I received this book for free from my own shelves in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Source: my own shelves
Winter Lost
by
Patricia Briggs
urban fantasy in a Kindle edition that was published by Ace Books on June 18, 2024 and has 416 pages.
Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon, Audibles.
Other books by this author which I have reviewed include When Demons Walk, Steal the Dragon, Home Improvement: Undead Edition, Fair Game, Frost Burned, Night Broken, Shifting Shadows, Dead Heat, Bone Crossed, Silver Borne, River Marked, Hunting Ground, Iron Kissed, Cry Wolf, Fire Touched, Silence Fallen, Burn Bright, Storm Cursed, Smoke Bitten, Wild Sign, Soul Taken
Fourteenth in the Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series (twentieth in the overall Mercyverse) revolving around a Volkswagen mechanic who shapeshifts into a coyote. The focus is on a wedding that could end all weddings. It’s been a couple of months since Soul Taken, 13, and reading Winter Lost will have more meaning if you’ve read it. If you’re interested, there is a chronological listing of the Mercy Thompson books on my website.
My Take
Briggs is using third person global subjective point-of-view with perspectives from a number of characters, primarily Mercy, Adam, John Hunter, Jesse, Zane, Gary, Sherwood, Don, Baba Yaga, and Asibikaashi.
There’s an interesting tidbit, ahem, Adam reveals about how he and his pack moved from New Mexico to Washington state. Mmmm . . . Another interesting bit was the fights analysis Adam and Darryl go over. As for that wedding invitation — and who and who did not get one . . .
Adam is such an amazing man — that speech he makes about how much he could lose but the one thing he couldn’t survive the loss of . . . ohhh . . . I must say, I do enjoy their fights. Then there’s Mercy’s explanation about his dimple. Sigh.
Bonarata plays a very terrifying part in this, stalking Mercy and forcing her to listen to his kills. Another horror, not as awful though, is the fae hatred for Christmas and what it represents. Which really makes me wonder what Uncle Mike is thinking. Mary Jo has her own horrifying experience — being a fireman is not always the “glamorous” job we imagine, lol.
I can’t imagine, well, I suppose I’m not meant to, why a family would be cursed for all of time. Briggs brings the negative of it to life, and makes Zane sound like such a good guy. Speaking of time, I had no idea Honey had been around for so long!
Adam is also a good guy. He likes keeping people safe and is accepting of those who have chosen a different gender. Heck, he brought Warren into the pack, and they have evolved! A good bit of series arc.
Mercy is keeping the pack on its toes. She doesn’t want them to know about Bonarata’s calls, and they’re careful to track every one of them. The pack-fae situation in the Tri-Cities is also keeping everyone on their toes what with Mercy’s declaration in Fire Touched, 9. Mary Jo has her own personal drama with Renny’s proposal. That’ll be an interesting story to follow. I like Renny, and Mercy makes an excellent point. Sherwood is also keeping them on their toes what with all those holes in his memory and his magic. He has been playing with it, and they never know what will come of it.
There is a sex scene here that is so metaphorical — I re-read it several times as it was so much fun. Fun does abound to help relieve the tension — and Mercy’s reaction to one of Bonarata’s calls has me anticipating #15! Bless her heart.
The Soul Taker has certainly made changes that has everyone on tenterhooks: Zee has changed, Mercy’s inner self has been torn open, and Adam has a new awareness. Ymir has changed as well. He was such a nice, um, “elf” in Bone Crossed, 4, and in Winter Lost he is the complete opposite.
This is the first time I’ve heard “the Maestro” as a nickname for Adam. After events in Winter Lost, I can see why.
It did drive me nuts that Briggs kept flipping back and forth time-wise, but at least she warned me ahead of time in the chapter epigraphs. I was confused about Liam’s door. Briggs makes it sound rather threatening and yet . . . Liam is quite the interesting character with a history. I am suspecting that Briggs is setting us up with characters who will appear in future stories. I know, I keep saying this.
I sure hope that Zane and his people will be back! Them I like. That dating résumé that Zane sent Tammy, lol. Zane’s parents? Oh, boy.
There is action in Winter Lost, but not as much as I’d’ve liked. We do get another perspective on Adam’s normal business and Coyote is changing, yet this didn’t feel as much like a Mercy Thompson story as previous ones.
The Story
Yep, pigs fly. They must be since Mary Jo is asking Mercy for help! Mary Jo’s troubles fade however next to Gary Laughingdog’s cursed condition.
Searching out the reason for his curse will find Mercy and Adam battling an epic storm as they struggle to reach the resort where a marriage must take place lest Ragnarök begin.
”He risked the end of the world to get my head fixed.”
And Lugh’s spear is still following Mercy.
The Characters
Mercy Thompson Hauptman is a coyote shifter, walker, a VW mechanic, and the mate of Adam Hauptman, the alpha of the Columbia Basin pack who owns a security company. Jesse is Adam’s college-age daughter. Gabriel, Mercy’s high school boyfriend, is getting married! Coyote is the Native American avatar who is Mercy’s father, a.k.a. Joe Old Coyote. Gary Laughingdog, a.k.a. Johnson, is Mercy’s half-brother, another coyote shifter, working at the Mountain Home Guest Ranch in Montana where Mickey and Finn are the horses.
