Short Story Saturday: Redemption

Title: Redemption (from the anthology Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson)

Author: Patricia Briggs

Date of Publication: September 2, 2014

Formats Available: Hardcover, Paperback, E-book

Buy This Book: Amazon

Number of Pages: 34

Synopsis: "Ben is in the process of change. We mere mortals have only seventy years or so in which to get over the bad things hat have happened to us- and the bad things we've done. I found an event that would be pivotal for Ben- and a chance to bring in some of the werid and absurd things my husband ran into in his years as a DBA (data base administrator) for a huge government contractor." - Patricia Briggs, Shifting Shadows: Stories from the World of Mercy Thompson

My Review:

 I am a huge, huge, huge fan of Ben. Even though he's rough around the edges and not always the best person I still love him and I know that, hiding under his rude and abrasive personality, there is a good person no matter how hard he tries to hide it. The friendship between him and Mercy is one of my favorite relationships in the whole series so I was thrilled to finally read a story from his perspective.

Though I didn't love this one as much as I was hoping I still enjoyed it. I liked getting inside Ben's head and seeing him from another perspective. Even though he was a jerk for the majority of the novel there was also a part of him that has always been a good person and I liked seeing little bits of that shine through. Because it was Ben Briggs was able to include a little bit of humor in this story as well and I really enjoyed watching Ben struggle through his challenge not to cuss and his attitude toward the people he worked with, both of which made me laugh.

One of the other most interesting parts of this story was learning a little bit more about Ben's past. In the novels his past is brushed on a little bit but never fully explained, while I still have a few questions it was really nice to learn a little bit more about Ben and what makes him tick. Ben's been through a lot, and even though his whole story hasn't quite been divulged yet I still have a special place in my heart for his character.

While Redemption wasn't one of my favorites of the collection I did enjoy it and fans of Ben will definitely be excited to finally learn a little bit more about him. I can't wait to see more of Ben in the future and I hope we get to learn even more about him as the series continues!

3/5