Bitten

by Kelley Armstrong

In a book about werewolves I found a soul mate - go figure I'm usually a cat person. Kelley Armstrong reignites werewolf lore. Her characters are flesh and blood, people you feel like you just met, whose story unravells to you in the midst of a throat ripping adventure.

The main character Elena, a female werewolf, has a history. She is powerful and unique – almost superhuman, ok she is super human being werewolf and all, but under it all she's got a complicated human heart complete with all the feelings, weaknesses, and desires. You’re not here to experience her becoming a werewolf you’re here to know what being one means and might cost. She's finding a murderer but also deciding her own fate and hoping to not get reckless and killed along the way.

I read a lot so I did not find the plot particularly riveting - it was fun but I so enjoyed the characters that I could not put it down – you could say I devoured the book. OK the the blood, sex, hunting, shape shifting, and on top of it all CANADIAN setting kept my interest.

OK, OK, I admit it, maybe I'm a bit bias – I lived near Toronto, I never fully 'belonged', and I identify with the feelings of a foster kid – (thank the gods my experience turned out way better than hers). I’m betting the writer is foster kid or an adoptee to express through subtle yet with pinpoint accuracy the longing for belonging and yet need for independence and strength that her character searches for. (Aren't we all?!) Somehow this “horror” book lead me to understand these needs better than I had before. Of course this is no self help book - there's plenty of snapping bones and ripped out throats - neither of which I do on a regular basis.

As the plot unwinds as do the character ensemble. No you don’t always agree with the choices, and no not all the characters would be one's you want as your best friend but in this way the book engulfs you into believing that you could really know these people. They get under your skin.

Inside this horror book I found a woman inside the wolf, and a wolf inside the woman. Ultimately both Elena and I realized that you gotta take life by the throat and get a little messy. Yum. - Trinity