River Marked by Patricia Briggs

One of my favorite authors is Patricia Briggs and her stories have action, drama, suspense, fantasy, and some romance. The book I just finished is called River Marked, it is book six in her Mercy Thompson series. It is amazing and a great story! Read it!!! The reason why it is so successful is because she does a lot of research into making her urban fantasy. She utilizes tall tales from native americans, vampires, shape changers, fairies, and more. A book based in today's world that when humans coexist with fantasy type creatures. It is something new and exciting and a break from vampires. There are vampires included in the series, but the story is set around the character Mercy Thompson. She calls herself a walker and as a walker she has the ability to turn into a coyote whenever she would like, though it wastes more energy if she shifts a lot, her senses are heightened, and her strength is more powerful than a humans. Mercy is a mechanic and runs her own garage she lives next to an alpha werewolf whom she eventually marries and she always seems to get into trouble with danger in each book, but always wins against her enemies, so far. The plot line and story I immediately fell in love with because I am always caught reading science fiction and fantasy books. In the book River Marked Mercy and the alpha wolf, Adam, are thrown a surprise wedding because Mercy isn't the type to plan out and be all girly about that kind thing. So her mom, her friends, and the wolf pack throw one for her and Adam and they end up going to a campground next to a river for their honeymoon. During this time she meets another of her kind and his name is Coyote. Coyote is an ancient shape-changer that mainly only the native americans spin stories and know about. She learns more about her dad and how he died from Coyote. Turns out something bad happens and Coyote, his shape-changing friends, Mercy, and Adam have to fight off the ancient magical monster. In the end Mercy gets a little beat up, but everything turns out alright. The fact that Briggs incorporates tall tales and native american history captures me the most. It feeds the story more pizzazz and interests the reader further into reading. She is a well known author and extraordinary writer and I hope to read more of her books.