This is Book Two in Armstrong’s “Women of the Otherworld” series. This book can be read without reading the first book in the series, (see my previous book review for details about the first book), however, because Armstrong does a good job of filling the reader in on important details, instead of just assuming that the reader already knows those things.

I wasn’t as impressed with this second book. Elena, the female werewolf from the previous book is the main character in this second book. She has resolved all of the things that were troubling her in the first book by the time this one starts. There are a few scenes in the front of the book, and a few towards the end of the book where two members of her Pack appear. For the most part, however, Armstrong introduces entirely new characters into this book. In short, most of the stuff I really liked about the first book, (the werewolf social structure, the details about what it’s like to change into a werewolf, the hunting scenes), are mostly missing from this second book.

This book starts with a meeting. Included are two witches, a half-demon who can burn things, a vampire, (who sounded interesting, but, unfortunately, turns out to be a very minor character), and a shaman, I think. The reason for the meeting is because there is some crazy rich guy who is going around kidnapping a few of each kind of “monster”, locking them away somewhere to have them studied, and then, getting some enjoyment from hunting and killing them. The group wants to band together to put a stop to this, but, can’t really agree on much of a plan. The werewolves would rather just stay out of it, and take care of themselves, as they usually do.

Then, Elena, of course, gets captured. The rest of the book is about how she plans her escape, and the terrible things that happen to her and the other unfortunate captives. Armstrong introduces a few more characters here, some of which are dead by the end of the book.

I just couldn’t get into this book. The plot, “crazy rich guy captures werewolves, vampires, witches, etc.” has been done before. I thought I remembered something similar to this being done on an episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” once. Armstrong actually has one of her characters refer to that tv series, and I can’t decide if I think that is lame or clever. The “lets collect up and hunt people” thing has been done already, in at least the movie that Ice T was in, which I forget the name of right now.

There is a lot of psychological torment in this book, and when the fighting starts, a lot of innocents die, in rather nasty ways. This book pales in comparison to the first book in this series. Armstrong does introduce two characters in this book who I am pretty sure appear as main characters in the next book, so, if you are planning to read the entire series, you might want to read this book for the background information. If you were hoping for something more similar to Armstrong’s first book, then I would advise skipping this one. It’s just not what I expected.

This book is Book One of Armstrong’s “Women of the Otherworld” series. I enjoyed it enough to want to read Book Two.

Elena is a conflicted woman. She is caught between two worlds, and has not yet decided just where she wants to be. One world she shares with Philip, her long term boyfriend. They share an apartment, have normal jobs that pay well enough, and normal lives. Or so Philip thinks, anyway. Elena has another world, that she is keeping a secret from Philip. Elena is a werewolf.

Some years ago, when Elena was in college, she was bitten by a werewolf. She was bitten against her will by someone she thought she knew well, but who had not told her that he was a werewolf. She survived, and ever since then, has needed to Change into a werewolf from time to time. There is a Pack that she belongs to, but, Elena has mixed feelings about the Pack, how she feels about certain members of the Pack, (one in particular), and what life is like living with at Pack of other werewolves. This brings her to living in Toronto with Philip, and constantly hiding all traces of her secret from him.

Then, something happens, and the Alpha of the Pack calls her back, expecting her help. This is where things get sticky. How long can Elena keep Philip from finding out what she really is? What will his reaction be when he finds out? What exactly does she feel for one member of the Pack, who was her lover before Philip? The Pack is in danger, and Elena must help to protect them. While lots of drama surrounds her, Elena start to question her life, and her ideas about family, love, happiness, and what it means to have a “normal” life.

I think that Elena’s confusion is something we can all relate to. Many of us keep our “work life” and our “family life” as two distinct and separate entities. Also, like Elena, I think that many people have at one time or another tried to keep a love relationship going by always presenting only their best self to their lover, hoping he or she will never see one’s darker side, for fear of being rejected by this special person. In some ways, Elena is no different than many of us.

