chores. Mercy, Chad, Corban, and a tree fae called Oakman are kept in cages under the house. Blackwood has the talent that he can absorb the power of whatever he feeds on. The Oakman allows him to be active in daylight, and Mercy's walker blood will allow him to command ghosts. Stefan finds her, and she convinces him to save Chad, on the condition that should she survive he will be forgiven for the two people he had killed in Blood Bound. The fae walking stick shows up and Mercy gives it to the Oakman on his request. She escapes her cage, and while she is fighting Blackwood, the fae throws it at the vampire's back, staking him. They return to the Tri-Cites, where Stefan learns that Marsilia did not kill his people, but merely cut his ties to them so that he would think them dead. He agrees to return to the seethe.
Silver Borne (2010)
Mercy receives a call from Tad, Zee's son asking if she has spoken to Phin, the bookstore owner who had lent her the book on the fae. Phin left a disturbing message on Tad's phone. She goes to investigate but does not get a lead. Meanwhile, she goes on a date to a bowling alley with Adam when she starts to hear voices in her head. Mercy doesn't understand what is going on, freezes Adam out and Adam drops her home.
When she comes back to her trailer, she receives a phone call from Samuel. When he crashed his car into the bridge, he was attempting to drown himself and the other car on the road happened to be a cop, who saved Samuel from the suicide attempt. Samuel's wolf, "Sam" had taken over because he doesn't want to die, although Samuel does. Samuel's wolf is now in control, which is very dangerous.
They go back to the house and the next day, she takes him to her garage. Gabriel and his family are there cleaning the garage. His sisters love the white wolf that is Sam. While Zee, Mercy and Gabriel are in the garage, the family is held at gun-point by a bounty hunter who has a "warrant" out for a werewolf. Mercy disarms the man, and calls her friend Tony. They come to the conclusion that the warrant was a fake, unbeknownst to the bounty hunter. Gabriel's mother forbids Gabriel from working at the garage anymore, because she does not want him involved with the problems that seem to follow Mercy around. Bran calls Mercy, and Mercy tells him that she cannot talk to him about Samuel, because she knows that werewolves, whose wolf is in charge are to be put down by the Marrok or the Alpha. Charles, Samuel's brother, tells Mercy that because Samuel's wolf is not violent at the moment, what will happen is that eventually Samuel will disappear and only the wolf will remain, and the wolf cannot survive by itself and will drop dead. He tells Mercy to try to find something that will bring Samuel back to them.
Later, Mercy and Sam, still in wolf form, go to the bookstore where they meet Phin's great-great-great-great-great-great fae grandmother. But Mercy is unsure of what has happened to Phin, and therefore she does not trust this person. Mercy brings the book that Phin had lent her to Kyle's house. After hours, she and Sam break into the bookstore and they see past the glamour. They notice that things are destroyed and she smells blood. They go to the basement, when they are ambushed by a fae. Sam destroys the fae. As she is driving home, she is blinded by the sound of Adam yelling her name, and her mate bond had been broken. When she gets to her house, she realized that her house was destroyed. She runs to the pack who are shocked that she is alive. Adam had believed that she was in the trailer when it exploded, and he ran in to save her, followed by Ben. Adam, who was in such despair, had broken the bond with his heartbreak. Both were seriously burned, although Adam received most of the burns and was taken to the hospital.
When she gets to the hospital, she realizes that Adam is shifting to wolf because he was spooked by the doctor. She runs in, and when Adam realizes that she is alive, shifts back to human, which was very painful because he transititoned twice, and received very bad burns which were not healing because of the shifts. Everyone realizes that Sam the wolf is in control, but the situation called for Samuel, and he shifted back to help Adam. After questioning, Ben and Mercy realize that Mary Jo saw that Mercy had left the trailer with Sam, and that she had seen the fae looking to blow up the trailer and didn't stop it. Ben was angered because she knew that Mercy wasn't there, and still let Adam run into the burning trailer. She had had verbal altercations with Mercy because she was coyote.
On the way home, Ben told Mercy to find out who was out patrolling with Mary Jo, because Adam would never send just one. Once everyone is back at Adam's house, the next morning, Daryl and his wife are fixing breakfast when Mary Jo comes down and spats words at Mercy again. Mary Jo tells Mercy that Adam is too good for Mercy, and also too good for Mary Jo who is a fireman. She believes he deserves better. Mercy then finds out that Henry was the person who was out with Mary Jo the night before. Adam comes in, revealing that he had heard it all. Mary Jo then tells Mercy and Adam that it was Paul and Henry who was talking to Mercy through the pack bonds on the night of the bowling alley disaster. Adam reveals that Paul had challenged Adam for the Alpha position. Mercy tells Mary Jo that this was Henry's plan. Henry came into Adam's house the night before. Before Adam could ask why Henry was not guarding the trailer, Henry pretended to be shocked when the trailer was on fire. He let Adam run into the trailer and get hurt so that Paul could challenge Adam while hurt.
The fight between Adam and Paul is brief. Adam wins, and tells Paul to thank Mary Jo, because he would've killed Paul if Paul came at him with full force. Henry then trys to challenge Adam, but before he can get the words out, he is shot through the throat by Mercy and her gun.
Once Adam goes back to bed, when Mercy is downstairs with Daryl, Jesse and others from the pack. She receives a phone call from the Fairy Queen who has kidnapped Gabriel and brought him to her world. Mercy put the call on speaker phone, so the pack can hear. She has Mercy promise not to tell the pack, or the fae what is going on. She offers a trade. Gabriel for the book, which is otherwise known as Silver Borne.
