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.