Below is the complete list of Patricia Briggs’ Mercedes Thompson books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Mercedes Thompson Books
Publication Order of Mercedes Thompson Collections Books
Publication Order of Mercedes Thompson Graphic Novels Books
with David Lawrence
About Mercedes Thompson
Patricia Briggs’s Mercy Thompson series combines urban fantasy, supernatural mystery, folklore, and relationship-driven drama in the Tri-Cities region of Washington State. Its heroine, Mercedes “Mercy” Thompson, earns her living repairing Volkswagens and can transform into a coyote, an ability inherited from her father, the mysterious Native American figure known as Joe Old Coyote. She is neither physically dominant nor protected by formal supernatural authority, yet her independence, mechanical competence, sharp instincts, and resistance to intimidation repeatedly draw her into conflicts involving far more powerful beings.
Mercy was raised among werewolves after her human mother realized that an ordinary childhood could not safely contain a shapeshifting daughter. She grew up within the Montana pack led by Bran Cornick, the Marrok who governs North American werewolves, and learned their rules without ever becoming one of them. That position gives her an unusual perspective. She understands pack hierarchy and instinctive behavior but remains outside the bonds that demand obedience, allowing her to challenge assumptions that werewolves themselves may accept without question.
At the beginning of Moon Called, Mercy lives beside Adam Hauptman, Alpha of the local Columbia Basin Pack. Their initially combative relationship develops gradually across the series, moving through trust, courtship, mating, and the complications of joining a pack that does not automatically welcome a coyote shapeshifter. Adam is protective and powerful, but Mercy’s autonomy remains central to their partnership. Their strongest conflicts arise not from manufactured romantic uncertainty but from trauma, supernatural obligations, pack politics, and their differing instincts about risk.
The wider cast gives the series much of its emotional depth. Zee Adelberts, the fae mechanic who trained Mercy and once owned her garage, connects her to beings whose true forms and motives are often concealed. Stefan, an unconventional vampire who drives a van painted like the Mystery Machine, becomes one of her most dependable supernatural allies. Bran, his sons Samuel and Charles, Mercy’s mother Margi, Adam’s daughter Jesse, and members of the Columbia Basin Pack create overlapping family and political loyalties that continue changing as the supernatural world becomes more exposed.
The early novels establish distinct communities with their own laws and dangers. Moon Called concentrates heavily on werewolves, Blood Bound brings vampire politics to the foreground, and Iron Kissed explores the fae reservation and the consequences of ancient power operating inside modern institutions. Later books increasingly combine these groups, showing how a crisis involving one species can alter alliances throughout the entire supernatural community.
Mercy’s abilities also develop beyond simply changing shape. Her connection to ghosts, resistance to certain forms of magic, and inheritance from her father become progressively more important. Briggs reveals these elements gradually, preserving Mercy’s vulnerability even as her understanding grows. She survives through negotiation, observation, stubbornness, and help from people she has earned the right to trust rather than through sudden increases in physical strength.
The series shares its world with Briggs’s Alpha & Omega novels, which follow Charles Cornick and Anna Latham. Events in one sequence can affect supernatural politics in the other, but the principal storylines remain distinct. Reading both enriches the wider chronology, particularly where Bran, Charles, and major werewolf decisions are concerned, though the Mercy Thompson novels can still be followed independently.
Short fiction collected in Shifting Shadows and other publications expands the setting through Mercy and supporting characters, but not every story is essential to the main novels. The full-length books provide the clearest continuing arc. Their mysteries are usually resolved individually, while relationships, injuries, political changes, and emotional consequences persist. That accumulated history turns the series into more than a succession of supernatural investigations: it is the story of an outsider gradually creating a family and accepting responsibilities without surrendering the independence that first defined her.