Bitten (Women of the Otherworld, #1) By Kelley Armstrong
A lot of authors tend to rely on supernatural abilities to make their fantasy and paranormal characters more appealing to us foolish mortals who seek our escapes amongst their pages. But Kelley Armstrong’s werewolves in Bitten must rely on grit and personality alone, because aside from having the ability to Change their shape, they don’t have any bizarre powers. They aren’t immortal, they can be killed just as easily as any other non-supernatural creature and it doesn’t take a silver bullet to do it—they could be gored by a deer, hit by a truck or even strangled or have their throats slit by a human psychopath.
The abilities Armstrong’s werewolves were granted were surprisingly believable, even without that total suspension of reality that is required to read a book about werewolves or vampires or the Fey. They were stronger than the average human, able to run harder longer, bench press more and do more pushups. And they could heal faster, but healing wasn’t an instantaneous process, it still required rest and time. And even though there was a slight psychic connection between the alpha and his pack, it was no more eerie than the close bond between a set of twins or best girlfriends or a married couple so in tune to each other that they frequently find themselves dialing the phone to call the other at the exact same time. It was Armstrong’s ability to subtly draw you into the werewolves’ world that sold me hook, line and sinker.
Like so many others who read urban fantasy and paranormal romance, werewolves have not been my favorite characters. Vampires, yes. Other fantastical beasts, erm, okay, but only if there’s a vampire somewhere in the book. But werewolves??? Eh. Pass. Fortunately, the high ratings this book has received practically forced me into giving this book a shot. And frankly, I loved it!!
Elena Michaels is one of the most intriguing heroines I’ve encountered in quite some time. She is the only female werewolf in existence and in the history of the Pack. She was raised human and after losing her parents in a car crash, was in and out of foster homes for her entire young life. She suffered the unwanted attentions of her foster fathers and grew up wanting nothing more than to have that normal human life: a good career, a caring husband, a home…
But when she was bitten by a werewolf during college, everything changed and her dreams for a normal life were ripped away from her because suddenly she was faced with violent urges, a ravenous appetite and the need to periodically change form and run as a wolf through the night. Obviously the latter is hard to do in a big city like Toronto, but after gaining some control over her other half, Elena tries to make it work.
She takes a job as a journalist with the newspaper, has a wonderful human boyfriend named Phillip who is kind and considerate and buys her flowers, and she quietly appeases the werewolf inside her by sneaking in-between meals at street vendors so her live-in human boyfriend doesn’t notice her above-average appetite and she sneaks out of the apartment at 2 a.m. to stalk and scare local security guards—a sad excuse for an all-out deer hunt, but she makes do.
But then she receives an urgent message from Jeremy, the Pack leader, and Elena can’t ignore it: her Pack is in danger. Elena leaves Toronto and flies to a remote area in upstate New York where her Pack is headquartered. And there she finds Clay, just as she left him, waiting for her, still in love with her.
Like Elena, Clay is also a dark, tortured hero. And the relationship Armstrong weaves for the two is both passionate and painful and oh-so wonderful, and the fact that the relationship was second to the urban fantasy plot of an all-out werewolf battle for territory didn’t make it any less satisfying.
No spoilers here, so I won't say anything else, except that I highly, highly recommend! 9781841493503 How can I write this review without sounding like I'm about to start stalking Kelley Armstrong?
I loved this book. I loved all the characters in it. It was well written, with engaging, interesting characters. The plot was fast moving and interesting. I never got bored, I never felt like it was dragging and the story was a PLEASURE to read.
This is what reading should be! Turning from page to page, absolutely and completely emotionally invested in the characters and feeling like you're right there, experiencing things through their eyes, their fingers and their brains even.
This book, to me, equals The Hunger Games and that's VERY high praise. I think I may actually enjoy it more than the Fever Series - though I don't want to go saying anything I can't take back!
I'm off to read the next books, hoping against hope that this one wasn't a fluke and that they are as well written and incredible as this one was! If they're not, I think my heart is going to break! 9781841493503 You know when you don't really expect to like a book based on the fact that you're prejudiced to its contents? For example, thanks to Twilight, I am completely Team Vampire (and I'm terribly ashamed at having brought Twilight up, trust me) so anything Werewolf-ish automatically sets off some inner resentment. Knowing this book was about werewolves just made me go 'blegh!' but I was suddenly determined to give it a chance, and so I did.
Oh. My. God. FANTASTIC. I was utterly absorbed by this book from the first page, completely mesmerised by the characters playing out on the pages before me. I was mentally crying as I neared the final page, torn between needing to finish and wanting it to last forever and ever.
