[Book Review] Winter Lost

Winter Lost (Mercy Thompson #14) / Patricia Briggs

Previously Reviewed 
"In the supernatural realms, there are creatures who belong to winter. I am not one of them. But like the coyote I can become at will, I am adaptable.

My name is Mercy Thompson Hauptman, and my mate, Adam, is the werewolf who leads the Columbia Basin Pack, the pack charged with keeping the people who live and work in the Tri-Cities of Washington State safe. It’s a hard job, and it doesn’t leave much room for side quests. Which is why when I needed to travel to Montana to help my brother, I intended to go by myself.

But I’m not alone anymore.

Together, Adam and I find ourselves trapped with strangers in a lodge in the heart of the wilderness, in the teeth of a storm of legendary power, only to discover my brother’s issues are a tiny part of a problem much bigger than we could have imagined. Arcane and ancient magics are at work that could, unless we are very careful, bring about the end of the world. . . ."

A lot has changed for our coyote and the supernaturals in her life.  Ostensibly on their own and independent from the rest of werewolf society, things can get a little tricky for the Columbia Basin Pack.  They're getting pretty good at handling the new power balance and the weight of the extra responsibilities, but life has a funny way of surprising everyone.

Before now most of the growth we've seen Mercy and Adam undergo has been character driven, how their experiences shape who they are and how they handle situations.  We're starting to see impacts on the powers that they wield.  Magical scars have altered their abilities beyond the lessons learned through hardship, and Adam in particular seems to be on the cusp of something more, perhaps as a direct result of his independence from Bran.

Getting into the story proved rough at the start, a little too much jumping between narrators while also introducing new voices.  This isn't unusual, the Mercy Thompson novels have started shifting the voice more and more, but in this one I found it more jarring and confusing rather than enriching.  Things to settle down relatively quickly into mostly Mercy's voice with filler from Adam, trimming the less familiar voices to interstitials that remind us of the world ever moving forward.

Winter Lost is more a puzzle of a novel than a mystery.  Our protagonists have most of the pieces early on, and need to figure out how they fit together and how to look at things in the correct way.  It makes for an interesting progression as they work through the problem.  They still need to find clues and figure out who dunnit, but what's more relevant is how magic binds things together.

Where the novel shines is the interpersonal.  Highlighting the changes and personal growth of not just Mercy and Adam, but members of the pack and Zee.  It reminds us that the fae and other powers aren't human, even though they may wear humanity as a mask.

Overall the book does not disappoint in its core story, and leaves you wondering what's coming ahead.

Advance Reader Copy courtesy of Penguin RandomHouse in exchange for an honest review; changes may exist between galley and the final edition.

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