BLOOD, BOOBS, CARNAGE, AND MERCY THOMPSON

Alex Cavanaugh & Heather Gardner have a blogfest:

http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/

{SHIFTING SHADOWS cover by Dan dos Santos}

SHIFTING SHADOWS is a collection of short stories in the Mercy Thompson universe:

the modern world as if the beings of the Brothers Grimm existed unknown to civilized Man.

Mercy is a Volkswagon mechanic, the daughter of a Blackfeet Indian and a white teenage mother.

 She is a "Walker" (a Native American shapeshifter not linked to the moon) who turns into a coyote, a gift she inherited from her father.

A rodeo man, he died a few days after consummating his relationship with her mother.

One day, not too long after Mercy was born, her mother went to her crib only to find a small coyote pup in her place.

Afraid and unsure how to raise her, her mother took her to the only place she knew was capable—

friends of an uncle, who had been a werewolf.

This is how Mercy came to be raised with the pack of Bran, the Marrok of the werewolves.


Now, she is on her own in the Pacific Northwest. 

The local vampire seethe collects protection money from the non-humans in their city. 

Mercy has no money, so she repairs the car of one of the vampires, Stefan ( the Soldier, born in Renaissance Italy) --

whose van is painted like Scooby-Doo's Mystery Machine.

She falls in love with the Alpha of the local werewolf pack, whose members detest her as a coyote. 

She is paying monthly payments to the Dark Smith of Fae legend whose shop is now hers.

Her keen sense of smell allows her to pierce Fae glamour -- an act punishable by death from the fae should they learn of it.

After a life of staying to herself,

Mercy finds herself coming to the aid of supernatural outcasts,

though her strength is but that of a human's.

But be you Uber-Vampire, Faerie Queen, River Demon, rogue government agent, or volcanic elemental,

you hurt those she loves at your peril. 

Mercy will keep on coming as long as there is breath in her body and gambits in her sharp mind.

MOON-CALLED is her first book.

Oh, and to make her life complete ...

Mercy's just learned her rodeo rider father was actually ...

Coyote, the Trickster.

***

"Mine," growled Adam from the open door of my mechanic shop.

"Mine," rasped Mac, his eyes the yellow of the change, his arms wrapped tight around my waist.

It would have been flattering, but at least one of them was talking about lunch.

 

***