This series is one of my all-time favorite urban fantasy novels. I have read each novel, some multiple times, including listening to the audiobooks and I am truly invested in Mercy, Adam, and the Tri-Cities pack. As Coyote’s daughter, readers have seen Mercy grow from a woman living on her own to a woman connected to a pack, Fae leaders, and her own magic growing at a pace where she is viewed as a threat. She is all of these things but it is her humanity and instinct to protect others that draws me to these books. She is tough, yes, but she is the weakest of all of these “beings” living around her and somehow she, like the being she is related to “Coyote”, she outwits everyone and somehow survives attacks that would kill a normal human. Her heart is her greatest asset and her biggest weakness and each novel showcases that humanity in a way that makes me love her even more.

This story does an amazing job of introducing the reader to new mythology in a way that is interesting and somewhat easy to understand. If you are a reader of the entire series you are used to learning as you read, and dissecting this new information and parsing it into whether what you are reading will hurt or help Mercy. How will she get herself, and in this case her brother, out of this mess, and if Mercy will come out of this investigation whole, or at least in the same shape she was in when she started. In this case Mercy carries a hole in her magic from the previous novel. She starts from a position of weakness. How will she possibly come out of this without being hurt more? It’s worth the read to find out!

Mercy Thompson and all the wonderful characters are back in book 14. Mercy's brother and father are prevalent in this book. Mercy and her pack are now responsible for keeping all creatures in the Pacific Northwest and keeping peace. Together, she and Adam find themselves trapped with strangers in a lodge in the heart of the wilderness, in the teeth of a storm of legendary power, only to discover her brother’s issues are a tiny part of a problem much bigger than they could have imagined. Arcane and ancient magics are at work. Might need to read some previous books to fully understand this book.

Another engaging installment in the Mercy Thompson (Hauptman) series. I enjoyed getting to meet some new lore characters and learning more about Mercy’s brother Gary. The Bonarata threat is still simmering under the surface and I hope we get some resolution in the next book.

RECEIVED MY NETGALLEY APPROVAL JULY 8. REVIEW SHOULD RUN WITHIN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS

This book and this review can not be understood without knowledge of the first thirteen volumes in this epic. Both also contain spoilers for what came before.

Mercy meets Mary Jo at Uncle Mike’s for girl talk, although she can’t even manage to do that without nearly causing a riot. Fortunately, Uncle Mike comes out and warns his other guests not to murder her and personally escorts her to Mary Jo.

While Mercy and Mary Jo discuss the latter’s relationship woes, Adam, Mercy’s mate, finds himself in a fight with his brother-in-law, Gary. Seems Gary is under a spell that keeps him from speaking to and relating with the people around him. It’d be a miracle he made it to Mercy’s house, but she’s a trouble magnet, so of course he did. Mercy comes home to help with the situation, and her newfound sensibilities from the Soul Taker incident enable her to determine he’s enthralled by unusual, powerful magic. Zee is called in, and then Ymir, a fae who owes Mercy a favor. Ymir does tell them who did the enchantment, but then he causes a ruckus and has to be thrown out. So Mercy and Adam head to Montanna (where the spellcaster is) to see what they can find to free Gary.

I left a whole lot of little things out of the above synopsis, like the phone call Mercy received from Bonarta on her way to see Mary Jo, the trouble Adam’s company is having at a hush-hush military establishment in New Mexico, and the will they won’t they love quadrangle mess surrounding Tad, Gabriel, Izzy, and Jesse. All this, and we haven’t even met up with our primary villain and the world-endangering conundrum that is the purpose of this particular narrative.

On the bright side, once we are in Montana to solve the mystery, the adventure unfolds briskly enough that the story becomes more engrossing. Also, a positive is that Mercy and Adam are alone and meeting new people. The endless updates on The Pack in our usual tale for the series make some books sound more like roll calls than stories.