The Columbia Basin Pack is . . .
. . . the werewolf pack in the Tri-Cities of Washington state. The lone pack as the Marrok has disavowed them. They’re on their own in this perilous time. Adam’s second is Darryl Zao, a brilliant physicist, and his wife, Auriele, a schoolteacher; Warren Smith is Adam’s gay third and a private detective who’s mated to Kyle, a family lawyer; Mary Jo, a firefighter, has been dating Renny (Storm Cursed, 16), a deputy with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office; Ben is the British pack computer expert with the inventive vocabulary; Sherwood Post, a magic-using werewolf, is dominant to all of them, making life in the pack, um, interesting; George is a policeman; Zack is the pack submissive; Luke is a guard at the Coyote Ridge Corrections Center; Honey is a widowed werewolf in whom Gary is interested; Peter had been Honey’s beloved who still hangs about as a ghost (Frost Burned, 7); Joel is a presa Canario and volcano demon dog (Night Broken, 8); and, Aiden is the human child who escaped Underhill (Fire Touched).
Kazuch had been the Alpha of Honey’s Kraków pack.
The Fae
Zee Adelbertsmiter, a.k.a. the Dark Smith of Drontheim and Wayland Smith, is Mercy’s mentor and friend. And the former owner of what is now Mercy’s garage. Tad is Zee’s son, a half-fae with amazing power. He’s currently attending college as well as being Jesse’s bodyguard. Isabel “Izzy”, Jesse’s best friend, is on-again, off-again dating Tad. Uncle Mike is a green man, a fae, who owns a popular pub. Larry is the goblin king who has been a friend. Baba Yaga, a.k.a. Tracy LaBella of Intrasity Living, can be an interesting friend. Underhill is the fae land that presents as a young girl. Asibikaashi, a.k.a. Grandmother Spider, is a Native American. She’s an old friend of Coyote’s.
Stefan is a lone vampire and Mercy’s friend.
Ymir is a frost giant — he calls himself a snow elf — whom Mercy saved in Bone Crossed. It seems he can call wolves. John Hunter, alias the impetuous Hrímnir and a Jötnar who likes storms, is Ymir’s name-brother, and is the Winter King. Garmr is John’s dog who guards the gates of Hel.
Zane Heddar is from a family of billionaires. Ezra, a retired military MP and the avenger, and Leon, an inner city kid who pulled himself up and is now working on his internship and the caretaker, are his best friends. Zane’s parents, Andrew and Dylis Heddar, own the Heddar grocery store chain along with bits of two others. They’re not happy about the marriage. Tammy Vanderstaat is Zane’s fiancée and a social worker. Her dad is Peter, a policeman, with four others (Jimmy is one of them) who are part of Tammy’s family along with Auntie Elyna Gray O’Malley, a horror and romance writer, a vampire who is part of the family. Jack Rory O’Malley, an architect with a gun, is a ghost and Elyna’s husband (Shifting Shadows: “Gray”, 0.6). The cops moonlight in construction.
Others at Looking Glass Lodge, the Montana resort, include Able and Victoria Morgan, a brother and sister who love to winter hike in the mountains. Emily is part of the staff, pre-med. Liam Fellows is the night manager. Hugo is a custodian who works in the greenhouse.
The Marrok, a.k.a. Bran Cornick, is the Alpha of all of North America. The terrifying Charles Cornick is Bran’s younger son and the hand of justice (Alpha & Omega series).
Don Orson, a Special Forces sniper, is in charge of Hauptman Securities New Mexico branch. Vincent Ortega, a former corporal, and Kit had been on patrol.
Bonarata, the terrifying Lord of Night, is the Italian vampire who rules all of Europe and owns a good bit in North America. He’s pursuing Mercy — and not in a good way (Silence Fallen, 10). The Soul Taker, an ancient and sentient artifact, changed everything in Soul Taken. Aubrey had been one of the Soul Taker’s victims. Ragnarök is the Norse version of the end of the world.
John McCain had been a politician Adam admired. Elizaveta had been the witch the pack had had on retainer until Storm Cursed, 16. Jenny is a trucker. Wayne is the father of the family Adam and Mercy rescued. Tony is the pack’s unofficial liaison between the pack and the Kennewick PD. Trent Oliver and the idiotic Cam Hochstetler are officers with Kennewick.
The Cover and Title
The cover is chilly in its grays and whites with a gray-blue sky and snowflakes falling with thin columns of misty, lighter gray across the background. There’s a close-up of Mercy with her long dark hair, her head titled to the left as she holds an ice-encased lyre of gray and turquoise, wolfs’ heads on either end of the u-shape and a woman’s face at the bottom. I’m a little disappointed that Mercy is still in a black tank top even though it’s so danged cold, although a black jacket hangs from her forearms. At the very top is an info blurb in white with the author’s name immediately below it in a black shadowed pinkish red. Just below Mercy’s wrists is the title in a black shadowed white. At the very bottom is the series info in white.
The title, Winter Lost, refers to those travelers blown in by the north wind.
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