Kelley Armstrong's bio- and bibliography
****Genre : Fantasy
Series : Women of the Otherworld
French title : Morsure
American publisher : Plume Books : 7,99$
English publisher : Orbit : 6,99£
Synopsis : Elena Michaels lives in Toronto where she shares her flat with her boyfriend, Philip. She's a journalist. She seems to have a normal life, except she's a werewolf. Not any werewolf, she's the only female werewolf alive. The werewolf gene is transmitted from father to son, the only way for a woman to become a werewolf is to be bitten, and of course to survive. Elena had a great difficulties to accept the fact that she's a werewolf, and besides she tries to reject the idea by creating a new life in Toronto for herself. Qhe left the Pack to be who she wants to be. But when Jeremy, he Alpha of the Pack, tries to contact her, she doesn't really have another choice than to go back and help them. They are the target of a gang of mutts (non-Pack werewolves) united to claim different things. To this occasion, Elena will meet Clay again, the one who bit her, and she will finally find out her true nature...
A passage :
" My skin stretches. The sensation deepens and I try to block the pain. Pain. What a trivial word- agony is better. One doesn't call the sensation of being flayed alive 'painful'. I inhale deeply and focus my attention on the Change, dropping to the ground before I'm doubled over and forced down. It's never easy-perhaps I'm still too human. in the struggle to keep my thoughts straight, I try to anticipate each phase and move my body into position-head down, on all fours, arms and legs straight, feet and hands flexed, and back arched. My leg muscles knot and convulse? I gasp and strain to relax. Sweat breaks out, pouring off me in streams, but the muscles finally relent and untwist themselves. Next comes the ten seconds of hell that used to make me swear I'd rather die than endure this again. Then it's over.
Changed."
What I think : This book is very interesting from a legend point of view. It is true that when he hear about werewolves, we think of men. I'd never asked myself about a female werewolf before, I must admit. And I find Armstrong's explanation very good indeed. But here again we have a patriarchal society. Well fortunately, Elena is here;o) Bitten is a novel that keeps the reader's attention from the first pages. It is quite difficult to close it even for 'just a moment'. It is also a studied mix of action, legend, explanation and romance, with its lot of pains and little happiness.
What brings something more to the book is that Elena is a woman, the ONLY female werewolve, and a really modern woman. So it's really interesting to see how she manages to evolve in a male world and her attitude towards events where a woman could sometimes badly react;o)
Frankly, I recommend this book to lovers of creatures of the night. There are lots of books about vampires, but not so many about werewolves. I don't know why it is so, but I think maybe it's because of the bloodthirsty monster side of the werewolf, horrible and ultra-violent, who change only in the full moon, whereas the vampire, though he is too a bloodthirsty creature, can live among humans, and he is of a rare beauty and charism. Which surely helps the writers' imagination to work.
Well, don't be afraid of this image of the werewolves, in Bitten, there are not so monstruous, on the contrary, well it depends on which ones we're talking about;o)
To conclude, I would just say that Kelley Armstrong managed something that was only managed for vampires until now. She made werewolves more human that some humans;o)
Series : Women of the Otherworld
French title : Morsure
American publisher : Plume Books : 7,99$
English publisher : Orbit : 6,99£
Synopsis : Elena Michaels lives in Toronto where she shares her flat with her boyfriend, Philip. She's a journalist. She seems to have a normal life, except she's a werewolf. Not any werewolf, she's the only female werewolf alive. The werewolf gene is transmitted from father to son, the only way for a woman to become a werewolf is to be bitten, and of course to survive. Elena had a great difficulties to accept the fact that she's a werewolf, and besides she tries to reject the idea by creating a new life in Toronto for herself. Qhe left the Pack to be who she wants to be. But when Jeremy, he Alpha of the Pack, tries to contact her, she doesn't really have another choice than to go back and help them. They are the target of a gang of mutts (non-Pack werewolves) united to claim different things. To this occasion, Elena will meet Clay again, the one who bit her, and she will finally find out her true nature...
A passage :
" My skin stretches. The sensation deepens and I try to block the pain. Pain. What a trivial word- agony is better. One doesn't call the sensation of being flayed alive 'painful'. I inhale deeply and focus my attention on the Change, dropping to the ground before I'm doubled over and forced down. It's never easy-perhaps I'm still too human. in the struggle to keep my thoughts straight, I try to anticipate each phase and move my body into position-head down, on all fours, arms and legs straight, feet and hands flexed, and back arched. My leg muscles knot and convulse? I gasp and strain to relax. Sweat breaks out, pouring off me in streams, but the muscles finally relent and untwist themselves. Next comes the ten seconds of hell that used to make me swear I'd rather die than endure this again. Then it's over.
Changed."
What I think : This book is very interesting from a legend point of view. It is true that when he hear about werewolves, we think of men. I'd never asked myself about a female werewolf before, I must admit. And I find Armstrong's explanation very good indeed. But here again we have a patriarchal society. Well fortunately, Elena is here;o) Bitten is a novel that keeps the reader's attention from the first pages. It is quite difficult to close it even for 'just a moment'. It is also a studied mix of action, legend, explanation and romance, with its lot of pains and little happiness.
What brings something more to the book is that Elena is a woman, the ONLY female werewolve, and a really modern woman. So it's really interesting to see how she manages to evolve in a male world and her attitude towards events where a woman could sometimes badly react;o)
Frankly, I recommend this book to lovers of creatures of the night. There are lots of books about vampires, but not so many about werewolves. I don't know why it is so, but I think maybe it's because of the bloodthirsty monster side of the werewolf, horrible and ultra-violent, who change only in the full moon, whereas the vampire, though he is too a bloodthirsty creature, can live among humans, and he is of a rare beauty and charism. Which surely helps the writers' imagination to work.
Well, don't be afraid of this image of the werewolves, in Bitten, there are not so monstruous, on the contrary, well it depends on which ones we're talking about;o)
To conclude, I would just say that Kelley Armstrong managed something that was only managed for vampires until now. She made werewolves more human that some humans;o)
1 comment:
you are so right this book sounds awsome i'm so going to check it out thanx !
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