Narrated by Lorelei King
I have long been a fan of the Mercy Thompson series, but it was with some trepidation that I loaded Smoke Bitten onto my iPod. The (US) politics in last year’s Storm Cursed made me stumble a bit and I was a little scared of what I might find here. I’m very happy to report that there is no US politics in Smoke Bitten – yay!! and the story is a return to best of the series in all the other ways too.
Warning: Spoilers for Storm Cursed follow
For those who have not listened to previous books in the series, Smoke Bitten is not the one to start with. The world-building is dense and detailed. This book, while containing a complete story, does not stand alone.
Smoke Bitten picks up a few weeks after the events of Storm Cursed. Something is wrong with Adam. Mercy is convinced Elizaveta did something to him in the last moments of her life. He’s almost totally shut down the mating bond between him and Mercy, and he’s avoiding her. They haven’t had sex in weeks. Mercy is feeling desolate. (The book actually begins with Adam’s ex-wife causing a little trouble but this doesn’t last long and does not factor into the rest of the book, so listeners need not worry about the “evil ex” plot here.)
Taking some space for herself outside of the house, Mercy heads back to her old house (at the back of the Pack’s property) and finds that Underhill has created a door in their backyard. “Tilly” (aka Underhill) can now come and go as she pleases. She apparently wants to see Aidan more regularly but there’s more going on as well.
Mercy has just decided she needs to go back and fight for Adam rather than passively accept what’s happening when she’s visited by a ghost and pretty soon we listeners become aware of some – as yet unknown – creature who is taking over the bodies of people and using them to kill. This creature is after Mercy and those close to her. There were some extremely tense moments when I was seriously worried for some of the regular cast. Not every familiar character survives in the Mercyverse after all. No spoilers for Smoke Bitten here though!
To add to Mercy’s troubles, there’s a rogue pack of werewolves in town, apparently looking to oust Adam and take over the Columbia Basin Pack.
To recap: Mercy is dealing with trouble in her marriage, a creature who is doing body-snatching and murdering, Tilly’s intrusion and what that might mean and intruder werewolves. To top it all off, Wulfe, the vampire, is stalking her. She’s got A LOT going on.
I don’t really want to talk too much more about the plot because it’s best experienced as the story unfolds. There was one thing which didn’t quite go anywhere – I assume there will be more about that in future books and something which is definitely going to be a thing in future books. Both things are interesting and make me keen to read what’s next. Also, I have a theory about Jesse – we’ll see how that pans out.
Towards the end, there’s a bit of a stutter as the tension ebbs nearly completely and then suddenly ramps up again. The structure of this part of the story was unusual and didn’t entirely work for me but I didn’t hate it either. I knew there was more book to come so I wasn’t taken by surprise.
Clever things were seeded throughout the audio which I didn’t (for the most part) pick up until Mercy pulled the threads together at the end. But they were all there on reflection and that’s a thing I really enjoyed.
The narration by Lorelei King was excellent. She’s narrated the entire Mercy series and is extremely familiar with the regular characters, their backstories and the Mercyverse. She has distinct voices for almost all of the cast and a wonderfully deep growl to her performance of Adam’s dialogue. There’s a very good German accent for Zee and a not-too-shabby British accent for Ben. Characters of just about all age ranges are in the book and Ms. King nails each one.
I have a (longstanding) personal difference of opinion with how Ms. King pronounces the names Aurielle, Stefan and Marsilia (and I realise that after 12 books, that’s not going to change) but otherwise, the narration was excellent. The story is told entirely from Mercy’s point of view and Lorelei King inhabits her character so well; Mercy’s humour, fears, bravery and vulnerability all comes across in the performance.
Mercy has a lot of heavy lifting to do in Smoke Bitten – more so than in other recent books in the series. I liked the way the various threads were interwoven. (I worked out who the creature was at just the time I was intended to I think.) The Adam/Mercy storyline was peppered throughout the book and enveloped the entire plot so the romance listener in me was engaged the entire time too.
Some of the symbolism was a little lost on me the first time around – but as Mercy Thompson books are always re-listens/re-reads that’s not a complaint – it just means there’s more to discover when I revisit it later. In fact, I’m just about to start Moon Called again because it’s time to refresh myself on the entire series.
Kaetrin
Buy Smoke Bitten by Patricia Briggs on Amazon
