Night Broken is about Adam’s ex-wife Christy calling and telling him that she fell for a guy who’s now stalking her and killing people. Adam – being alpha and needing to take care of people around him – says he’ll help. The only thing? She wants to stay at his house. AKA with MERCY. Tension is high when Christy comes in. She’s exactly how she sounds in past books: totally unaware of people around her, manipulative, and a shitty parent. Not only that (because this is a Mercy Thompson book, how can only one bad thing happen at a time?) Beauclaire, the grey lord who was like “Humans suck, you don’t have control over the fae so go die in a small hole” comes to Mercy and says “Yeah… that walking stick? Want it NOW or we’ll have severe problems” so Mercy has to find Coyote. NOT ONLY THAT! She hides a convict to help her find the stalker.Let’s start with MercyFirst I want to say that Mercy is one of the most bad ass characters I’ve ever read in a book. She’s quick on her feet, kind, compassionate, witty, hard, and protective of her family. Christy annoys the crap out of her and before reading I kept thinking “how is this bad ass character going to handle a small manipulative woman?” Turns out very well. In a way I was proud of Mercy.

Since the first book I feel like she’s grown as an individual. Mercy is so adorable with Adam. They can’t stop touching each other; like a kiss to the neck, caressing the back of the their hands, holding each other… it makes my heart warm. She wasn’t like that in the first few books. I felt like Mercy was colder mostly because she didn’t have someone to love at the time. Even though Christy has taken over their household and Mercy want’s to throw her out, they find time to be together. Not ONCE did they fight and I found that admirable.

She has luck on her side when fighting bad guys, but I have to wonder… when will her luck end? It’s no secret Mercy is a Too Lucky To Live character. Adam himself says her survival is mostly luck sometimes (which is true) but I really take that to heart. I mean, she has a MAJOR injury in the last scene in the book by Coyote fixes it in a snap? Luck (or some might say convenience) is on her side, and I wonder what will happen after it’s used up.

Now let’s talk about side characters

Adam: I loved that he was in most scenes with Mercy. In the last book he said she didn’t like cuddling in public, but in Night Broken she was fine with it which I found nice. They’re both such a solid team and really have each others backs. All Adam wants is to protect Mercy, but instead of locking her inside the closet he trusts her enough to fight battles. He’s the best man for Mercy and I’m very glad they found each other.

Christy: I don’t know how Mercy didn’t punch Christy. She was basically taking over the household and shunning Mercy out. She’s known to be manipulative by always making people feel bad for her. Christy is always the victim in every situation, and she’ll do or say anything for it to stay like that. It’s sad to see Jesse, Christy’s daughter, hurting over how cold her mother is.

Tad: In my opinion he’s the most adorable character in the book. We finally get to see another side of him and my admiration turned into a full blown crush. If I could date anyone in the series, I’d pick Tad no doubt.

Honey: She’s still hurting from her mates sudden death. Through her we see a slight shift in attitude to Mercy. I find this to be one step of the haters of the pack accepting her.

Samuel: Samuel is… oh wait. He’s only in like two scenes. DARN IT! Bring him baaaaaack Patricia. *sniff sniff*

The writing

As said before there’s a shift in Patricia’s writing. It’s not only in Mercy’s character, but in the dialogue as well. I find the humor to be more sarcastic, the characters having depth to them, and it’s definitely a step up from Young Adult which is what I usually read.

One of the questions I’ve had once Mercy mated Adam was: does Mercy have the same aging process as wolfs since she’s a supernatural being herself? That was answered in this book and I’m not happy with the answer. It turns out she does age unlike the average werewolf and will grow old. I was hoping that wasn’t the case since I’m all about happily ever afters. She’ll age slowly since she’s a direct child of Coyote, but it will still happen *tear*

In Frost Burned we have Adam’s point of view and I was screaming like a fangirl because it brought something else to the table. I was hoping that Patricia would write him as a POV again but it wasn’t the case. It’s a little disappointing, but there’s still more books coming up so you never know if it will happen again!

Sidenote: Patricia apparently watches Avatar: The Last Airbender and Korra. She received 50 cool points for the references.

I give this book a 5/5 stars. It’s the best of Mercy Thompson and I’m so happy to have received a copy. Thank you Penguin for the chance!