Blood Bound
Patricia Briggs
Full-cast audiobook
Mercy and the vamps
When I began reading Patricia Briggs‘s Mercy Thompson series I expected stories about magical creatures. They are that, but I eventually realized that the series is about power and politics. Not politics that aligns in any simple way with the real-world politics around us. Rather, it is more like the politics of Renaissance Italy, riven by lethal palace intrigues.
Although there are many types of magical creatures in the Mercyverse, three communities dominate numerically. These are Werewolves, Vampires, and the Fae. (There are also communities of Witches, and any number of one-offs like Mercy herself -- a Walker who can change into a coyote.) Each of these Big Three types lives in communities whose structure reflects their distinct biology and magic.
The first three novels in the series introduce Werewolves (Moon Called), Vampires (Blood Bound), and the Fae (Iron Kissed), in that order. Briggs does an extraordinarily good job of ramping up tension across these first novels. Mercy gets into trouble with werewolves in the first, then vampires in the second, then the Fae in the third. It feels like she’s wading deeper and deeper into trouble with more and more powerful folk with each novel. Mercy herself is small and physically weak compared to these other magical creatures. I remember feeling genuinely frightened on Mercy’s behalf by the end of Iron Kissed.
The way this all works out without Mercy getting crushed is that she herself becomes powerful enough to deal with these threats. She does it in an interesting way. Rather than beceoming magically powerful, Mercy gains power the way that real people do: by making friends and alliances.
In Blood Bound Mercy does some favors for the local Vampire seethe. Things get complicated, of course.
This 2024 audiobook (Blood Bound was first released in 2007—I first read it around 2011) is a full-cast edition. I have mixed feelings about full-cast audiobooks. When well done, they can be really good. This one, in my opinion, is not. (Some of the actors are not very good, and I really could have done without the sound effects.) Going forward I intend to stick to the single narrator editions narrated by Lorelei King.
Excellent review! 💯
And those friends and alliances certainly sound important with all of the powerful enemies she’s making! ⚖️
And one narrator is a safer way to go a lot of times, for sure!
Thank you for sharing this review with us readers! 🙏