Title: Winter Lost (Mercy Thompson, #14)
Author: Patricia Briggs
Publisher: Ace
Publication date: June 18, 2024
Length: 416 pages
Genre: Urban fantasy
Source: Purchased
Rating:

Mercy Thompson has been one of my favorite fictional heroines since the moment I read the very first book in the series, Moon Called. I love this series and the world Patricia Briggs has created, with its complex characters and dynamics, dangerous supernatural beings and mysterious powers, and deep, meaningful personal connections too.

You can imagine how much it pains me to give a Mercy book fewer than four stars. Not that Winter Lost isn’t a good book — it just doesn’t measure up to how great I know this series can be, and it left me feeling uninvolved for far too long of the story.

Probably needless to say, but the 14th book in a series is not a good starting place. I’ll talk about this book, but I’m not going to explain the entire backstory of the series. (But seriously, give yourself a treat and pick up Moon Called, if you haven’t read it yet!)

The events of Winter Lost feel quite separate in many ways from the main through-stories of the series, especially given the way the plot unfolds. The series as a whole is very firmly rooted in the Tri-Cities region of Washington State. Community matters a lot in Mercy’s world. And yet, in Winter Lost, Mercy and her husband Adam spend most of the book away from home, journeying to the wilderness of Montana to remove a curse from Mercy’s brother (and, along the way, try to stop the world from ending).

In “interludes” sprinkled in between the main chapters, we get glimpses of what’s going on back at home, as well as the actions of other (new) characters who have a part to play in the central action of the story. The chapters focus on Mercy and Adam as they travel to the mountain lodge, learn more about what they’re dealing with, and then (of course) save the day.

Beyond the action of this particular quest, Mercy and Adam are also dealing with the fallout from the last book, Soul Taken, which left Mercy with a cosmic sort of damage that’s slowly eating away at her soul and her magic. She has a mystical band-aid of sorts, thanks to the intervention of a fae who cares for her, but long-term, this damage will kill her if they can’t fix it… and fixing it seems like something beyond the skills of anyone in their sphere. This fear underlies every moment, adding a sense of urgency to everything Mercy and Adam do, but especially to their more private moments together.

The plot of Winter Lost just didn’t captivate me the way I’ve come to expect from Mercy books. The plot is an adventure story, but it happens far from home, isolated from much of the ongoing story threads of the series. The adventure concludes at the end of the book, and the pieces are mainly reset — so except for one key element, nothing is all that different from where we picked up at the start of the book. (Keeping it vague… no spoilers here!)

I think one reason I didn’t love Winter Lost quite as much is the distance from Mercy and Adam’s home. I love them as characters and will follow them anywhere, but their stories are always much richer when they’re set amidst the world of their pack, their extended family, and their various and sundry allies and acquaintances. Mercy and Adam can carry the story by themselves, but I missed being around all the rest of the characters we’ve come to know and love.

Winter Lost is a quest story, and I was much more engaged for the last third or so… but still, I can’t wait for the series to move back home and let us see the entire pack back together and back in action.

Despite my 3.5 stars for this particular book, my love for the Mercy-verse remains strong! According to the author’s website, next year will bring a new book in the spin-off Alpha & Omega series (yay!), and so I assume it’ll be 2026 until we see the next Mercy book… and I have a feeling I’ll be doing at least a little rereading between now and then.