Masques

Table of Contents

 

 

Praise for the Mercy Thompson novels

BONE CROSSED

“Briggs makes a well-deserved move into hardcover with the rousing fourth adventure for kick-ass werecoyote auto mechanic Mercedes Thompson.”—
Publishers Weekly

“Mercy is not just another cookie-cutter tough-chick urban fantasy heroine; she’s got a lot of style and substance and an intriguing backstory. Series fans will appreciate the resolution of some ongoing plotlines, and the romantic tension is strong.”

—
Library Journal

 

“[Mercy is] one of the best of the kick-ass heroine crop.”

—
Locus

 

 

IRON KISSED

“The third book in an increasingly excellent series,
Iron Kissed
has all the elements I’ve come to expect in a Patricia Briggs novel: sharp, perceptive characterization, nonstop action, and a levelheaded attention to detail and location. I love these books.”

—Charlaine Harris, #1
New York Times
bestselling author

 

 

BLOOD BOUND

“Once again, Briggs has written a full-bore action adventure with heart . . . Be prepared to read [it] in one sitting, because once you get going, there is no good place to stop until tomorrow.”

—
SFRevu

 

“Plenty of action and intriguing characters keep this fun. In the increasingly crowded field of kick-ass supernatural heroines, Mercy stands out as one of the best.”—
Locus

MOON CALLED

“An excellent read with plenty of twists and turns. Her strong and complex characters kept me entertained from its deceptively innocent beginning to its can’t-put-it-down end. Thoroughly satisfying, it left me wanting more.”

—Kim Harrison,
New York Times
bestselling author

 

“Patricia Briggs always enchants her readers. With
Moon Called
she weaves her magic on every page to take us into a new and dazzling world of werewolves, shapeshifters, witches, and vampires. Expect to be spellbound.”

—Lynn Viehl,
New York Times
bestselling author

 

 

Praise for the novels of Patricia Briggs

DRAGON BLOOD

“It is easy to like Patricia Briggs’s novels . . . Her books are clever, engaging, [and] fast-moving.”

—
Romantic Science Fiction & Fantasy

 

“It goes without saying, I suppose, that I’m looking forward to seeing what else Patricia Briggs does. If
Dragon Blood
is any indication, then she is an inventive, engaging writer, whose talent for combining magic of all kinds—from spells to love—with fantastic characters should certainly win her a huge following, and a place on many bookshelves.”—
SF Site

 

DRAGON BONES

“I enjoyed
Dragon Bones
. . . This is an enjoyable, well-written book, with enough plot twists and turns to keep the reader’s attention. This book is sure to appeal to lovers of fantasy.”

—
The Green Man Review

 

“[Briggs] possesses the all-too-rare ability to make you fall hopelessly in love with her characters . . . It’s good stuff all the way . . . You find yourself carried away by the charm of the story and the way Briggs tells it.”—
Crescent Blues

THE HOB’S BARGAIN

“This is a ‘Beauty and the Beast’ story but unlike any I’ve ever read. Ms. Briggs blends adventure, romance, and innovative fantasy with a deft hand. [I] highly recommend this one to all my readers.”—S. L. Viehl, national bestselling author

“[A] fun fantasy romance . . . There’s plenty of action, with battles against raiders and magical creatures, a bard who isn’t what he appears, and an evil mage—but there’s also plenty of humor and some sweet moments of mischief and romance.”—
Locus

“Briggs has a good ear for dialogue and pace, and a marked talent for drawing complex characterizations ... If you’re looking to while away some time with a good story full of magic and wonder, you might find it worthwhile to accept
The Hob’s Bargain
.”—
Rambles.net

“It is easy to like Patricia Briggs’s novels. Her books are perfect for a Friday evening or a late Saturday afternoon when you don’t want to have to work to enjoy your reading. Her books are clever, engaging, fast-moving, and with plots that manage to be thought-provoking without being heavy-handed. A warning, however—make sure you don’t start the dinner cooking or the lawn watering before you curl up with one of her books, because you’ll end up with a burnt dinner and a soggy lawn and an enjoyable few hours lost in another world.”

