Women of the Otherworld Series Challenge #2

Today I am taking part in a series challenge as hosted by Moonlight Gleam's Bookshelf. Each month the challenge is to re-read a book in the Women of the Otherworld series and write a related blog post and enter the link on the site. I didn't find out about this until earlier this month, so unfortunately I missed out it taking part in last months re-read of Bitten. But this month is all about the second book in the series Stolen!


I have told the story of how I stumbled upon the Women of the Otherworld series many times now, so I will not repeat it again. But this being the second book in the series was the second book I read of Armstrong's and cemented my love for her writing style. 

Summary Courtesy of Goodreads: "When a young witch tells Elena that a group of humans are kidnapping supernaturals, Elena ignores the warning. After all, everyone knows there’s no such thing as witches. As for the thought of other ‘supernaturals’, well, she’d just rather not dwell on the possibility. Soon, however, she’s confronted with the truth about her world, when she’s kidnapped and thrown into a cell-block with witches, sorcerers, half-demons and other werewolves. As Elena soon discovers, dealing with her fellow captives is the least of her worries. In this prison, the real monsters carry the keys."

I first read Stolen a few years ago now and remember loving being introduced to a stream of new characters. Bitten was fantastic at describing the duplicity of the werewolves lives and I fell easily fell in love with each member of the pack. Stolen moves on from this effortlessly to introduce many different supernatural races. From central characters to the smallest of parts, Armstrong ensures they are well rounded without making the narrative to clunky. Elena in particular is such a strong female lead who is determined to both fight her way out but has the compassion to want to save others. She is not too proud of a little help from lover Clay and the rest of the pack making her a truly fantastic protagonist. 

Yet it wasn't until a read around the series on Kelley Armstrong's website and some of her free online fiction that I realised the place this books holds in the series. The first book in the series, Bitten, was originally written as a stand alone book. When approached to make a series Armstrong felt that writing so many books just around the werewolves would soon get repetitive and boring for readers so decided to use Stolen to introduce new characters for the rest of the series. I have read some reviews saying that this is a downfall of this book, but I couldn't disagree more. Knowing this I couldn't help but enjoy it even more when I re-read this book as I came to appreciate Armstrong's skill and style in writing in constantly new and well rounded characters and building a relationship between each one and the reader. 

Overall I love this book.But when it comes to rating it I have to take the rest of the series into consideration. This is not the best book in the series, and in that sense I don't feel I can rank it full marks. Because of this I rate it:

8/10

Have you read this book? What did you think? Also part of the Series Challenge, please post the link to your post here so I can check it out!

If you haven't read this book already - you must! You can pick it up on Amazon from as little as £4.99 for Kindle. I have also seen these kicking around in second hand books shops and charity shops now as they get a bit older so keep your eyes peeled for a bargain! 

Thanks for reading,

Love Rie x