I'll be completely honest here.

I really did not like Elena at all. She was extremely whiny. I do understand the anger she felt when she was changed without her permission. However, it has been 10 years already. It's high time she got over it.

I don't want to come across as insensitive, although I probably already do. But the fact that she kept using that as an excuse while being totally fine with sleeping with the guy just irked me. Ugh...cry me a river.

Despite my rating, I am still going to read the next book. This is because I seldom enjoy the first book of a series. I have had many experiences where I didn't read the following books and then when I finally did, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. (I'm looking at you, Kate Daniels.)

I'm hoping that the next book in this series will be better and will change my perception of Elena and the overall story.

I truly adored this book.

At the start, it was a touch slow, but once I got past that initial hurdle, I was completely captivated.

This series introduces us to a brand-new werewolf world, one that I haven't come across in any other series I've read thus far.

The heroine is Elena, a once-normal girl who made the fateful mistake of falling in love with her teacher, a young, hot, and sexy blonde who had her head over heels since their very first encounter.

I mean, what would any of us have done in Elena's shoes? I know I would have felt the same way.

But then everything went horribly wrong when she was bitten by a wolf.

She woke up and instantly knew something was amiss, very wrong indeed.

First, she finds herself alone with this guy, Jaime, who keeps insisting that she's been bitten by Clay (the teacher) and that she's now a werewolf.

She refuses to believe it, but the evidence is right there within her.

The fascinating aspect of this book is that being a werewolf isn't all peaches and cream.

It's the worst thing that could have happened to Elena.

She simply can't control it.

No other women have survived the change, and she's the only one so far, suffering intolerable pain while being extremely confused as she tries to analyze the situation.

She knows she has to escape from Jaime, who keeps telling her that staying with him and the pack is the best thing she can do at the moment.

But will she listen to him? Or will she learn the hard way that Jaime was right?

I'm not going to disclose anything further about the plot because I don't want to spoil it.

I just wanted to give you all a peek into this great and unique series.

I loved seeing Elena struggle to understand everything in this new world and Clay trying to make her understand that this was the right thing for her.

How will he manage to win back Elena's love after what he did to her? Well, you'll have to read it to find out, guys. Lol. Enjoy!

A challenge book.

My very first book with a werewolf as the main character. I had only a scant knowledge of the werewolf world, but Armstrong offers her unique vision of that world and its culture.

There are those who are part of the Pack. They have their own territories and "laws" that they abide by, such as no killing of humans. The Pack consists of hereditary werewolves and are almost all male. The sons carry the werewolf blood but don't have the ability to Change until they are nearly adults. Then there are the Mutts. These are humans who were bitten and, if they survive the agonies and hunger of the Change, are on their own. That's just a few snippets.

Elena is attempting to fit into the human world. She has a job and a live-in boyfriend. She was bitten in college by her then-fiancé, Clay, who is part of the Pack. Jeremy, the leader, takes Elena in and teaches her how to live in their world, and she is embraced by the rest of the Pack, being the only female. She has certain talents that the Pack makes use of, but she remains angry at her fate and the loss of her life's dream and leaves the protection of the Pack to fend for herself.

She is called back by Jeremy to assist them in hunting down a killer (supposedly a mutt) in the small town near the Pack's sanctuary.

Elena returns and is plunged into emotional turmoil as she battles her attraction to Clay while also trying to help track the killer. It soon becomes evident that there is more than one killer and someone is trying to destroy the Pack. It's a matter of survival for all.

One can almost overlook the fact that the characters are werewolves (except for some gruesome aspects) and become completely engrossed in the mystery and suspense of the storyline.

Via The Obsessive Bookseller at www.nikihawkes.com

I don't know what it was about this book that had such a hold on me. I was completely glued to it, to the point where I was walking around my kitchen, half-heartedly paying attention to the dinner I was cooking because I just couldn't bear to put it down for long enough to focus. Admittedly, I might do that with every book if they were all old paperbacks. I have a tendency to collect hardcovers that I rarely even crack the spine on. But paperbacks are a whole different story. I dragged this one everywhere with me. So, perhaps my total absorption was partly due to the book's mobility, but I'm fairly certain that most of it was because it was an outstanding urban fantasy and I was in the perfect frame of mind for exactly that.