Those bright spots aren’t enough to completely salvage Winter Lost, though. One reason is that Mercy, who was raised in Montana, is apparently unfamiliar with things like thermal underwear, wearing gloves for even brief outdoor treks, and driving in winter. She’d apparently also never heard of snow pants or boots that close at the top so snow doesn’t get in. Adam and Mercy are driving through a magic-induced storm of the century to meet a Frost Giant, and they are totally unprepared for snow, ice, and cold. This mind boggled.

Another problem for me is that Mercy switches magic more often than most people change clothes. The excuse given is typically that adventure A, which almost killed her, left lingering issues so that in adventure B, her cool superpower C is missing, but she is left with this new, cooler power D that comes at a price, but surprise, surprise, is more useful in this particular situation. That logic may work once, but the repetition of it makes it an obvious deux ex machina.

I’ll add that this happens across the board. Certain characters' powers don’t work well because other characters' powers conveniently counteract them, etcetera. This writing device serves as a magic eraser to ensure the characters can move exactly as the author wishes in her messy landscape.

My final negative is the overuse of Coyote and Gary. It feels as though these two characters have become regulars, pulling us away from the original storyline and making things chaotic for no good reason. In this particular instance, their presence highlighted numerous flaws within the tale, such as overly complicated magical balances, callous cruelty by creatures the author writes with sympathy, and a weird disparity in the power and influence wielded by Adam and Mercy.

Fans of the series will want to read Winter Lost. Those of us who have made it this far into the series will finish it just to stay abreast of what is going on. I enjoyed it but didn’t love it; if you are taking a break from the series, this one isn’t strong enough to reinvigorate your adoration of the Mercyverse but otherwise, it’s about what one would expect from a new addition to this near twenty book saga.

The review is in the July 2024 issue of SFRevu.com and is exclusive to them until August 1st, 2024.

Here's the link for the review: <https://sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.php?id=20457>

Patricia Briggs is back with another Mercy Thompson novel set in the Tri-Cities of Washington. However, this time Mercy and Adam are taken out of their familiar streets and are placed with strangers in the winter wilderness. How will the both of them survive the cold let alone the mystery and ancient magic that awaits them?

As with all of Briggs’ books, things start of slow and then build to a fever pitch. I enjoyed the winter theme of this book since it’s not something that we often see in this world. However, there is nothing frozen about the worldbuilding in this series. Despite the fact that there are so many books in the series already, the world keeps evolving and changing, creating more havoc and trouble for the characters. There’s never a dull moment in this series.

It’s so easy to get lost in a book when it’s penned by Patricia Briggs and WINTER LOST is no exception. Get ready to cozy up and stay the whole night up reading as you immerse yourself in Mercy Thompson’s world again.

With clever writing, smart characters, and a delicious plot filled with danger and mystery, WINTER LOST is a definite must-read and a true keeper. I can't wait to see what Patricia Briggs comes up with next!

Patricia Briggs does it again, absolutely knocks it out of the park with this fourteenth volume in the Mercy Thompson series. Mercy has faced a lot of danger since mating Adam and joining the pack. It's not enough she's got the lord of all vampires making obscene phone calls while reminding her that her time is short and he's coming for her. She also keeps finding herself involved in other messes, many at the whims of her mercurial father, Coyote, the epitome of the trickster.

In this rousing installment, Mercy and Adam go on a quest to figure out who has cursed her brother, Gary. But they find a lot more than danger when they come upon a frost giant, a missing artifact, and a haunted house. There are layers to this story, and the author has given us a clever way of showcasing several characters not involved in the main plot with small interlude chapters, showing us what they are doing (in addition to adding a character or two from a previous story for those who like easter eggs in their stories).

The writing is smart, the characters continue to grow in depth and maturity, and the clever plot line continues to impress in its scope and creativity. Here, Mercy and Adam and trapped with strangers in an unfamiliar winter lodge in the middle of nowhere. There is old magic everywhere, and Mercy is still recovering from an incident in a prior book that leaves her vulnerable at times.

