Moon Called
This was a fun and satisfying fantasy novel. Briggs does, however, fall into the trap of trying way too hard to make the main character seem like a badass. Mercy is a mechanic, and she turns into a coyote, and she knows all these other supernatural creatures, and the leader of her town's werewolves is her next door neighbor, and she doesn't take shit from people, and she has a tattoo, and she can use a gun, and she does karate (which we have to hear about several times over the course of the book, although at no time does she ever seem to go to classes or mention a sensei by name). I didn't even bother putting a spoiler warning on those things because we learn them in the first two chapters of the book. Also, the romance aspect gets a bit ridiculous. To give credit where credit is due, though, Briggs did manage to establish that the character has faith in a religion without being preachy about it. And the book was good enough that I immediately read the sequel (in part because these books are kind of like the potato chips of the literary world -not a whole lot of substance, but pretty addicting).
The second book was better than the first; as Mercy and her abilities/characteristics were already established, Briggs didn't have to focus on them as blatantly. Mercy doesn't talk about what she can do as much, she just mentions it a bit and then does it.
