Fire Touched is the ninth book in the Mercy Thompson series and this series only goes from strength to strength. Fire Touched follows on from Night Broken and the battle against Christy's stalker

the Volcano God

. This instalment touches on the fallout of the events of the previous book

Joel being a fiery tibecina dog, the pack's reaction to Mercy bringing in another pack member (Joel the volcano God's anchor) without permission and the pack's general attitude to Mercy

. The other aspect that I really liked about this book was the build up of Mercy's relationship with Bran, who has been an ever-present but physically elusive figure throughout this whole series

Bran sending Baba Yaga to help them and not really abandoning Mercy because he cares so goddamn much, man I love Bran

.

Patricia Briggs continues to build this fantastic and strong relationship between Adam and Mercy and she focuses on their love, their belief in one and other and their commitment to protecting those around them. One of the reasons I love the Mercy Thompson series so much is because Briggs doesn't add unnecessary drama and angst to their relationship. We see two adults who believe and trust in each other, who build a realistic relationship and have lots of friends and family they care about.

The main reason I love this series is because of Mercy. Time and time again she shows herself to be an incredible heroine. A walker, who takes the form of coyote. She's physically weaker than werewolves, fae and vampires. She doesn't have all the magic and powers of fae and vampires. However, she stands up for what she believes in, she's headstrong and she doesn't take no for an answer. There are very few urban-fantasy/paranormal series where I don't see the MC subsumed by her love or aren't dominated by kick-ass men. This is one of those fantastic series that focuses on the action, the adrenaline and the saving of friends and family.

For me the Mercy Thompson series has only gone from strength to strength. This is now my favourite series I read and considering over the last three weeks I've barely stopped to read another book in my re-read of the series I think that's a pretty good advocate for the series as it's not often I can read a whole series straight up. The other positive is that I think this series has only got stronger, not weaker which is one of my biggest gripes with many long UF/PR series. Overall another fantastic read and easily one of my favourite books to get lost in.