Review - Mercy Thompson: Homecoming

Mercy Thompson: Homecoming
Written by Patricia Briggs and David Lawrence
Art by Francis Tsai and Amelia Woo
Dabel Brothers

There is a new genre we have added within the last year to our catalog to reflect a trend in new books. If you look up Paranormal Romance in our catalog, you'll see a couple hundred titles. From the uber popular Twilight series, to the Sookie Stackhouse books, people seem to love reading about humans getting it on with vampires, werewolves, demons, zombies, or whatever goes bump in the night.

And with this popularity, many of the successful series get turned into graphic novels. We have at the library a couple Anita Blake graphic novels by Laurell K. Hamilton. Also the Jim Butcher Dresden books have a comic book adaption. But one appeared on my desk that must have been a donation.

Patricia Briggs writes about werewolves. Her main character is named Mercy Thompson, who is not a werewolf, but she is not completely human either. She is a walker, which is a being that has the ability to change into coyote. Mercy is in the Tri-Cities area to interview for a teaching position at the high school, but is rejected. However, when an attack by a rogue pack of werewolves wrecks her car, she finds that the garage where her car is being fixed could use some help. The garage is run by Zee, a Fae, and his son Tad. It seems the garage also repairs cars driven by vampires, so the whole gallery of mystical beings seem to live in this world. Eventually getting hired at the garage, Mercy seems to be starting a new chapter in her life.

I thought this book was pretty good. Not great, but not completely terrible. It was an introductory story where we get to meet all the players in the world of Mercy Thompson. We learn what their other-worldly manifestations of the characters, and discover some of the peculiar traditions of the different paranormal/undead societies in the course of this book.

In the middle of the story there was a change in artists, so the flow is interrupted slightly halfway through. I found the art to be pretty interesting. The first artist, Francis Tsai, has a cleaner style. His style is more subdued than Amelia Woo, who did the art for the last half of the book. Amelia's style is a little rougher and more kinetic feel, which I think makes for a better fit with the story.

As far as this book goes, I would add it to any Young Adult graphic novel collection. I would hesitate to recommend it to people under 14 due to some violence and nudity. But it is relatively mild and should suitable most teens.