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Location: /Urban Fantasy
Customer Reviews
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rosie | 2009-11-14 |
| Patricia Briggs is a terrific writer and never fails to give us intelligent well defined characters, interesting plots and great writing. Her latest, Hunting Ground is no exception. This is the story of Charles and Anna who first met in the short story Alpha and Omega, formed their mate bond in Cry Wolf and are now one month into their relationship and facing the challenges of getting to know each other in the midst of danger and death. In fact a large part of this book focuses on their relationship. Anna is an Omega, trying to understand who she is in the pack, balancing between her own nature and her wolf and trying to build a relationship that makes sense with Charles. She may have been a werewolf for three years, but those years were full of abuse and rape and the scars are traumatic and deep rooted. It is to the credit of Patricia Briggs that she doesn’t allow Anna to wear the label of victim. Because of her past Anna comes across as fragile and damaged – yet when it counts it is her courage and resilience that that helped her survive that enables her to regain her sense of self and redefine herself. Charles is an amazing antithesis to Anna. He is the son of Bran, the Marrock, Alpha of all North American Alphas, and also the Marrock’s enforcer and sometimes assassin. He’s tough, controlled and dominant. He knows he is a killer and knows that it is necessary to kill the insane of uncontrollable werewolves for the sake of both all werewolves and the people who would be they prey, but means that he lives emotionally isolated and contained. Until Anna comes into his life and his wolf spirit claims her as his mate. Charles has to learn to open himself to Anna and provide both gentleness while not smothering her in protection. A large part of the book is taken up with Charles and Anna’s burgeoning relationship, the missteps and misunderstanding between them and the advances they make as they learn to love each other. This sounds awfully mushy doesn’t it? Thankfully this isn’t all the books is about – Patricia Briggs gives us fey, vampires, paranormal politics, murder and mystery as the canvas against which Charles and Anna play. Most of the story takes place in Seattle. Bran has decided that the existence of werewolves cannot be kept secret for much longer and had seceded to announce their presence to the world in a way he can control. He know that the powerful leaders of the European packs are vehemently opposed to what he has proposed and so when he calls a conference in Seattle to listen to their concerns it is understood that this will be a dangerous and difficult challenge. Charles and Anna attend the conference for Bran, with the fey Grey Lord, Dana, as negotiator but are soon faced with attacks, gruesome murders and conspiracies. To meet these dangers Charles and Anna have to reply of each other’s strengths and it is Anna’s Omega abilities that provide their greatest protection. There are so many good things about this book and Patricia Briggs’ skills as a storyteller is right up there at the top. She’s an excellent writer and this is a book that keeps it’s pace up with action while also having a very strong heart. My favourite part of the book has to be the very first pages though, when Anna teases Charles and they play in the snow. This lighthearted note provided the strongest sense of how hard Charles and Anna were reaching out to each other. Both were so careful of each other, grasping for the joy of the moment and desperate not to ruin it by doing something wrong. This was a very powerful poignant scene and I kept wishing throughout the book that Patricia Briggs could find this same perfect note. She manages to give us some humour and tenderness, but unfortunately the magic of the ambush and chase was missing later in the book. At times the plot also seemed a little choppy, as if the transitions between the relationship versus the action were missing some of the smoothness we’ve come to expect from Patricia Briggs. However this is just a small complaint. What I want next? More of Bran! Unfortunately Patricia Briggs has already said that she’s taking a break from Charles and Anna, so we’re just going to have to daydream about what happens next! | ||
Sherrilyn Kenyon - Dark Hunter
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