Title: Smoke Bitten
Author: Patricia Briggs
Series: Mercy Thompson #11
Pages: 351
When Underhill decides to create a door on Pack property, Mercy and the gang find themselves against a smoky enemy. The smoke creature can control anyone he bites and leave chaos and death in its wake. Now Mercy is racing against time to stop this smoke monster, and deal with some marital issues.
This book focuses on two main issues: the smoke monster unleashed by Underhill and Mercy and Adam’s relationship. Mercy and Adam are having some marital issues, but for a while, Mercy doesn’t really know what the problem is. She just knows that Adam is pushing her away and it is upsetting her. I don’t love when couples have marital problems, especially my favorite couple, but I actually think it worked really well for Mercy’s story. These two have an extremely strong bond but it’s not impervious, especially to their own fears and interfering magics. I liked that while she let Adam keep her at a distance for awhile in the hopes he would come to her first, she still never gave up on him and pushed him to open up. Mercy never gives up on those she loves, especially Adam and he really feels that in this installment.
This book is a slower pace than previous books, but I think it worked perfectly for this situation. The search for the smoke monster is not an easy one and it is slow going, but also fast because they are on a deadline. It was a bit like a mystery with Mercy trying to identify and stop this monster. It was a nice change of pace. The smoke monster was just a very interesting enemy because it’s just smoke, but it’s also very deadly. I love that Briggs continues to create fascinating enemies for Mercy to deal with.
Overall, this was a wonderful and different addition to the series. Even after twelve books, Briggs is able to keep the story fresh and exciting and make you long for more. I cannot wait for the next book and wonder what shenanigans Mercy will get into next.
Trigger warnings: on page attempted suicide; a murder-suicide; on page car accident
Previous books and reviews for the series:
Red-Haired Ash Reads 