—
Romantic Science Fiction & Fantasy

 

 

WHEN DEMONS WALK

“An interesting cross between a murder mystery, romance, and fantasy . . . There are enough twists and turns in the plot to keep most readers’ interest.”—
VOYA

“Patricia Briggs proves herself a rare talent as she devises a clever mystery with appealing characters in a fantasy setting . . . top-notch reading fare.”—
Romantic Times

MOON CALLED
BLOOD BOUND
IRON KISSED
BONE CROSSED
SILVER BORNE

 

ON THE PROWL
(with Eileen Wilks, Karen Chance, and Sunny)
CRY WOLF
HUNTING GROUND

MASQUES
STEAL THE DRAGON
WHEN DEMONS WALK

 

THE HOB’S BARGAIN

DRAGON BONES
DRAGON BLOOD

 

RAVEN’S SHADOW
RAVEN’S STRIKE

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

MASQUES

 

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with Hurog, Inc.

 

PRINTING HISTORY
Ace mass-market edition / December 1993
Ace mass-market revised edition / October 2010

Copyright © 1993 by Patricia Briggs. Copyright © 2010 by Hurog, Inc.

 

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-44359-0

 

ACE
Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

One day, in the middle of my senior year of college, I decided to write a book. I’d written a few things before. Nothing so complex as an actual short story (aside from a few five-hundred-word shorts for various high-school assignments and one memorably bad story I’d written in German in lieu of a report), but scenes and scraps of dialogue. I’d never met an author, never gone to an SF convention, when I set out to write this book. And for the next few years I wrote, and rewrote, the first ten pages of my novel. Those ten pages, I might add, are the first thing I cut for this edition. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and find myself muttering those lines:
The great hall of the castle was his favorite room . . .

With our newly minted degrees, my husband and I set out for the wilds of Chicago, where Mike had taken a job as an aquarist with the John G. Shedd Aquarium (we do seem to have had a lot of interesting if not lucrative careers, my husband and I) and I began working at an insurance office. The Greater Chicago area had seven and a half million people. My home state of Montana (in the 1990s) had eight hundred thousand people—in the whole state. Suddenly my manuscript represented more than a challenge—it was an escape. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Chicago—I just didn’t love living with seven and a half freaking million people.

We stayed a full year before culture shock sent us racing homeward, and about that time, somewhat to my surprise, I had finished the book.

I knew that I knew nothing about writing a book when I started it. So I took those things I did know and stuck with them. The plot, my patient husband pointed out, had been done before—but I was okay with that. The important thing to me was that I’d actually finished the book. It shocked and amazed me when the book actually sold.

Masques
, when it came out, was what my husband likes to call an extremely limited edition. That’s husband speak for “It sold very poorly.” Fortunately, before my publisher figured out just how poorly it had done, they’d bought
Steal the Dragon
as well. My second book, blessed by a terrific Royo cover and a writer who had figured out a little more about writing, did a lot better than the first.
Masques
went out of print the month
Steal the Dragon
came out back in 1995, and hasn’t been in print since.

Years passed by, my career started to pick up, and
Masques
started to command higher prices on the secondary market. If I had a box of twenty-four copies left, I could sell them on eBay for more than I sold the publication rights for the original novel.

With that in mind, I took out the unpublished sequel,
Wolfsbane
, blew off the dust, and did an extensive polishing run. I sent the result to my editor and asked about reprinting
Masques
and publishing
Wolfsbane
. She agreed and asked me if I wanted to revise
Masques
before they released it. Absolutely, I said. Please. And that was about the time I got a call asking me if I’d like to try my hand at an urban fantasy first. With the subsequent success of the Mercy Thompson and Alpha and Omega novels,
Masques
and
Wolfsbane
got put on the back burner for a few years.