Loyalty: Silver Borne

Patricia Briggs writes an urban fantasy series about Mercy, with werewolves and shapeshifting and vampires and stuff. What keeps them interesting for me is that Mercy's concerns are fundamental; in a situation with bizarre contingencies she has to concentrate on the same basic worries that anyone does. In Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson, Book 5), she's in love with an older man; he's richer and socially more important than her. How can she still maintain her autonomy and self-respect? The fact that the man is the head of the local werewolf pack and the pack has magic abilities to subvert her emotions just throws the problems into vivid relief; it doesn't make them alien.

So I care as Mercy juggles responsibilities towards her wounded friends, her fiance, his family, her employee's mother, her acquaintance who did her a favor and now seems to be in some danger because of it. The recurring theme is loyalty -- to oneself, to one's friends, to one's moral code. And I'm looking forward to the next installment in her life, so I can see how she handles her mother as well. I tend to buy Brigg's books for my shelves, because they stand up to rereading, probably because they do tend to organize themselves around a theme, if you look beneath the faerie glamor and silver bullets. I finished rereading this one just in time to move right on to the new book. A-