That's What I'm Talking About

When I picked up Frost Burned, I knew it'd be hard to top the excitement, pace, and romantic elements that made the previous Mercy Thompson book, River Marked, so incredible. However, Frost Burned managed to rope me in immediately with the news of Adam and the pack's kidnapping. So sinister. So big. I was actually very worried. Ms. Briggs does an excellent job building tension, and although I was always fairly confident that at least Adam and Mercy would be alright, I can't always say the same for the supporting cast of characters.

Figuring out the who's and why's is one of my favorite things about this series, and per usual, Frost Burned does not disappoint. I like how some of the pieces of the puzzle were new, yet there is also tie-in with earlier books.

While I mostly liked this book a lot, there were a few things that bothered me. What I didn't like was the disappearance of the fae and the lack of deeper explanation and exploration of the why's and ramifications. The same could be said about Mercy's dear friend Samuel. It was good, however, to see Mercy's vampire friend, Stephen, mostly back to his usual self.

I also didn't feel as connected to the story for a couple of reasons. First - there are two sections of the book told from Adam's point of view (POV). This is the first time the author has switched from Mercy's voice, and I found it hard to just turn off Mercy and try to "think" like Adam. I don't know that it was all that successful. I understand the desire to share some of what was going on with Adam, but it broke the flow of the story for me. Which leads to the second reason I felt some disconnect: Adam and Mercy spend much of the book separated. I feel like the story works best (as evident by my favorite stories in the series) when Adam and Mercy work as a team, together. When they are apart, the stories just aren't as good.

Finally, I have to mention this because it really was off-putting to me, but it seems like the end of the book is written out of order chronologically. It's not big, and only covers a few pages, but the story jumps from one scene, to another a few weeks later, then back in time, and finally back to the scene prior to that. At first, I thought I had a messed up Kindle copy. But the audiobook was the same. Anyone else thing something was wrong here?

Anyhow, I imagine this review reads like I had a lot of problems with the book, but honestly, I didn't. I think it's because I love this series so much, and the previous two books are some of the best in the series, that poor Frost Burned paled in comparison. However, the story is pretty darn good, and I overall I really liked it.

Since this was primarily an audiobook listen for me, I will note once again that the narration by Lorelei King is utterly fantastic.

My Rating: B, I liked it
Narration Rating: A+, personal favorite