This book is thrilling, entertaining, hilarious (it had me in hysterics!), steamy, sexy, tragic... it's honestly just a rollercoaster of adjectives. Elena is the most amusing narrator I've come across in a long time, whether she means to be or not. She is truly a unique voice and I wished that Armstrong had continued the series from Elena's point of view because I'm IN LOVE with her. Really, even when I wanted to strangle her for stupidity, I loved her. I could say that about Clay, too (GOD, I loved Clay, even when I hated him). These are those rare types of characters you never want to let go once you've found them.
Honestly, I could ramble for ages but I'm trying to contain myself. Trust me, if you have any doubts about reading this, just push past them and give this book a go. You can't go wrong. 9781841493503
Had any of the characters been even half as cool as this guy:
...I may have keep reading.
Or to be more accurate I should say: I may have read it correctly.
Which I didn’t. Instead, I did this:
*notices all the 5star reviews of Bitten*
*clicks ‘confirm order’ button on BookDespository.com*
*waits by mail box for about 40,000 years*
*receives Bitten*
*does happy dance like a happy thing in a happy place with a happy hat*
*begins reading page one of Bitten*
18 minutes later:
“ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....” etc.
Following day
*continues reading Bitten*
*fixes toothpicks to eyelids in order to avoid boredom-induced coma*
Some time later.
*has been reading this motha-effing story since the beginning of time. Assumes is on page 82,476*
*looks at page number*
“Page 183! WTF!??”
*flips to final chapter. Absorbs general gist of things.*
*curses all Goodreaders*
9781841493503 This might be the best first-in-series I've ever read. I have favorite series, and this is definitely one of them, but most of the time my favorite book in the series is not the first one.
This one is.
I love Elena. I love Clay. I love them together, and I HATE them separated. I love their issues, and I love their issues getting resolved even more.
I can't think of a single think about this book that I don't like.
ALSO Clayton Danvers might be my all-time favorite book boyfriend:
1. He's a friggin' HOT werewolf.
2. He has no problem being in a relationship with a strong female.
3. He is the epitome of all things loyal.
4. He would do anything, A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G to keep Elena safe/rescue her. I'm talking you'd have to kill him to stop him, and he's damn hard to kill.
5. He mates for life.
6. He's a good dad.
7. He's refreshingly forthright.
I could go on (and on, and on). I love him more than Curran Lennart <----I didn't even know his last name until I just looked it up. I love him more than Trent Kalamack. More than Eric Northman. More than Ricky-bo and Cuffs Alistair. More than Edward and Peeta.
Get it? 9781841493503
A warning to the reader, don't pick this book up if you cannot devote hours to reading it. You will be completely absorbed into this tale of a woman who happens to be a werewolf, and isn't completely happy about it. Elena is a fascinating protagonist, not all bad, but not all good either. She has an animal side to her that she has suppressed, but when dead bodies start turning up, killed by what is clearly a werewolf, she can no longer hide from her werewolf origins. Another thing that makes this book so fantastic is Clayton Danvers. That man is dangerous. You wonder how Elena can stay mad at him, although he really did her dirty (you have to read it to find out). The pack dynamics are interesting. As the only female werewolf, Elena is cherished like a beloved sister and daughter. But to Clay she is and will always be his mate, even if she runs away again. If you are looking for an urban fantasy book written like mainstream fiction, or a good fiction book that is very much urban fantasy, or a really incredible werewolf novel, you would probably just love this book. 9781841493503 I first read this book when it came out and loved it. It was one of the few books I'd read that focused predominantly on werewolves. I've read MANY since and so I went back and reread this because I was curious if it would hold up against the masses. Oh boy. It did.
Let me just say that out of all paranormal books I've read, Clay has to be one of the sexiest, if not the sexiest male character. I'm not sure why exactly, maybe it's because nothing about him is really overdone, a lot of his appeal is in his silence. He doesn't have to build a monument to himself and then stand on top of it screaming that he's an alpha like some characters. With him, you just know it. And you want it. BAD. 9781841493503 I'm sick with a cold/flu thing so I'm not sure how good my judgement is right now, but I definitely found my new book boyfriend here. His name is Clay and he's a sociopathic werewolf. He hates humans and kills them without remorse. But, he is also willing to kill anyone for the woman he loves. Isn't that romantic? He's so sweet!
aww, you are kinda cute with your little noseless face, aren't you?
So, this book is about the only female werewolf in existence, Elena. She's not happy being a furry and left the pack to live a human life. She found a nice mellow man and is trying to pretend that she is a nice mellow woman. But, you can't keep a good furry down!
Yeah, the human experience may be a little over-rated...