Later, after Zee is informed by Daryl, since Mercy is unable to tell him herself, he locates Phin's great-great-great grandmother. He tells Mercy to come meet him at the garage and not to bring wolves, because she is deathly afraid of them. Mercy and Jesse go, but Sam tags along. Mercy tells him to wait in the car, while she and Jesse go in. She meets Alicia who is Phin's fae grandmother. Later, Samuel in human form enters and Alicia has a panic attack. Turns out that Samuel met her many centuries ago. She had a special gift to create items from silver. Her father who was an evil fae abused her badly and forced her to make objects of power. He would torture her with fae hounds, who can kill people by staring at them. Eventually, the werewolves were called and destroyed her father, but in the process, she was mauled by some of them which included Samuel. Samuel was in love with her, but was not able to tell her who he really was and therefore left her alone. Now, Mercy realizes that Samuel still loves Alicia, who's real name is Ariana, which is Welsh for Silver. This gives Samuel a reason to live. The five of them follow a trail to Gabriel and they enter the Fairy Queen's realm. Zee stays behind to hold the opening up, but can only do so for an hour. He tells them that once the opening closes, the time in the realm does not match the real world, and five minutes can be considered three days.
They enter and find that the Fairy Queen is holding humans under thrall, which is forbidden by the Gray Lords. They locate Gabriel and Phin, who is still alive but was tricked by the Queen. She decides to play a game, and Ariana has to hold a shifting fae for 3 minutes. Every 3 minutes, she will free one of the 6 (which includes Phin, Jesse, Samuel and Gabriel) in the group, with Mercy being last. The fae shifts from fire, to ice, to smoke, to her father, to the werewolf, but the last shift is the hellhound, and she lets go, leaving Mercy trapped in the realm.
The Fairy Queen tries to thrall Mercy with the choker that the other humans are wearing, but she realizes it does not work. The black witch that she has under her thrall places a spell on her, and she wakes up and realizes that she told the Queen everything about the book and where it was hidden. Her bond with Adam has been broken by the Queen. When Mercy is within her head, she hears Bran talk to her. He shows her how the pack works, and helps her locate the bond with Adam. She re-bonds with Adam, and Adam now knows how to find her.
Later, it is revealed that although it only seemed like a few days to Mercy, it was actually one month. Bran was trying to locate Mercy in the realm but had no luck, until the walking stick appeared in his hand. This was how he was able to reach her in the realm. It is shown that Samuel and Ariana have begun a relationship, and Adam and Mercy have rekindled their flame.
River Marked (2011)
Car mechanic Mercy Thompson has always known there was something different about her, and not just the way she can make a VW engine sit up and beg. Mercy is a shape shifter, a talent she inherited from her long-gone father. She's never known any others of her kind. Until now.
An evil is stirring in the depths of the Columbia River-one that her father's people may know something about. And to have any hope of surviving, Mercy and her mate, the Alpha werewolf Adam, will need their help.
Comic adaptation
Dabel Brothers Productions is currently publishing a series featuring Mercy called Mercy Thompson: Homecoming. The series is illustrated by freelance illustrator Francis Tsai, and it features an original story written by Briggs and Dabel Brothers Managing Editor David Lawrence.[4]
Film
A press release on October 2, 2008 from Publishers Weekly revealed that 50 Canon Entertainment has optioned the right to at least the first three Mercy books. 50 Canon is the production company of Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and purchases prices are reported to be in the mid six-figures.
Reviews
Moon Called has been called "excellent... thoroughly satisfying" by Kim Harrison and said "expect to be spell bound" by Lynn Viehl.
"A new and dazzling world of werewolves, shape-shifters, witches and vampires."
- —Lynn Viehl, USA TODAY bestselling author of the Darkyn series.
"Plenty of twists and turns... kept me entertained from its deceptively innocent beginning to its can't-put-it-down end."
- —Kim Harrison, USA TODAY bestselling author of Every Which Way but Dead
References
- ^ "Best Sellers: Hardcover Fiction". New York Times. April 10, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/books/bestseller/besthardfiction.html?ref=bestseller. Retrieved April 26, 2010.
- ^ "Best Sellers: Hardcover Fiction". New York Times. April 15, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/books/bestseller/besthardfiction.html?ref=bestseller. Retrieved April 26, 2010.
- ^ "Best Sellers: Hardcover Fiction". New York Times. April 23, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/books/bestseller/besthardfiction.html?ref=bestseller. Retrieved April 26, 2010.
- ^ a b "Mercy Thompson: Homecoming Preview". Dabel Brothers.com. http://www.dabelbrothers.com/index.php?categoryid=16&p2_articleid=21. Retrieved 2009-02-05.[dead link]
- ^ http://www.hurog.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=95terhfrqvd4i4qgavp18hbsv2&topic=4833.0#post_book13
- ^ a b http://www.patriciabriggs.com/index.shtml
- ^ "Book Review & Giveaway: River Marked by Patricia Briggs". The Book Smugglers. http://thebooksmugglers.com/2011/03/book-review-giveaway-river-marked-by-patricia-briggs.html. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
- ^ Briggs, Patricia (2007). Blood Bound. pp. 304. ISBN 978-0441014736.
- ^ Briggs, Patricia (2008). Iron Kissed. pp. 304. ISBN 978-0441015665.
External links
Categories:- Fantasy novel series
- Werewolves in written fiction
- Contemporary fantasy novels
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