Burn Bright

Burn Bright is the fifth book in Patricia Briggs’s Alpha and Omega series, the urban fantasy spin off from her better known Mercy Thompson novels. The Alpha and Omega books are set in the same world as Mercy Thompson and feature crossover characters, but the central pairing is Charles Cornick, the enforcer son of the Marrok who leads all of the werewolves in North America, and his mate Anna Latham, an Omega wolf whose particular gifts make her one of the most unusual werewolves in the entire series.

In Burn Bright, Bran Cornick, Charles’s father and the Marrok of the entire North American werewolf community, has left the Aspen Creek pack on a mysterious trip and put Charles in charge in his absence. The wildlings of the title, the older and more dangerous werewolves who have been retired from active pack life and live in seclusion in the surrounding wilderness, become the focus of the plot when one of them disappears and the remaining wildlings begin to come under threat from forces that someone has clearly directed at them. Charles and Anna have to figure out who is targeting the wildlings and why, while also dealing with the political complications of running the Marrok’s pack while he is unreachable.

Patricia Briggs writes urban fantasy with the kind of careful world building and character work that has made her one of the most respected names in the genre. The Mercy Thompson and Alpha and Omega series share a common world but each focuses on its own central character, and the dual track structure has let Briggs explore corners of the universe that the main Mercy series did not have room for. The wildlings in particular are one of the more interesting concepts Briggs has developed. Old werewolves whose age and trauma have made them dangerous to the wider werewolf community but who Bran has chosen to protect rather than to put down.

Charles is a particularly interesting Briggs hero, ancient and dangerous and quiet in ways that contrast with the more verbal protagonists of a lot of urban fantasy. Anna is the other half of what makes the Alpha and Omega series work, with her own quiet steel underneath the gentle surface and her ability as an Omega to calm even the most damaged werewolves giving her a unique role in the wider community.

For longtime Mercy Thompson and Alpha and Omega fans, Burn Bright is a satisfying entry. New readers should start earlier in either series.