Elena gets called back to the pack to help hunt down some rogue werewolves who are killing people. Being back home reminds her of her wild side, plus there is the matter of a very alluring sociopath, so...
go get your freak on, girl! 9781841493503 Elena Michaels is the most idiotic and annoying main character ever. As if it's not bad enough that she's the stereotypical urban fantasy heroine (hates being different, continually tries to be normal, etc.), she's also just plain -stupid-. The spends the entire book swearing on her life that she doesn't love Clay (ex-fiance, turned her into a werewolf, blah blah blah), and yet is cuddling up with him and spending time with him the whole time, DESPITE the fact that she keeps saying how much she cares about her human boyfriend back home.
And then, whenever Clay tries to get serious about her and him getting back together, she completely shuts him out and shouts at him for no reason and doesn'tlisten to a word he says.
If the story hadn't revolved around Elena Michaels, the book would've been passable. But since it did revolve around her, it was awful.
Full review: http://persyandarty.blogspot.com/2012... 9781841493503 This one's been hanging around for a while, since it was recommended to me sometime last year. I saw that kiwiria loved it and remembered that I had it, so thought I should get onto it sooner rather than later. To be honest, the fact that it's about werewolves put me off. I greatly enjoyed Kerri Arthur's Riley Jensen Guardian series (the main character is a werewolf), and Kresley Cole has some wonderful lycanthrope characters whom I love, but generally they don't hold the attraction that vampires do. Well, I really should re-think that now.
Elena Michaels is an orphan with a horrible past of foster families and abusive foster fathers since her parents died in a car accident when she was little. Meeting and falling in love with Clay, an esteemed anthropologist doing a stint of teaching at the University of Toronto, was the first time she could be more herself, and he was the first person she could be honest and open with. Until she's bitten by a werewolf and becomes the first female werewolf ever, and forced into a life she did not want, with the Pack.
Ten years later, she's carving a human life for herself in Toronto as a journalist, living with her boyfriend Philip, and forcing herself not to Change until she can't help it. When she does, she goes out in the early hours of the morning and chases security guards in the car parks, and rabbits in the ravines. Her attempt at fitting in with humans comes to a jarring halt when the Pack leader, Jeremy, asks her to return to Stonehaven in New York State. There's a killer on the loose in the town who's obviously a non-Pack werewolf, a mutt, leaving the mutilated bodies on Pack territory and bringing the police to their doorstep.
Returning to Stonehaven, Elena finds herself fitting into old patterns without fear of exposure or judgement. She still yearns to be human, or at least, to fit in in the human world, but the situation is becoming more threatening and her Pack-brothers are losing their lives: and the enemy wants her.
While the Prologue was necessary in setting up the main character and narrator, Elena, and it worked well written in present tense - gives it that timeless quality - I found it a bit boring and was worried I wouldn't be able to get through the book. It wasn't long before I was completely riveted though.
It comes down to Elena herself, I think. She's tough, she's bitchy at times, she's smart, yet she has this aloof, lonely quality that adds a touch of vulnerability and really made me feel for her without being told to. The way she describes her past and how she dealt with it, the way she over-thinks her way through the world of humans, concentrating and always thinking, what would a human do? (Even though she used to be human, she's not anymore.)
Then there's her relationship with Clay, which is what really drives the whole story. Clay is an interesting character with at least three noticeable sides: cold killer; eager, childlike boy with a wealth of feeling; and borderline genius. He's moody but predictable, dangerous and lethal but oh so loving and loveable. I just loved the fact that he wasn't easy to sum up, that he was complicated.
More than that, though, the plot was exciting and even though, after the prologue, the rest of the book is written in past tense, it still has that now feeling where the narrator, Elena, isn't giving hints as to what happened later, but narrates as if she has no idea either. That gives the story a great deal of suspense and tension.
For a debut novel, this is a bloody good novel. The writing quality is very high, the character development is wonderful, the plot is absorbing, never boring, and the moments of humour are very adult and speak to a level of intelligence that most popular fiction aims below. It's an intelligent, mature book, very hard to put down, and I'm very keen to read the second book featuring Elena, Stolen. 9781841493503
Elena Michaels is the world’s only female werewolf. And she’s tired of it. Tired of a life spent hiding and protecting, a life where her most important job is hunting down rogue werewolves. Tired of a world that not only accepts the worst in her–her temper, her violence–but requires it. Worst of all, she realizes she’s growing content with that life, with being that person.
So she left the Pack and returned to Toronto where she’s trying to live as a human. When the Pack leader calls asking for her help fighting a sudden uprising, she only agrees because she owes him. Once this is over, she’ll be squared with the Pack and free to live life as a human. Which is what she wants. Really. Bitten (Women of the Otherworld, #1)