The Hunter &The Hunted by Kelley Armstrong - Book Review

This pair of short stories is a small appetiser for the main event - the release of the final book in the Women of the Otherworld series - 13.

The Hunter and the Hunted by Kelley Armstrong .
Summary courtesy of Amazon:  From #1 New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong comes two Otherworld short stories that take readers on an exhilarating honeymoon chase with werewolves Elena and Clay, and a mysterious mission through the afterlife with dark witch-turned-angel, Eve Levine.

13 has to be the book I have been most looking forward to being released in my book worm years. As a self confessed fan girl of the Women of the Otherworld series I am happy to pick anything related to the series, and in this case it is a pair of bite sized short stories.

Stalked

Summary: It was supposed to be a quiet honeymoon. But when the happy couple just happen to be werewolves, 'quiet' is not an option.
Clay and Elena are trying their best to enjoy a traditional romantic getaway. But secretly, they're both bored with drifting round St Louis, pretending to be a normal couple. So when Clay realises a non-pack werewolf is stalking Elena, he leaps at the chance to pursue his rival and teach him a very hard lesson. The trouble is, Clay's plan involves deceiving Elena, which is not a good idea . . .
Originally part of an anthology of supernatural romance stories, Stalked is the perfect introduction to Kelley Armstrong's Otherworld series and an exhilarating, action-packed interlude for fans.

Clay & Elena have to be my favourite character couple from the series so anything that is about them I am pretty much guaranteed to enjoy. Having said that, this is not a fantastic example of their story. I can't help but think, that without having read any of the other books this might be a thrilling read. The plot is short, well written and fast paced. But as a regular reader this doesn't really add anything to the series. Nothing new is learnt, no real new characters are introduced and my favourite characters related to them are barely mentioned.

Off-Duty Angel

Dark witch and part-time angel Eve Levine is desperate for a little entertainment. With her lover Kristof away on business, things are so quiet in the afterlife Eve's even ready to volunteer for an extra week's worth of angel corps duty, just to pass the time. Luckily something even better comes up: a real celestial bounty-hunter mission. But when the trail leads her to the British Museum and a mysterious, secret dimension, a pleasant diversion turns into something much more intriguing - and dangerous . . . Packed with suspense and surprising twists, Off-Duty Angelreveals fascinating new insights into a beloved series character.

I really enjoyed this short story. The plot was original and there was considerable amount of character development. Eve really is a kick ass character and I really warmed to her in this episode. I would have purchased for just this one short.

13 Preview
Last books in series tend to be action packed. Deathly Hallows. Breaking Dawn. 13 looks to be no different in that respect. I was positively shocked by some of the gore and really intrigued to read the rest of the book now. I just really hope that with all this action it doesn't loose the romance (sex), character development and the domestic scenes I really enjoy. My biggest gripe with this preview though was its formatting. I can only assume with its conversion to a Kindle readable format something went wrong, resulting in a series of small but annoying spacing errors. This aside this really is just a taster and I can wait for the next book!

Overall this was not a dissapointment, but just not the best I have read by Armstrong. Just today I received my email confirmation that my copy of 13 has been shipped, and this short story collection has in no way affected the anticipation and excitement I have for this final book, be it good or bad.

6/10

Look out for my review of 13 coming in the next few days!

Thanks for reading,

Love Rie x

Kelley Armstrong - Author Interview.

Any one who knows anything about my blog or me personally will know I am a huge fan of Kelley Armstrong. Discovering her adult fantasy series Women of the Otherworld really pushed me towards having to share good books, and thus start blogging, and I would not hesitate to recommend her books to anyone!


So you can imagine my excitement after a cheeky email to Kelley Armstrong via her assistant came back with a fantastic little interview. So without further ado, I present to you an interview with THE Kelley Armstrong about the Women of the Otherworld series, its final book '13' and what comes next....

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It is well known that Bitten was written as a stand alone novel, and then expanded into a series. But I was wondering what was you inspiration for the first book and how did you come to expand it for the rest of the series?

When I wrote Bitten, my goal was to create the kind of werewolves I wanted to read about.  The idea was sparked by seeing an X-Files episode on werewolves.  As much as I liked the show, I didn’t care for their version of werewolves, which were the typical man-killing monsters. I’d always been fascinated by the idea of combining humans and wolves, and that show gave me an excuse to write a story about that kind of werewolf.

When the question of turning Bitten into a series came up, I gave it a lot of thought. As much as I loved the stories and characters, I couldn't imagine writing a long series about just werewolves.  I decided to instead create a linked series with changing narrators/protagonists.  In the second book, Stolen, I introduced other supernatural characters, and spun off to one of them--a witch--for the next novel.

You have mentioned on your website that you and the character of Elena share the same year of birth. Would you say the character is based on yourself? Or is that where the similarity ends?

All my characters have a trait or two in common with me.  That just makes them easier to write.  With Elena, she's my age, from my geographic area, with my education level, etc, which made it easy for me to get into her head as my first narrator.  Paige and I share a common interest in computers (I was a programmer) so I could easily write that part of her life and personality.  Eve and I both have daughters around the same age, so that part of her character came naturally. Even my teen characters share something in common with me. But it’s only a trait or two. Ninety-five percent of their character is very different from me!

Are any of the other characters based on people you know?

None of them are based on anyone I know. I pull bits and pieces from everywhere--friends, family, acquaintances--and mix it together.

What can we expect from the final book in the series, Thirteen?

I’m going to answer that with a quote from the book that one of my publishers used. 

“Anything you thought you knew about our world? Forget it. Someone has tossed out the rulebook. Ghosts can cross the divide. Hell-hounds can manifest. Demi-demons can possess living children. And it’s not going to get any better until it’s over.” 

As you might guess from that, 13 is my Otherworld upheaval book, when everyone comes together to fight the biggest threat they’ve faced.

Is this really the end of the Women of the Otherworld series? I am so sad to see it end!

I do hope to write more stories—and maybe even a future novel or two—but I’m ending the book-a-year schedule and launching a new adult series.

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I think you will agree these are some fantastic answers. I did get very excited when I first saw them in my email inbox. With just over a month until the release of Thirteen (July 24th) I had to share them with you. And with the announcement she is writing a new adult series I am over the moon!

If you want to know more about Kelley Armstrong you can check out her website, Goodreads profile or read the other blog posts I have written about both her, the Women of the Otherworld series, Darkest Powers or Darkness Rising series. 

Thank you for reading,

Love Rie x

Book Cover Love.

One of things I miss the most, now I have my Kindle, is covers. They can be photographic genius, hand drawn art or just intriguing. For this reason I wanted to do a really quick run down of some of my favourite covers of late. So in no particular order...

Re-print of Dead Until Dark does not fail to catch anyone's attention. With one glance we know that this  books genre, tone, and style. Surpasses the first print cover by far!

This cover brings back serious memories, the start of something I obsessed over in my teen years. I love the hand drawn look, and encapsulates the way I see Harry Potter long before Daniel Radcliffe. 

For serious Twilight fans, this limited edition cover is to die for (pun intended)!

I haven't actually read this book yet, but I stumbled on it as a suggestion on Amazon and LOVE the cover. 

I really want to recreate this cover - its so beautiful. The only thing I am lacking is skill!

Possibly the book I am most excited about in 2012, this cover gives away very little, but I still love it. This print style of the series is mysterious and... well... beautiful!

   

Please link your favourite book covers in the comments. I would love to see them.

Thanks for reading,

Love Rie xx