The title of Hotel Silence by Audur Ava Olafsdottir (translated by Brian FitzGibbon) in the original Icelandic translates to "scars." That is the heart of the book all the way up to and including the very surprising ending. Each person bears the scars of his life. The scars of physical wounds are visible, but the scars of emotional wounds manifest themselves in different ways. Jonas thinks his path takes him to ending his life. In helping others, he finds himself. Therein lies the lesson of the book. 

Reviewed for NetGalley

From publisher's newsletter.  More books at the link.

So this is a round-up I did for B&N SciFi, which is a little listicle-y because it's number 10 in a series and nobody much cares about, like, an actual review at that point. Either you'll read it because you're on the hook, or you won't.

But coming up with the list kinda reminded me how kinda terrible the Mercy Thompson series is about relationships between female characters. I think there's a big step forward in Silence Broken -- Mercy has real conversations with Honey, that Russian witch lady, and Marselia -- but that doesn't precisely make up for the previous 9 novels. It ends up being one of those bummers where I pretty much like everything about a series but a huge fucking gaping hole where normal human interaction should exist between people of the same gender, but alas, it doesn't. Or it does a little not, but. 

Oh, but as per the actual plot: I thought this one unstuck some stuff that had been, um, stuck, in the few previous. Mercy ends up kidnapped into Europe, so we get a whole new political and literal landscape to deal with. I though it shook up some things that needed shaking up in the Mercyverse.