Patricia Briggs: Night Broken

[varjohaltia]

I'm a big fan of Patricia Briggs, and I'm willing to buy pretty much anything she's released because I've always enjoyed the read. Her books are entertainment, perhaps not the deepest or best of literature, but fun. The Mercy Thompson series has been one of my favorites in the paranormal or urban fantasy genres, so my expectations were pretty much set for the eight book in the series. Unfortunately Night Broken fell short of my expectations. Mercy is running the show, and everyone else just sort of tags along and has little agency of their own — in that respect it reminded me a little of the McGuire's October Day series. Not only that, but the pacing and structure of the story was off; the final resolution was almost anticlimactic and then the book just ends. There is also another plot arch with a romantic rival of sorts that I assume will develop over the upcoming releases, but here it's just set up and then doesn't do anything. The prose is competent and pleasant to read as always, but the book being largely a one-woman show with a dubious and not entirely satisfying plot left me a bit cold. Two and a half stars.

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

This is one of my less favorite in the series, too -- I think only River Marked worked less well for me. I found the whole thing with Christie pretty annoying, too (I hope it's not something that will keep getting dragged on in the subsequent books, because even one was enough...)

[varjohaltia.livejournal.com]

Precisely. Sure she'll be a challenge and tension and all of that for storytelling, but that whole subplot is just annoying. If it is a thing in book nine, it's going to be a major negative for me.