Armstrong’s presentation of “woman as werewolf” is very exciting. Elena is not only the main character, but she is strong, smart, fierce, and a survivor. I also found it interesting that Elena is the only female werewolf in the “universe” of this book, and the reason’s why that is so.

This book has lots of action, as one might expect from a book about werewolves. Some scenes detail what it’s like to view the world from the perspective of a wolf on a hunt. There are lots of fights, which are graphic, but not over the top. It is one of those books where as soon as one problem is resolved, the next one pops up, and the characters are running from one tragedy to the next. After about halfway through the book, it started to get a little repetitive, but still not entirely predictable.

If you like stories featuring strong female characters, you will enjoy this book. Its a little bit science fiction, a little bit romance novel, and a whole lot of action.

I know, because I work in a bookstore, that there were people who were extremely excited to get their hands on a copy of this book. But, was the book really something to get excited about? I decided to find out.

From the title alone, I already knew that this was book was likely to fall into the Romance genre, which is my least favorite category of books. I read the back cover, and found out that this book is made up of four short stories, by four different authors, which made it a bit more interesting. There were a lot of pages here, and I figured that since it was split into four different stories, maybe I could manage to read it. After all, if I didn’t like one story, there were three more to try! Two things made me decide I would read this book. One, it sounded like there would be at least one vampire in it, and hinted at demons and werewolves as well. That’s usually a good thing. Two, I got it for free, because I work at a bookstore. Can’t go wrong there!

By the time I was done, I got about what I expected. I asked someone I work with who also has read this book what she thought of it. She summed it up quite nicely. “Eh.”

The first story is by Kim Harrison, and is called “Undead in the Garden of Good and Evil”. I had high hopes for this one, thinking it would be something like the book by a similar name. I ended up liking this story the best out of the four. Ivy is a vampire, but a “living” vampire. She works in a CSI type place, that is run by vampires who aren’t alive anymore. Her boss is attractive, but is hitting on her, and so, she’s not interested. She knows he only wants her for her blood. The Vampire boss isn’t allowed to just take it though, without her permission, so he tries to change her mind. There are some pretty well written scenes of the two of them trying to tease the other one into giving in first. The best part of the story is the “universe” it is set in. It had witches, banshees, werewolves, and a whole hierarchy of vampires. I would like to have read more about all of that.

The second story was by Lynsay Sands, and is called “The Claire Switch Project”. Claire works in a lab with two guys she has known since high school. One has asked her out, but she declined. The other one is the twin brother of her best friend, and she is damned near in love with him. The three are working on zapping animals with some kind of laser, to make them be able to change their appearance like chameleons. Its pretty obvious where this is going. Some of it might have been a little funny, if it wasn’t so telegraphed before hand. No surprises here. I almost quit reading this story when Claire and her best friend are talking about a glamorous, sexy, popular, actor, who is in all the movies, who Sands named “Brad Cruise”! C’mon!

Kelley Armstrong wrote the third story, called “Chaotic”. Hope is a half demon who is working by day for a tabloid, and by night as a spy of sorts for some secret group. She goes on a blind date with this guy her mom set her up with to a museum for a benefit. Within seconds, its clear that two things are going on here. One, the blind date guy is boring. Two, there is someone trying to steal jewels from the museum, which Claire finds out about because she’s a half-demon who can sense chaos. The story takes some interesting twists and turns. There are a few sex scenes in the story, which seemed kind of thrown into the story, and not really essential. I would have liked to know more about the half-demons and all their weird powers instead.

The last story in the book was called “Dead Man Dating” and was written by Lori Handeland. Kit is a frumpy, chubby, studious type, who goes on a date with some guy she met on the internet. He turns out to be dead, but does show up for the date. Things go from there. Kit is rescued by a demon hunter who sounds a lot like Antonio Banderas. This story was had too much “romance novel” and not enough “action/sci-fi” for my taste. This story is practically made to order for women who are fourty-something, living at home with mom, and not dating anyone. A lot of emphasis was put on how the main character is a virgin, and things go much as you would expect. The parts about the demons were very interesting though. I might have liked the ending more if this was a longer book. As it was, it seemed kind of early for what happened to happen.