Again, Briggs does something a lot of other authors don't. She lets her heroine suffer and grow, never a perfect heroine but one worth rooting for. And of course, there's humor and wit in the story, making it all the brighter.

For fans of the Mercy Thompson series, this is a must. But newcomers might be a little confused unless they start at the beginning of the series.

Mercy Thompson is a mechanic, a coyote shifter, married to Adam, Alpha of the local wolf pack and has more magic than she understands. The two together must rescue her brother and save the world in this action packed book! Winter Lost is full of magic, adventures and marvelous characters that will keep you enthralled from first page to last.
In an effort to rescue her brother, Mercy and Adam must endure a legendary snowstorm to return an artifact to its rightful owner before it sets off the end of the world. Magic is all around and nothing is simple but together Mercy and Adam face the challenges. Through action packed adventures, harsh conditions and magic every step of the way, Winter Lost grabs your interest and hangs on tight. Although it is set away from the pack and its interactions it certainly doesn’t detract from the storyline.
Grab Winter Lost and enjoy!

When Mercy's brother Gary shows up at her house incoherent and affected by magic, Mercy and Adam head to Montana to see if they can break the spell. There they find themselves trapped in a resort in the midst of a snowstorm with other guests of the lodge. But not everything is as it seems and Mercy and Adam must find a magical artifact before even worse things begin to happen.

Let me start this with I am being very kind with my 4 star rating. Any other author or series I probably would have rated much lower, but I absolutely love this series and Mercy. But this book really was not up to the standards of the other books in this series. It was very disjointed with bad pacing and took me a very long time to read. But it's like pizza, even when it's bad, it's good. And I'll always welcome more of these characters and this world into my life. I just hope the next installment in the series is more plot forward than this book. This book felt a lot like a side quest.

I adore this series. It is just so much fun and even though the creatures aren't original per se, the myths, origins, legends, and the way of the land, absolutely are and make this series a stand-out series that I just can't get enough of.

I love all the characters and am always eagerly awaiting the next release. I love the dynamic between Adam and Mercy and the understanding, love, and respect they have for one another, not to mention all the secondary and side characters and how much they always add to the story as well.

This truly is a wonderful series I am so glad I found and that is still going strong after fourteen books. I can't wait for the next installment!

A good installment, it moves away from the larger mythos of the world. That will probably be a point of interest for many people as a slice-of-life / episodic story. I really like following the larger arching plot and would have preferred to see more of that.

I love Mercy Thompson and this series. I’m always so excited when a new book is released. We’re on book 14 now, and I’m still happy to be reading. I love that we got so much Mercy and Adam in this story, but there was a lot that felt… unfinished. We got teased a bit more about Bonarata and then there was a little of Sherwood that also felt out of place. I also wish we would have gotten more pack and of Gary! It had a slower start and then the pacing felt off. As a whole, I enjoyed this one, but I think it would have been better if it had been longer and more conclusive.

I love the Mercy Thompson book series by Patricia Briggs, and Winter Lost is another wonderful addition to the Mercy world. In this book, Mercy's life is once again influenced by her father, Coyote, leading her to travel to Montana to assist her cursed brother. Mercy and Adam find themselves in a mysterious magical lodge where they uncover her brother's involvement in a scheme to bring about the end of the world. It is now up to Mercy and Adam to thwart various plots and retrieve a crucial artifact before it's too late for everyone. The story is filled with unexpected twists and action, making it a truly engaging read that I couldn't put down until I finished it. I am grateful for the opportunity to read an Advance Reader's Copy for my honest review and highly recommend this book.

Mercy is still dealing with the after-effects of her adventures in Soul Taken. When her brother Gary arrives, suffering under a curse, Mercy and Adam brave a storm to investigate what happened to Gary and stumble into a mystery theft at a snowbound lodge.

