Frost Burned

Frost Burned (2013) Patricia Briggs

Book 7 finds Mercy adjusting to married life–and being a step mother. It also has Mercy attempting to discover what has happened to the entire pack, when they are kidnapped by rogue federal agents.

This book has several scenes that have stuck with me, including Mercy throwing up on Kyle’s floor.

We get a lot of Kyle in this book, which makes me happy.

“Did you find out if they found out anything about them?” I asked.

Kyle gave me a look, then busied himself making me a peanut butter and huckleberry jelly sandwich. “What really bothers me is that I understood that question. You will eat this and go to sleep, so your pronouns get their antecedents back.

ALSO, we get Asil, who I always enjoy.

There was silence on the stairs behind Ben and me.

“I believe I misheard,” said Asil, who’d stopped on the stairs. “English is not my first, nor even my fifth, language. Did you say ‘a vampire friend’?”

“I did.”

There was another of those speaking silences, then he laughed. “Please tell me I won’t end up with eggs in my pillowcase or peanut butter on my car seat.”

I threw up my hands involuntarily and turned to him to face him again. Walking backward, I said, “I was twelve. Don’t you wolves have anything better to gossip about than things that happened twenty years ago?”

“Mi princesa,” he told me, his voice deep and flirty, “I was in Spain and I heard about the peanut butter. Two decades are nothing, I assure you— we will speak of it a hundred years from now in hushed voices. There are big bad wolves all over the world who tremble at the sound of his name, yet a little puny coyote girl peanut-buttered the seat of Bran Cornick’s car because he told her that she should wear a dress to perform for the pack.”

“No,” I said, getting hot about it again. I turned and stalked down the hall. “He said Evelyn— my foster mother— should know better, that she should have made sure I had a dress to wear. He made her cry.” And that was the last time I consented to play the piano.

I opened the guest room door, and Asil paused until I looked at his face. “Yes,” he said sincerely. “Such a one deserves peanut butter on the seat of his pants.”

“Carefully worded for a fae who doesn’t have to tell the truth,” said Asil.

Tad turned to the old wolf coolly. “I am always careful with the truth. It is a powerful thing and deserves respect.”

“Of course,” answered Asil. “When you are old, you will find yourself assuming that everyone else is careless with important things, too. My comment was not meant as censure; you merely surprised me.”

Published by Ace

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