photo by: Hadnagy Photography, Butte Montana

Patricia Briggs lives in Washington (the state) with her husband, children, and a small herd of horses.  She hates biographies, but loves writing interesting stories.

I have a few different categories for authors I read.  There are some who have one or two good stories, but never seem to produce anything else worth reading.  There are others who come up with one good setting or world that I like, but none of their other settings strike the same chord.  For both of these groups, I’ll read the synopsis on the back of the book or inside the dust jacket and sometimes try out the first chapter before deciding whether or not I want to buy it.  Then there is the third group which includes Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs.  If I see a new book of theirs on the shelf, I buy it.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a new installment in a series or something brand new.  I know it’ll be good.

Her first book was Masques, published in December of 1993 by Ace.  It was the first book she attempted and according to her site, she’s planning to revisit the novel with a sequel in order to do the characters justice.

Patty followed her first book with two more set in the same world of Sianim: Steal the Dragon in November 1995 and When Demons Walk in June 1998.  Each book is a self-contained story with an independent cast of characters featuring a strong female lead.  Patty’s characters in each are well-written and complicated.  The plot often contains surprises, but the actions and words of the characters are never out of place with their background or motivation.

Patty’s third book The Hob’s Bargain was published in March 2001, and was set in a different world where magic had been banished but was slowly returning.  Again featuring a strong female, she also added the Hob as a non-human main character viewpoint that’s both human and alien.

Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood from March 2002 and January 2003 mark two changes in Patricia’s style, her first duology and her first male lead.  These books follow the adventures of Ward of Hurog whose father dies soon into the book and must take over his kingdom.  Simple except that he’s been pretending idiocy since a beating his father gave him as a child.

Her next two books were Raven’s Shadow and Raven’s Strike in 2004 and 2005.  Another duology set in their own unique world, these books follow Seraph a Raven mage and among the last of the Travelers and Tier as retired soldier in their struggles against a power called the Shadowed that’s trying to wake up an ancient dark god.

This brings us to February 2006 when Moon Called was published.  This is the first book in the Mercy Thompson series about a Skinwalker, a Native American coyote shape shifter, and mechanic living in the Tri-Cities area of Washington State.  This series is set in the modern day but one where there are vampires, werewolves, and witches, and where the Fae Folk have “come-out” to the world at large and are living on reservations.  Moon Called has been followed by three more books in the series, so far, Blood Bound, Iron Kissed, and Bone Crossed.  The series deals with Mercy’s life and adventures in Tri-Cities as well as her relationships with the local werewolf pack Alpha and her friends Zee the gremlin and Stefan the vampire.  Each book in the series is a separate and self-contained plot, but most of the characters do have recurring roles in each book.  I’ve been especially impressed with how the Fae, Vampire, and Werewolf cultures are built around a nice mix of standard mythology and unique twists.  According to Patty’s website, Ace has contracted for a total of seven novels so we can expect at least three more great books.

In 2008, Patty published Cry Wolf which starts a new series entitled Alpha and Omega which is set in the same world as the Mercy Thompson series but focuses on werewolves, specifically a wolf named Charles who is from the pack which fostered Mercy and a new character named Anna, who is a werewolf from Chicago.  The series title comes from the names for special members of a werewolf pack.  The Alpha is the pack leader, not just the strongest wolf, but the one with the most dominant personality.  The Omega is the opposite from the Alpha; this is the most submissive wolf in the pack.  Where the Alpha is the leader, the Omega role is just as important because an Omega is capable of calming a werewolf who’s lost control.  Cry Wolf is a great read and interesting both for the plot involved as well as the more detailed view of the werewolf culture that Patty developed in the Mercy Thompson series.  The second book in the series is Hunting Ground and is due out in August of 2009, and she’s mentioned on here website that a third book is planned as well.

I found Patricia Briggs by accident.  I had picked up the first few Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher and been surprised at how much I’d enjoyed them, previously I’d always preferred Tolkien-style fantasy.  I bought Moon Called based on an Amazon recommendation and loved the book so much that after I caught up on the series I went back an read her previous works.

If you like deep and convincing characters, lifelike settings, and surprising plots I can’t recommend a better author.  Also head on over to http://www.patriciabriggs.com where you can see sample chapters from her novels, author’s comments, an interesting story about making silver bullets, forums, and more.