I love how the characters are growing and changing as this series continues. I always enjoy the adventures of Mercy and Adam.

Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson ventures forth on a roadtrip to save her ne'er-do-well brother. There is drama, action, suspense, battles, and a mystery. Readers of the Mercy Thompson shape shifting series will not be disappointed by the focus on Mercy and her mate Adam and a cast of new characters joining the usual pack storyline. The author's writing remains crisp, engaging, and entertaining- start to finish.

Patricia Briggs has a new tale of coyote shifter, Mercy Thompson and her werewolf husband trapped in a Winter Lost (hard from ACE) snowstorm in an iced -in lodge in Montana. It seems that Mercy’s half-brother has been cursed by a Frost Giant because he stole an harp. needed to prevent Ragnarok. Adam and Mercy have to find the thief and survive the deadly cold in a fun adventure. There’s also a wedding in which the groom has to trek through the Impossible weather. I always enjoy these urban fantasies and look forward to more

A lot has changed for our coyote and the supernaturals in her life. Ostensibly on their own and independent from the rest of werewolf society, things can get a little tricky for the Columbia Basin Pack. They're getting pretty good at handling the new power balance and the weight of the extra responsibilities, but life has a funny way of surprising everyone.

Before now most of the growth we've seen Mercy and Adam undergo has been character driven, how their experiences shape who they are and how they handle situations. We're starting to see impacts on the powers that they wield. Magical scars have altered their abilities beyond the lessons learned through hardship, and Adam in particular seems to be on the cusp of something more, perhaps as a direct result of his independence from Bran.

Getting into the story proved rough at the start, a little too much jumping between narrators while also introducing new voices. This isn't unusual, the Mercy Thompson novels have started shifting the voice more and more, but in this one I found it more jarring and confusing rather than enriching. Things to settle down relatively quickly into mostly Mercy's voice with filler from Adam, trimming the less familiar voices to interstitials that remind us of the world ever moving forward.

Winter Lost is more a puzzle of a novel than a mystery. Our protagonists have most of the pieces early on, and need to figure out how they fit together and how to look at things in the correct way. It makes for an interesting progression as they work through the problem. They still need to find clues and figure out who dunnit, but what's more relevant is how magic binds things together.

Where the novel shines is the interpersonal. Highlighting the changes and personal growth of not just Mercy and Adam, but members of the pack and Zee. It reminds us that the fae and other powers aren't human, even though they may wear humanity as a mask.

Overall the book does not disappoint in its core story, and leaves you wondering what's coming ahead.

Advance Reader Copy courtesy of Penguin RandomHouse in exchange for an honest review; changes may exist between galley and the final edition.

Another Mercy book where we get to see Mercy shine while not having access to all the powers of the pack. It hearkens back to the early books in the series before she could call on all of her allies to help solve her problems while setting up new dynamics and situations for future books. Its feels like a book from earlier in the series in all the best ways.

Reading a Patricia Briggs novel is a pleasure! Every. Single. Time.

Not surprising, Winter Lost was a highlight in a more than mediocre reading year for me.

And it makes me happy to say that I had the best time reading it!!!
The novel delivered in all aspects, from a fantastic story, to beloved characters, to the big picture.
I ended up binge reading it in one day.
And now I can't wait for the next one.
The big picture is what makes me crave these books. I have this itching feeling that I'm going to be wowed by what's still to come.
And also feel like I need to re-read the entire series soon, just to get a better grasp of what's to come.
Also I loved that Winter Lost felt like a continuation of Soul Taken. I get this feeling of BIG, BIG things to come.......

So, to come to an end, these are fantastic books.
A MUST READ series.
And I can't wait to read the next book in this series.

Another well written and excellent installment in the Mercy Thompson series. Very interesting to read the story from multiple point of views. Thrilling story and adds much to the world building. One of the best parts about a Patricia Briggs’ tale is learning about an unknown mythology or creature and this does not disappoint.