Hopcross Jilly by Patricia Briggs
Series: Mercy Thompson World (#11.5)
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Mercy is a shapeshifting coyote and honorary member of the Tri-Cities werewolf pack. When the pack stumbles upon the buried bones of numerous dead children, she shapeshifts into a mystery of the legendary fae – a mystery that draws Mercy’s stepdaughter Jesse into the fray! The supernatural romance series Mercy Thompson continues in this all-new, original story by New York Times bestselling author, Patricia Briggs, exclusively created for the comic book medium!
This 168 page hardcover collects the six-issue Mercy Thompson comic book series by PATRICIA BRIGGS, RIK HOSKIN, and TOM GARCIA aand features the original script and line art to issue #1, along with character designs and sketches by Tom Garcia.
The Mercedes Thompson series is one of my favorite urban-fantasy book series, period. So, of course as soon as I saw this graphic novel on NetGalley – I requested it! I love graphic novels, and when combining with a kick-ass heroine and world I couldn’t refuse.
Unfortunately it didn’t quite live up to my hopes. While the story was good, and a perfect length for this format, there was no mystery. It was easy to figure out from the beginning who the threat was. The art, while pretty good, didn’t ‘Wow’ me, and left me feeling like some of the panels were rushed and not fully fleshed out.
The story takes place between Frost Burned and Night Broken, and just after Dead Heat. So spoilers through Dead Heat and Frost Burned are possibly.
There were a couple of things that I really loved in this graphic-novel, and a couple that made me think. I was stoked to see that the fae were strategically loosing fae to remind the humans that they were feared for a reason. It opens up whole avenues of stories, and I can’t wait to see them. I also really loved that we got to see more of Jesse in this story. What I didn’t love was the auto-suspicion that was portrayed here of the wolves, who’ve never done anything remotely suspicious and always been open and helpful of the police and community. That still frustrates me a lot. Though I suppose it’s fairly accurate for how we (humanity) deals with something that’s perceived to be ‘other.’
Random other thoughts:
*I did NOT picture Zee that way. Whoa. (ETA: On re-read of the series, I guess the depiction here is pretty damn close to his description in the novels.)
*Am I the only one that didn’t know (or forgot) that Jesse was in high school?? I, for some reason, keep picturing her as much younger. (ETA: Though, I will say that since reading this, I easily picture her as older now.)
*Mercy’s internal monologuing doesn’t come through in the graphic format as well as it does the novel format.
*More fae, please.
None of the characters looked how I pictured them, but that’s probably to be expected. Overall, I thought this was a fine addition to the Mercy Universe, but nothing really blew me away either.
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