Blind Date with a Werewolf
Patricia Briggs
Can Asil find happiness?
In the Mercyverse werewolves do not age. If not killed, a werewolf can live for centuries. They are not immortal in the strict sense -- a werewolf can be killed. In fact, most are killed within their first century. Being a werewolf is dangerous. Only dangerous werewolves survive for long.
Asil Moreno is an important character in Patricia Briggs‘s Alpha & Omega series. Asil was born shortly before the Battle of Tours (C.E. 732), making him close to 1300 years old. He is, in fact, a legendarily dangerous werewolf, known as “The Moor.”
We met Asil in previous Alpha & Omega stories because he joined Bran Cornick’s pack. He came to the USA from Europe because, after losing his mate, he had lost his will to live. In fact, almost the only thing he now takes joy in is killing. Despite the impression you might have received, Asil is in fact a thinker and a gentle person who wants to Do The Right Thing. He came to Aspen Creek to ask Bran to kill him. Bran kind of agreed -- that is, he agreed that, if Asil could not be fixed, Bran would end him. That has not yet become necessary, mostly because Anna (the “Omega” of Alpha & Omega) was able to help him.
Asil has a very high opinion of himself. It is not precisely vanity, because this opinion is justified. He is not just a dangerous fighter, he is also beautiful. In fact, the frequency of the adjective “beautiful,” a word usually reserved for women in American vernacular, is striking. Asil thinks of himself as beautiful, and that is the first word that springs to the minds of the people who meet him for the first time in these stories. Asil is not just naturally beautiful in body and face. He cares about his appearance and dress. In fact, he flirts with (and for me, in particular, crosses) the boundary into foppishness.
Blind Date with a Werewolf begins when Asil receives an email from a “Concerned Friend” challenging him to go on five blind dates, arranged for him by Concerned Friend. To win the challenge, Asil must fulfill certain requirements
A successful date is one in which (a) neither party runs screaming into the night, (b) there are no dead bodies at the end of it, and (c) you attend longer than two hours—at least an hour and a half of which is spent with your date—which is an hour and fifty minutes longer than we expect any date of yours to last.
Concerned Friend obviously knows that Asil finds it difficult to turn down a challenge. So, YEAH, It’s On!
As you might expect, these dates all involve not just baseline humans, but also werewolves, vampires, and fay. And they turn dangerous. [spoiler1] There are five chapters, each about one of Asil’s dates, and a epilog.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. Briggs is my favorite urban fantasy author. The dates are good stories in themselves, and they advance the narrative of both the Alpha & Omega series and the Mercy Thompson series.
Blind Date with a Werewolf on Amazon
In fact, in the course of the challenge the definition of success has to be refined several times -- the “no dead bodies” condition is particularly problematic.