On the Prowl

TITLE: ON THE PROWL
AUTHOR: VARIOUS
GENRE: PARANORMAL ROMANCE ANTHOLOGY
RATING: 3 STARS

This book is a Paranormal Romance Anthology. For those of you not familiar with anthologies, it's a collection of short stories. Typically they are designed so that you'll get it for the stories by the authors that you already love, and then you read the stories by the authors you've never read before. Hopefully, you enjoy those other stories, and then the author might get some new readers! That might not be exactly what the purpose of anthologies is, but that's always been my opinion! I have never really been a fan of anthologies. If I enjoy the story, I never feel like it's long enough. I'd much rather read a full length novel than something so short. But this month, my online book club challenged us to read a few anthologies cover to cover. So, here's my review of the first one!

Alpha and Omega by Patricia Briggs - I have loved this short story since the first time I read it. On the Prowl is the only anthology I've ever bought because of this story! In this story, Briggs takes a character, Charles, who plays a minor part in her first Mercedes Thompson book, and gives him his own story. It's the prequel to a spin-off series called Alpha and Omega. Although it's a different series, I do think that you really need to read Moon Called first or else you just wont understand what in the world Charles is doing in Chicago. But this is a great beginning to another amazing series. Love it, love it, love it! And always something great to pick up for a quick re-read.

Inhuman by Eileen Wilks - This was a really good story. I was impressed that Wilks was able to do enough world building in a short story so that those of us that have never read anything by her weren't completely lost. From what I understand this is the middle of a series, but not the same characters as the other books. I'll probably be adding the first book of the series to my TBR pile. But I'd rather see more of these characters, and I'm pretty sure they don't really play a major part of the other books, but I could be wrong about that!

Buying Trouble by Karen Chance - I've been a Karen Chance fan for a while, so I enjoyed this story. It's not one that you have to read her others books to get the characters and the plot, which is really nice! Although it does add some back story to Midnight's Daughter. So that was fun. Overall I really enjoyed this, and think that even those that have never read Karen Chance would enjoy it.

Mona Lisa Betwining by Sunny - I just didn't get it! I was lost most of the time. There was zero world building for those of us that have never read anything by this author, and I'm pretty sure that this story was in the middle of a series of books. Because I could tell that there was a lot of back story that I didn't get at all! If you have read her books, this was probably a great story, but not recommended if you are just trying the author out to see if you want to read her books.

I had a really hard time decided what rating to give this book. If the story by Sunny hadn't been in it, I'd probably give it a 4. But that one story really brought it down. So, I had to go with a 3.

Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs

TITLE: BLOOD BOUND
AUTHOR: PATRICIA BRIGGS
GENRE: URBAN FANTASY
RATING: 5 STARS

This is the second book in the Mercedes Thompson series. See review of Moon Called

During the events of Moon Called, Mercy becomes indebted to a local vampire, Stefan. Blood Bound starts out with him calling in that favor. What seems like a simple job of accompanying Stefan while he delivers a message to another vampire, turns into something a lot more dangerous. And Mercy isn't very happy when the werewolf pack decides to step in and help with the situation in order to keep her out of harms way.

This book just cemented my love of this series. Briggs does an amazing job with Mercy's continuing story. I loved watching as she becomes more involved with the local pack. Some of my favorite scenes were seeing Mercy claim her place among them, while still trying to maintain her distance from the entire supernatural world. The love triangle that started in Moon Called was advanced a bit, but overall it was just a small side story. But I can easily see things heating up in the next book! It was also very interesting to see more of the local vampire clan and how they operate.

Patricia Briggs knocks another one out of the park with a great story that grabs your attention and just holds on!

Moon Called by Patricia Briggs

TITLE: MOON CALLED
AUTHOR: PATRICIA BRIGGS
GENRE: URBAN FANTASY
RATING: 5 STARS

This book is a fantastic start to an Urban Fantasy series by Patricia Briggs. The focus is on Mercedes Thompson, a walker/were-coyote. Although she is one of a kind, she finds herself surrounded by other members of the hidden supernatural world. Mercy was raised by werewolves, but left their community when she was only 16 years old. No matter what she does, Mercy seemed to keep getting pulled into the business of the werewolves, vampires and the fae.

Briggs created a fantastic, strong, kick-ass female lead in Mercy. She never lets anyone push her around. Not even her neighbor and friend, Adam, the Alpha of the local werewolf pack. This novel has a great cast of characters that you can easily identify with. One of the things that I really enjoyed was seeing the pack dynamic. I’ve always been interested in the way that animals interact with each other, and I think that Patrcia Briggs did a great job of incorporating the way that a true pack of wolves would be.

"Moon Called" is a very edgy Urban Fantasy, with just the perfect mix of romance and humor inserted. This was a great, fun, fast reading book. The perfect start to a series. For those paranormal fans out there that are hooked on Vamps, and don’t think that you would ever like werewolves, try this book! You’ll love it!