Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs ****1/2
Silver Borne is book five in The Mercedes Thompson Series. This one is focused on Fae and Samuel. It starts out with Tad, Zee’s son and Mercy’s first wrench monkey, calling to ask if she’s spoken to Phin (the guy who loaned her the book on Fae back in Iron Kissed). She goes to investigate, but finds nothing except for an odd feeling that something’s off.
When she goes on a date with Adam later she hears voices in her head and does something that she would never do in a million years, can’t figure out what’s happening, and freezes Adam out (which we all know the silent treatment is not how Mercy works). Adam is upset because he doesn’t know what’s going on and he drops her off at home. After this disastrous night she gets home in time to receive a call from Samuel, who is freaking out, and has to rush to the hospital to pick him up from where he is hiding in the X-Ray storage closet. Only, when Mercy gets there, it’s Sam (Samuel’s wolf) who is in charge because the wolf is trying to prevent Samuel from trying to commit suicide again. With Sam now in control of Samuel, we go back to the question we first learn about in book one, do you kill a werewolf before it goes berserk when the wolf is in charge?
When she takes Sam to the garage the next day, Gabriel and his family are there acting as wrench monkey and cleaning crew respectively. The sisters love spending time with Sam and Mercy tells Sylvia, Gabriel’s mother, that he’s just a big white dog. But, as this Mercy Thompson’s life, happy domestic bliss can’t stick around too long. Chaos follows coyotes. In this case, a man with a gun, cameras following him, and a fake warrant, which kicks off a mini investigation.
Mercy and Sam head back to the bookstore and meet Phin’s upteenth-times great grandmother, who just happens to be Fae. Mercy doesn’t quiet know who to trust, so they leave and come back later to break a glamour by smell. Havoc breaks out in the store as they’re ambushed by a Fae.
On their way home, Adam screaming her name and her mate bond being broken blinds Mercy. When Mercy and Sam get home she finds that her trailer has exploded and that Adam and Ben thought they were inside. The question then becomes who blew up the trailer, why did they blow up the trailer, and who in the pack allowed it?
When they get home from the debacle at the hospital (distraught werewolves and hospitals are a bad mix), Mercy receives another horrible phone call, this time to tell her that an evil Fae has Gabriel. With Adam hurt, Gabriel kidnapped, and Phin missing Mercy has to figure out who in the pack hates her, because they, combined with the Fae, have caused all sorts of mayhem that winds up with Mercy, Sam, Sam’s ex Ariana (who is deathly afraid of werewolves as a result of childhood trauma), and Jesse going to Underhill (yep, legitimately) and pack power plays.