Moon Called (Mercy Thompson Series, Book 1) by Patricia Briggs

Moon Called (Mercy Thompson Series, Book 1) by Patricia Briggs. This was not my favorite paranormal romance book, but it is only the first book in the series and I am hopeful that Mercy Thompson will win me over. I am in favor of my female protagonists being kick ass fighters and I feel that this book relayed poorly developed fight sequences. They lacked structure and were hard to follow in the fast paced scenes. I also think there was a lack of character development which left me unable to relate to or form a bond with the characters. However I did find towards the end I was reading the book at a faster pace trying to unfold the resolution to the conflict in the story. By the conclusion of the book I was intrigued enough to immediately start the second book in the series, Blood Bound. Through this book I feel that the characters are finally developing and I am beginning to fall into Mercy Thompson's world.

Here is the wiki breakdown. Moon Called is the beginning of the story of Mercedes Thompson. Mercy's life is not exactly normal. Her next-door neighbor is a werewolf, her former boss is a gremlin, and she's fixing a VW bus for a vampire. But then, Mercy isn't exactly normal herself.

She's a walker, not only capable of shifting into coyote shape at will but also possessed of a sharp nose for scenting other creatures and an ability to sense magic when it is at work. So when a teenaged werewolf approaches Mercy asking for work, she knows what he is immediately. She also knows it would be more prudent to refuse him, but he looks so desperate that she hires him anyway.

Turns out the werewolf, who goes by Mac, has escaped from a laboratory where he was being experimented on. When bad guys show up looking for him and Mercy kills one of them, also a werewolf, she realizes it's time to turn the matter over to the local Alpha werewolf, who also happens to be her next-door divorced neighbor Adam.

Before you can say “from the frying pan into the fire,” things go awry and Mercy finds and just barely saves a wounded Adam, whose fifteen year old daughter Jesse has been kidnapped by the same people who came after Mac. To help Adam heal, Mercy must take him to Montana, and the clan of the werewolves who raised her. There we meet Bran, leader of all the North American werewolves, whose son Samuel is the man, er, wolf, whom Mercy once loved and lost.

Eventually, Adam, Samuel and Mercy return to the Tri-Cities to search for Adam's missing daughter. In the process they have encounters with fae, vampires, other werewolves, and a witch or two. Mercy must contend not only with all these creatures but with Adam and Samuel's interest in her and the territorial contentiousness that results from it.