Product Description

In the tradition of Laurell K. Hamilton, and just in time for Halloween, a deliciously wicked sequel to Bitten, from Canada’s new queen of suspense.

Even though she’s the world’s only female werewolf, Elena Michaels is just a regular girl at heart -- with larger than normal appetites. She sticks to three feasts a day, loves long runs in the moonlight, and has a lover who is unbelievably frustrating yet all the more sexy for his dark side. Like every regular girl, she certainly doesn’t believe in witches. Then again, when two small, ridiculously feminine women manage to hurl her against a wall, and then save her from the hunters on her tail, Elena realizes that maybe there are more things in heaven and earth than she’s dreamt of.

Vampires, demons, shamans, witches -- in Stolen they all exist, and they’re all under attack. An obsessed tycoon with a sick curiosity is well on his way to amassing a private collection of supernaturals, and plans to harness their powers for himself -- even if it means killing them. For Elena, kidnapped and imprisoned deep underground, separated from her Pack, unable to tell her friends from her enemies, choosing the right allies is a matter of life and death.


From another edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #164150 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-09
• Released on: 2003-09-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 576 pages

Amazon.ca
When two desperate witches lure part-time journalist and full-time werewolf Elena Michaels into a carefully laid trap, she quickly learns that her perceptions about humanity are based on some fundamental flaws. In Kelley Armstrong's supernatural thriller, Stolen, the world is populated with vampires, demons, half-demons, magical shamans, and other supernatural races living anonymously among the human population--a concept that Elena has a hard time accepting, just as she struggled with her own lupine identity in Armstrong's remarkable debut, Bitten. But when Elena returns to her werewolf pack in upstate New York, pack leader Jeremy reveals that the threat people pose to the supernatural races should not be taken lightly. When Jeremy, Elena, and her lover Clay decide to take action to protect their pack, Elena gets kidnapped on the orders of a power-crazed billionaire. While being held captive she learns that while some magical beings are good and some evil, none are capable of more outright cruelty and savage betrayal than ordinary, non-magical human beings.

Armstrong actively solicited reader input via her web site while writing the second title of her Women of the Otherworld series. This unconventional creative strategy sheds light on Armstrong's justified literary confidence. Her large cast of characters is fully realized, despite their great diversity, which ranges from insecure research scientists to unreliable half-demons, as well as Paige, an orphaned and highly volatile adolescent witch. Most gratifyingly, Armstrong's horror is tempered with a sly and very satisfying dose of humour: "Across the room was the Ladies Auxiliary snack table," Armstrong describes Elena's first impression of a conference of supernaturals under attack.

The only thing missing was a blue-haired matron doling out goodies and guarding her cash box.... On the rear wall, a handwritten sign reminded snackers that coffee and doughnuts were a quarter each, followed by a red line clarifying that this meant fifty cents for both a doughnut and coffee.... I really hoped the Legion folks were responsible for the goodies and the sign. Otherwise... well, I didn't want to consider the alternative.

--Deirdre Hanna

From Publishers Weekly
Elena Michaels, the only known female werewolf, cavorts on a more fully cultivated supernatural playing field in this sure-footed follow-up to Bitten (2001). While investigating a suspicious notice advertising information for sale about werewolves, Elena meets witches Paige and Ruth Winterbourne-and, to her misfortune, a team of mortal and supernatural commandos who abduct Elena and Ruth to a remote underground bunker in the wilds of Maine. There Ty Winsloe, "billionaire and computer geek extraordinaire," is collecting a menagerie representing all the supernatural species that coexist anonymously with humanity (vampires, werewolves, witches, etc.). While his scientists study such creatures in the hope of distilling their uncanny powers as salable commodities, Winsloe hunts those captives who have outlived their usefulness in cruel most-dangerous-game fashion. Elena's efforts to outsmart Winsloe long enough to apprise her Pack of her whereabouts are complicated by a werewolf wannabe among the captors. Though the tale is pretty much a prison-break story spiffed up with magic, Armstrong leavens the narrative with brisk action and intriguing dollops of werewolf culture that suggest a complex and richly imagined anthropologic backstory. The sassy, pumped-up Elena makes a perfect hardboiled horror heroine, with enough engaging attitude to compensate for the loose ends left untied to set up her next adventure.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
Praise for Bitten:

“[A] fast-paced, sexy thriller.” -- The Bookseller

“A howling good time.” -- The Toronto Star

“Biting sensuality and vivid description. . . . A smart, original thriller, destined to keep people reading on into the night.”
-- The Gazette (Montreal)


From the Hardcover edition.