Finished Bitten by Kelley Armstrong. Several people have mentioned Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series to me, so I picked up the first book to try.

This book is about Elena Michaels, the world’s only female werewolf. Elena isn’t happy she was bitten and turned into a wolf, and she’s broken away from the Pack and is living on her own in Toronto. But when people start dying on Pack land in New York, Elena goes home to help the rest of the wolves figure out what’s going on. Once there, she has to deal with some dangerous enemies and Clayton, her former lover and the man who bit her and turned her into a wolf.

I’d read one of Armstrong’s short stories about Elena in one of the My Big Fat Supernatural anthologies, and I had high hopes for this book. There were a lot of things I liked about it. Elena is an intriguing character who isn’t afraid to be tough and ruthless when the situation calls for it. (There’s a really great scene at the end that shows her coming into her own.) Plus, Armstrong has some good descriptions of Toronto and what it’s like to be a werewolf. Her world building was very well done.

But ultimately, the book didn’t work for me for a number of reasons, the biggest of which was Clayton, the hero. I just didn’t like him. Clayton and Elena were engaged, and he took her home to meet his family (the Pack). While there, Clayton purposefully bit Elena to make her turn into a werewolf — a very painful process that could have resulted in her death. But the kicker is Clay never told her he was a werewolf. Elena never asked to be bitten, but Clay took it upon himself to decide what was best for her.

I’m not fond of alpha men (they usually just don’t work for me), and Clay is definitely an alpha who views Elena as his and his alone. There’s another scene where he takes Elena out into the woods and ties her to a tree. Elena doesn’t want to sleep with him at this point, but Clay presses the issue and she eventually gives in. Ugh. Forced seduction scenes like this one are something else I just don’t enjoy. No means no.

Overall, I thought Clay was selfish and manipulative. If I’d been Elena, I think I would have used my werewolf powers to rip his throat out. Not forgiven him for everything he put her through. I also wasn’t too fond of Jeremy, the leader of the Pack. I felt he could have done more to keep Elena from being bitten in the first place.

And then there was the Pack itself. It seems whenever the wolves (they’re all male) get a human woman pregnant and she has a boy, they take the child away from the mother with no explanation. Boys carry the werwolf gene and will eventually become wolves themselves. However, girls are ignored because they don’t carry the gene and will not become wolves.

I realize the wolves are taking the kids away so they can train them and keep their secret safe from the rest of the world. But the basic thought of the male wolves is that human women are good enough to sleep with and impregnate, but not good enough to raise a male werewolf. And the girls that the wolves father, don’t they care about them at all? It doesn’t seem like they do.  

So while there were things I liked about Bitten, I just couldn’t get over Clay’s character, how Elena goes back to him, and the overall actions of the Pack. Thumbs down.

On a side note, one of the women in my critique group mentioned that she likes Armstrong’s Otherworld books about a witch named Paige better than the werewolf books. I might give one of those a try.

Up next: Lover Enshrined by J.R. Ward.

Books in my TBR pile: About 13.

Finished Kill Me Twice by Roxanne St. Claire. This is the first book in her popular Bullet Catchers romantic suspense series. I’ve heard a lot of buzz about the series so I decided to check it out. This post has some spoilers, so you might want to skip it if you haven’t read the book.

This one’s about Cuban hottie Alex Romero, who’s sent to Miami by his BC boss, Lucy Monroe, to protect television anchorwoman Jessica Adams. But when Alex gets to Miami, he finds Jessica had vanished and that her twin, Jasmine (aka Jazz), has come to town to stand in for Jessica while the anchorwoman investigates a big story. But Alex and Jazz soon find themselves trying to find out what really happened to Jessica — without getting killed in the process.

Overall, I thought this was a really interesting book. The Bullet Catcher premise is fun and leaves room for lots of sequels with the other BC folks (I think there are 5 or 6 books out in the series already). Plus, Lucy is an intriguing character. You want to know more about her. (I really hope Lucy turns out to be as super-tough as she seems when she gets her own book in September, instead of just pretending to be tough like Isabella in Anne Stuart’s Ice Storm).

There’s some nice inside info about the world of television news and security consultants, and a cool action/rescue sequence at the end involving a Florida mansion, helicopters, and some fast boats. Plus, Alex and Jazz have some nice chemistry, and each one gets to show off their skills during the course of the investigation. St. Claire also has a very easy-to-read style that really moves the story along. And there’s a double-cross at the end I didn’t see coming.

I did have one little quibble. Jazz is supposed to meet Jessica when she gets to Miami, but Jessica is nowhere to be found. Jazz just assumes Jessica is already off investigating her story. Jazz gets a couple of weird text messages from Jessica but chalks them up to Jessica pursuing her story. It takes about 150 pages for Jazz to really believe Jessica is in danger.

I realize St. Claire is using those 150 pages to build the relationship between Alex and Jazz and introducing the reader to the players in the mystery. But if my sister disappeared like that and sent me weird messages, I’d be parked at the police station and doing everything I could to get the cops to find her — no matter what kind of story she was working on. 

Still, I’ve been looking to read some more romantic suspense since Anne Stuart’s Ice series concluded, and I’m glad I picked up Kill Me Twice. If you’re looking for a good romantic suspense, you’ll probably enjoy the world of the Bullet Catchers. I did. Thumbs up.

Up next: Bitten by Kelley Armstrong.

Books in my TBR pile: About 13.