Silence Fallen

I loved it. Loved, loved, loved it. Mercy's books remain on my favorites list, even 10 books in. I love this world, and all the characters in it. I love the tense dance of politics between all the major factions, and Coyote's chaotic little dance between them.

Also, I LOVE

that Bran was along the whole time. Honestly, finding that out at the end... I'm immediately re-reading, with an eye towards that. Look, Bran has been, pretty much from the outset, my favorite character in this world (including in the Alpha and Omega series) ... and finding out that he was Matt Smith, there to rescue the daughter of his heart even though it risked everything ... oh, I just love him even more. And I have to go back through, to see how Matt Smith weaved through the story now that I know he is Bran.

Really really great. Consistently a favorite.

Re-read April 2017

Well, this book kicked off a re-read of the entire Mercy-verse (including Alpha & Omega) that I've just ended. And it's a mark of how great this world/series is, that I'm still not ready to leave it. I swear a not-small part of me wants to start back over right this moment with

Moon Called again.

Reading a second time, knowing about the twist (in the spoiler tags from the original review) was really interesting. That twist isn't as well set-up as I would have guessed... there are a couple moments where you can see it peeking through, but not many. I was thinking about whether that rubbed me wrong or not, but I realized it didn't, and why.

It has been mentioned, in this series before (I can't remember which book, or if it was an A & O book), that Bran is one of the few people that can lie... so well that only Charles and Samuel can tell (and come to think of it, I'm pretty sure Charles said that to Anna, so that's an A & O book). And it was also mentioned, multiple times, that the only way to lie to folks who can smell it is if the person lying TRULY believes the lie. So I think that... Bran slid himself wholly into the persona of Matt Smith the submissive. He had to assume - as Adam does in this book - that Bonarata is old enough that he could detect lies, and so he had to sell it. Don't forget that Bran is a Bard. A storyteller. And so he wasn't just pretending to be Matt Smith... I think that like most great actors, he became Matt Smith for awhile. Bran sort of... dozed lightly in the background, popping up when something serious happened to draw his attention - the encounter with Lenka, or when Adam was Kissed.

Hitting on that explanation felt utterly right to me, and I think is why we don't really have much set-up for this big reveal at the end.

Adam knew who he was, and we see that... the bits from Adam's POV when he talks about, because of who Matt is, his wolf could accept help... those bits work fine with a submissive (it seemed in line with what we've learned about submissives before), but they work even better with Bran - Adam's wolf would not feel challenged by Bran, even though they are not currently bound. In that situation - with their prolonged eye contact - the bigger risk was that Bran's wolf would feel challenged by Adam. And you get a little of that, like with "Matt" saying he knew it was a risk (that eye contact).

Anyway, that's a long bit of blather to basically say: it worked for me.

Fantastic series.

Re-read March 2020

I'm even more convinced of what I said above - that Bran the Bard just becomes the the role he is playing. By truly believing it, he can manage to lie. And I had an interesting thought: it is similar, in a

very interesting way, to what Coyote did when he became Joe Old Coyote. Bran was just Bran in a Matt Smith suit, and for a little while, he fully lived as that person. It's probably the most impressive superpower we've seen Bran pull out so far, honestly.

Also, there's some part of me that wanted Bran to reveal himself in Prague, after it was all over. Like "haha motherfucker. You're lucky I got my daughter back safely, now I don't need to kill you." Bonarata would have shit himself, and imagining his face makes me laugh. Also, Bonarata needed to get taken down a few pegs. That said, it really is Bran's secret superpower, and it is best that no one knows he can do that until he needs to do it to kill someone.

Another way to take Bonarata down a peg, though, would have been to reveal that this douchecanoe "master manipulator" just got outright played by Coyote, who had clearly pushed all these pieces into place to get Mercy to Prague so she could handle the golem (freaking Gary not doing his freaking job). Bonarata should have been told that even he was just a chess piece on someone else's board, for once.

really liked this installment, where mercy gets to shine on her own for a while

fingered as the most powerful supernatural being in the tri-cities area, she gets kidnapped by a master vampire in europe

and the saga begins

jackie-channing over a wall

hit a werewolf with a bus

bust the ghosts of prague

(not really but i don't want to spoil it)

at the same time, we see adam's point of view while he tracks her captives and plays diplomat when all he really wants to do is rip everyone's face off

i liked seeing this side of adam, that he really does consider his wolf a monster, and has a love-hate relationship with it

also loved the little doctor who side plot

because the doctor WOULD TOTALLY be up in this plot like a christmas special

larry is his companion

he's behind the scenes fixing everything and making sure everyone's okay while the reader is focused on the main characters

i pictured character matt smith as real life human matt smith and it was golden and nothing hurt