A Most Dangerous Game.... | Stolen (Women of the Otherworld, Book 2)

favorite in the "Elena" trilogy | Stolen (Women of the Otherworld, Book 2) | Kelley Armstrong

books:


	• Stolen (Women of the Otherworld, Book 2) Kelley Armstrong Plume, 2004 - 480 pages average customer review:based on 80 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

opening up the series

I read Bitten five years ago and loved it. And I'd intended to look for this one when it came out, but that was before I started keeping a calendar list of what's coming out when, and I ended up forgetting about it. Argh.

Elena Michaels is the only female werewolf. Her job for the pack is to help keep the werewolves' secrecy by investigating anything online that might indicate a mutt (non-pack werewolf) getting himself noticed.

She's following a lead when she agrees to meet with Ruth and Paige Winterbourne, aunt and niece, who are selling proof that werewolves exist. When she meets them, she finds out that not only do they have proof--they know all about her, personally, and that they'd placed the ad specifically in order to meet her. The women explain that they are witches and they wanted to meet her to invite the pack to a meeting of representatives of supernatural races, convening to discuss the disappearance of supernaturals of all sorts, kidnapped by billionaire Ty Winsloe.

Elena is disbelieving, but when a stalker in fatigues who seems to know she's a wolf tries to grab her, she's a little more willing to listen. So she, the alpha Jeremy, and Clay, her lover, attend the meeting along with the witches, a vampire, a shaman, and a half-demon.

Then she's, well, Stolen--abducted after the meeting when her vehicle gets separated from the one carrying Clay and Jeremy. She's taken to an underground facility with cells housing other supernaturals who are being experimented on. Think Season 4 of Buffy, and The Initiative (which, by the way, is mentioned, making me laugh).

That's why the scientists and doctors are there, anyway. Winsloe just wants his own extreme LARP.

Stolen opens up the series by introducing other supernatural races. Witches are pretty much what you'd expect, but vampires are a little different from what I've seen elsewhere, and the half-demons, who have a variety of powers depending on their demon parentage, are quite unusual.

There's a lot of worldbuilding in this story, and the plot facilitates that--first by Ruth and Paige explaining things to a disbelieving Elena, and then by the experiments and observations of Winsloe's scientific team.

Even though the story is told from Elena's first person POV, the various characters are all unique and well-developed, including the villains, who aren't just cardboard cut-outs of Evil, and are all the more chilling because of that.

The suspense kept me turning pages, and I particularly appreciated that Armstrong skipped the cliche of the stupid villains--that most of the ways Elena tried to escape had been anticipated and prevented, and that she kept having to stretch her ingenuity.

There is, of course, less of the werewolf pack and Elena's relationship with Clay--that was done superbly in Bitten, and kudos to Armstrong again for not simply rehashing the first book. There's a bit, though, enough to keep fans happy.

I'm glad I finally remembered to get this. The third book is already in my TBR pile.

for more information click here

A Most Dangerous Game....

This book was extremely good. Here we find Elena checking into illicit werewolf activity as a part of her job in the pack. Following a tip, Elena is led to a meeting with two witches. Things spiral out of control and Elena ends up being kidnapped and brought to an undercover and illegal paranormal "study" organization headed by a bigwig millionaire psycho. Ty Winslow believes in hunting his 'stolen' prey ala Most Dangerous Game fashion. That is once his co-workers get tired of studying their powers, habits, and DNA. Inside the compound adventure upon adventure awaits. Elena most use all her skills and cunning to get out of unreal situations. How does Elena cope? Who are these intriguing co-captives among her? Will and how does Elena escape and who can possibly make it out alive? I recommend anyone slightly intrigued by this storyline grab up a copy of this book and its predessasor "Bitten" immediately. Personally speaking, I liked this book more than the first. I had problems with some of Elena's behaviours in the first book, but I found her much more likeable this time around. Clay and Jeremey had a much smaller role in this one. "Stolen" is all about Elena and the motley group of other paranormal species she is locked up with. As I understand it Ms. Armstrong goes to some of the other species to star in her next books in the Otherworld series and I say this is a great way to do it. Also changing between the characters in a series is a great way to keep that series fresh and interesting. I am going to go order the next book right now...this series is too good to pass up.

for more information click here

favorite in the "Elena" trilogy

"Stolen" was by far my favorite of the three novels by Kelley Armstrong featuring Elena the werewolf. In "Bitten" I didn't much care for Clay or her relationship with him, but in "Stolen" something clicked and I completely fell in love with the characters.
Kudos on the cover art as well.

for more information click here

Another Great Read

Kelley Armstrong strikes again. Another well written story. Once you start reading you just can't put it down.

It was in Bitten, Kelley Armstrong?s debut novel, that thirty-year-old Elena Michaels came to terms with her feral appetites and claimed the proud identity of a beautiful, successful woman?and the only living female werewolf.

In Stolen, on a mission for her own elite pack, she is lured into the net of ruthless Internet billionaire Tyrone Winsloe, who has funded a bogus scientific investigation of the ?other races? and their supernatural powers. Kidnapped and studied in his underground lab deep in the Maine woods, these paranormals?witches, vampires, shamans, werewolves?are then released and hunted to the death in a real-world video game. But when Winsloe captures Elena, he finally meets his match.

for more information click here