Silence Fallen ~ Patricia Briggs (Pub. Date: March 7, 2017)

Briggs, Patricia. 2017. Silence Fallen. New York, NY: Ace Books, a division of The Berkley Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0425281277. $27.00 USD.

And…..SHE’S BACK!  I’ve been a fan of Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series since the very beginning, and have read them all (more than once)!  I was a little disappointed in Fire Touched– it did not cover much new ground and, although enjoyable, it did not seem to be up to the usual standards of the series.  I have read enough to know that not all authors can hit it out of the park with every book in a series, even though fans, unrealistically, seem to expect it.  However, in Silence Fallen, Ms. Briggs breathes fresh air into the series by moving the location from Washington State to a new location – Europe.

This new title takes off at a breakneck pace, and doesn’t let up.  The alternate viewpoints of Mercy, alone and struggling to stay safe in Italy and Prague, and Adam and his cadre trying to track her down, creates a gripping reading experience – you want to keep going to see what happens (this is what a great book should do).  The author also introduces several new characters (good and evil), which makes it a more interesting read.  Some characters are left behind, but that’s OK because we know (hope!) we will see them again in future books.

The political maneuverings of the Italian Master Vampire and the other characters involved in the plot to find Mercy were sometimes hard to follow, but it’s worth hanging in there and re-reading if needed. The author’s note at the beginning of the book about paying attention to comments in the chapter headings was helpful in keeping track of the timeline, and although that type of device isn’t something I’m used to reading in a novel, I’m giving the author the grace to get away with it.  After all, “her imaginary friends” made her do it!  

After finishing Silence Fallen, I grabbed the first title of the series, Moon Called, off the shelves at work to start the series over again!  

As a side note, Urban Fantasy does not circulate well in my library, though I am a huge fan.  That being said, this particular series always has high holds, so I make sure to have enough copies.  That says a lot to me, as a reader and librarian, about the quality of Patricia Briggs writing and the unique world she has created in the Mercy Thompson series.  I was lucky enough to get to read an ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, for which I am very grateful, as I had been looking forward to it for months; and reading it made a rainy, dreary Texas weekend wonderful!