Even though I don't generally like them, I can handle an unreliable narrator. What I don't like is a manipulative author. Liar is an enjoyable read, but you end up irritated with it in the end. Therefore, I don't know whether to recommend it or not.
For the most part I found City of Bones absorbing, yet predictable. There's one surprise I didn't see coming but should have, though. The protagonist, Clary, turns 16 during the course of the novel. I hope she catches onto things quicker as the series progresses and she gets older.
The Mercedes Thompson series may have joined the paranormal romance genre as Mercy joined with Alpha werewolf Adam Hauptman and took his name. Ugh. Really? I know there are lots of good reasons women take their husbands names, and I don't mean to diss them, but I just don't see this bad ass coyote shapeshifter auto mechanic having a drive to do so. Plus she's part American Indian, and aren't most tribes matrilineal?
Our coyote shapeshifter is out of the love triangle business and head over heels over her alpha mate. Unfortunately his pack isn't quite as gaga over her. As usual some fae are gunning for her. I know my description makes the book sound silly, but it is actually one of my favorite installments the Mercy Thompson series.
Kylie has is an unidentified supernatural. Is she fae? Descended from the Gods? Why can she see ghosts? So at 16 she’s at a camp full of supes to figure out and perhaps come to embrace her paranormal identity. Along the way, she’s going to need to decide between the potentially rogue werewolf bad boy and the fairy, who is gifted with people able to manipulate and ease feelings in humans and animals.
Okay, I was super-stressed and considered removing the stressor from my life. Instead of working on the conference presentation I've been worrying about I borrowed the fourth in the Mercedes Thompson series from the library when I returned the third. A friend talked me down from my panic, but I already had the book, so I figured I may as well snarf it up. I also wrote the first part of my presentation.
The only vacationy thing I’ve done on my staycation is this pleasure read. The third in the Mercedes Thompson series has Mercy doing more brave, rash things and getting herself into and out of some bad situations, with a little help from her wolfy friends. As in Sookie Stackhouse’s world, the fae are kind of dicks.
Sookie has long since lost her innocence, but in each book of the Southern Vampire Mysteries, she becomes more resigned and sometimes in harmony with the the motivations and mores of the supernatural company she keeps. Vamps are hot, but they’re also a little...bloodthirsty, not to mention unfeeling. Sookie is neither of those things, but she’s getting more accustomed to vamp justice.
The second installment of Briggs's Mercy Thompson series is as compelling as the first. Or maybe it isn't, because it's not new. And the multiple love interests are starting to show themselves. Not only is Mercy about to find herself caught between a werewolf and a vampire (yawn!), she's also torn between two werewolves. The other thing I found a little annoying this time around is the introduction of one of Mercy's other skills: talking to ghosts. It seems totally inorganic, both to the plot and to the universe Briggs has created.
