Review of "Silence Fallen" by Patricia Briggs
This book picks up a few months after the events of the last
book, and immediately goes into the story plot. Mercy is kidnapped and taken to
Italy, and then escapes to Prague, all without her mate Adam knowing what
happened or where she is. The whole book takes places in Europe which is nice
to have a change of setting for the characters. Mercy eventually is able to get
a message out, and Adam flies to Italy with a group of people; two being
vampires (Stefan and Marsilia), a witch, goblins and werewolves. They meet with
Marsillia’s old lover, the vampire Master of Milan, Jakob Bonarata. Mercy seeks
refuge with a wolf pack in Prague but gets caught up with other vampires,
ghosts and a golem. Eventually Adam rescues her without creating trouble with
Bonarata, who was the one that kidnapped her in the first place.
While I do like the change of location, and exploring the
supernatural creatures in Europe, I found the overall story a bit boring at
times. This book, unlike previous ones, changes perspective from Mercy to Adam,
which I found it a bit jarring at times. Although it was nice to see how things
were unfolding from Adam’s side of the mission. Adam can sometimes be a hot
head leader, so it was interesting to see him remain reserved around Bonarata
and concede to Marsilia’s advice when dealing with the Master of Milan.
Unfortunately, this book suffers from too many characters.
Not only do we get some returning characters but we also get introduced to a
ton of new characters all of which have a small presence. The new major players
are Bonarata, and Lebore the alpha wolf of the pack in Prague. Lebore has
history with Bran, Mercy’s surrogate father figure and head of the wolves in
America. So, I’m curious if we will get more of that story or not. This book
also does some connecting the dots with previous books, tying up lose ends. We also get our first character that is a goblin, named
Larry. While this book is mostly vampire centric, it does a good job of
introducing goblins and golems are supernatural/fae beings. The one thing I
have always loved about these books is the world that Briggs has created. It’s
an urban fantasy that isn’t super dark in tone but rather feels like a real
world that we could live in.
Ultimately, this was a mixed book for me. I wasn’t drawn
into it and found myself getting bored with the plot during the last third of
the book. The final conflict was disappointing, and I don’t like it when the
author brings something in at the end that had nothing to do with the major
plot of the story. Unlike the last book, “Silence Fallen” did a better job
handling the politics between the various supernatural and fae races, while
introducing new characters and ideas. The change of setting was fun and getting
a glimpse into how other vampire seethes and wolf pack are run was interesting.
This series is at it’s best when the characters are
interacting and responding to each other. I really enjoyed Adam having to spend
time with Marsilia and Stefan, plus we get more of Elizaveta the witch, and
Larry the Goblin king was a fun addition to the group. The book also has a
recurring Matt Smith is the Doctor, joke that I appreciate being a fan of the
show Doctor Who. While the side trip to Europe was a nice change of scenery, I
look forward to getting back to the Tri-Cities location, and a more standard
Mercy Thompson story next novel.
No comments:
Post a Comment