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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

63) Fair Games by Patricia Briggs

The Blurb :

They say opposites attract. And in the case of werewolves Anna Latham and Charles Cornick, they mate. The son-and enforcer-of the leader of the North American werewolves, Charles is a dominant alpha. While Anna, an omega, has the rare ability to calm others of her kind.

Now that the werewolves have revealed themselves to humans, they can't afford any bad publicity. Infractions that could have been overlooked in the past must now be punished, and the strain of doing his father's dirty work is taking a toll on Charles.

Nevertheless, Charles and Anna are sent to Boston, when the FBI requests the pack's help on a local serial killer case. They quickly realize that not only the last two victims were werewolves-all of them were. Someone is targeting their kind. And now Anna and Charles have put themselves right in the killer's sights.

My Thoughts :

For some reason the Alpha & Omega series isn't really making me rush out and buy it. So when I came across a copy on Audible I decided to use my credit and listen to this third installment. After all I do love the stories Patricia Briggs tells about werewolves and she has a nice way of telling them.

Fair Game had a nice plot. A gruesome and sometimes scary plot but it worked well into the paranormal world that the author has created and it showed what Anna and Charles can do as a team. It also left the reader not knowing what will come next in this series and in the Mercy Thompson books. Both are connected and the outcome of this story will have effects on all of the characters involved.

This series still isn't my favourite but I did like listening to it. I really like Anna and Charles has his moments too. I got quite attached to the federal agents working with the werewolves and hope they appear again or that the werewolves keep teaming up to help them. Sort of like a Paranormal version of Criminal Minds. The author certainly has the talent to make it work and seems to know what she is writing about or has done enough research.

I had a few problems with this story but it was basically more of an audio book problem. Firstly I don't know why, but the whole story was told by a guy. Even the girl parts. This was a little weird. Then secondly it was hard to tell which character was actually 'talking'. There were no real breaks between parts in the chapters and it took me a few paragraphs to realise that the POV had changed from Anna to Charles or one of the many other characters that took the reins. Maybe this would have been easier to follow when reading the book but listening wise it was a horror.

All in all, this isn't one to be missed if you are a fan of Patricia Briggs. I like this spin-off of the Mercy Thompson series but I am not sure if it will ever match up to what the author has built up with her coyote based books. Although I have to give the author a big thumbs up for making the spin-off work. Not many writers could managed it.


Alpha & Omega Series :

#1 - Cry Wolf
#2 - Hunting Ground
#3 - Fair Game

1 comment:

Mardel said...

I think I feel the same way you do about the omega series. For me, it's just not as interesting - or compelling. I believe it has to do with the whole third person vs first person pov. Because everything else is almost the same....well, not exactly. I also feel when I'm reading this that I'm reading a paranormal romance novel, and while I'm reading the Mercy books I feel like I'm reading an urban fantasy which has a bit of romance thrown in. That is really the main difference for me, and why I enjoy Mercy's novels way more than this series.
That being said - this IS a good seris - it reads well, the plots are good and there's plenty of suspense and a bit of gore for horror fans. It's just not Mercy's novels. :)

I haven't yet tried audible books, because I like to imagine the voices and tones in the conversation. I imagine that hearing a real voice might spoil some of the stories for me.