Right from the start, there is some excellent world-building. However, this isn't one of those books that immediately dives into the conflicts. The story progression often alternates with large chunks of backstory. I know that for some, this is a major no-no, but I don't mind information dumps as long as I'm interested in what's being presented. And I most definitely was. It was formatted in a way that revealed character and unearthed old secrets as the story unfolded, and I really liked it. The best parts of the story, though, were when the action finally got going.

I liked this book for the same reason that I enjoyed Stray by Rachel Vincent. There are a bunch of lovable male characters surrounding a single female. Watching the dynamics between each of them was great fun to read about.

As with many urban fantasies, this one contained a fair amount of, shall we say, steamy content. I have no qualms about admitting that I enjoy a bit of heat in my books, and I'd rate this one about a 5/10 on the steam scale. The problem was that the object of Elena's lust was a character I didn't particularly care for. He wasn't a complete jerk, but he wasn't my type either. In fact, there are two other men in this story who I actually liked a lot better. I'm hoping that something develops between them and Elena in the future...

Anyway, Armstrong has long been regarded as a mainstay of the genre, and I'm glad I finally picked up one of her books. I have to thank Chanzie over at Mean Who You Are for including this as an option for her Book-of-the-Month. I invited myself to read along, and I'm so glad I did. (If you'd like to help her pick her next book, the voting is in the right-hand sidebar of her website... I'm rooting for either Cremer or Peeler.) This is definitely not the last of Armstrong that I plan to read, and I will most likely be picking up her Awakening YA trilogy next.

A lot of authors often rely on supernatural abilities to make their fantasy and paranormal characters more appealing to us ordinary people who look for escapes within their pages. However, Kelley Armstrong's werewolves in Bitten must rely solely on grit and personality.

Because aside from having the ability to change their shape, they don't possess any strange powers. They aren't immortal and can be killed just as easily as any other non-supernatural creature. It doesn't take a silver bullet to do it - they could be gored by a deer, hit by a truck, or even strangled or have their throats slit by a human psychopath.

The abilities granted to Armstrong's werewolves were surprisingly believable, even without the complete suspension of reality required to read a book about werewolves, vampires, or the Fey. They were stronger than the average human, able to run harder and longer, bench press more, and do more pushups. And they could heal faster, but healing wasn't an instantaneous process; it still required rest and time.

Even though there was a slight psychic connection between the alpha and his pack, it was no more eerie than the close bond between a set of twins, best girlfriends, or a married couple so in tune with each other that they frequently find themselves dialing the phone to call the other at the exact same time. It was Armstrong's ability to subtly draw you into the werewolves' world that completely convinced me.

Like many others who read urban fantasy and paranormal romance, werewolves have not been my favorite characters. Vampires, yes. Other fantastical beasts, well, okay, but only if there's a vampire somewhere in the book. But werewolves??? Eh. Pass. Fortunately, the high ratings this book has received practically forced me to give it a try. And frankly, I loved it!!

Elena Michaels is one of the most intriguing heroines I've encountered in a long time. She is the only female werewolf in existence and in the history of the Pack. She was raised human and, after losing her parents in a car crash, was in and out of foster homes throughout her young life. She endured the unwanted attentions of her foster fathers and grew up longing for nothing more than a normal human life: a good career, a caring husband, a home...

But when she was bitten by a werewolf during college, everything changed, and her dreams of a normal life were torn away from her. Suddenly, she was faced with violent urges, a voracious appetite, and the need to periodically change form and run as a wolf through the night. Obviously, the latter is difficult to do in a big city like Toronto, but after gaining some control over her other half, Elena tries to make it work.

She takes a job as a journalist with a newspaper, has a wonderful human boyfriend named Phillip who is kind and considerate and buys her flowers, and she quietly satisfies the werewolf inside her by sneaking between meals at street vendors so her live-in human boyfriend doesn't notice her above-average appetite, and she sneaks out of the apartment at 2 a.m. to stalk and scare local security guards - a sad substitute for an all-out deer hunt, but she makes do.

But then she receives an urgent message from Jeremy, the Pack leader, and Elena can't ignore it: her Pack is in danger. Elena leaves Toronto and flies to a remote area in upstate New York where her Pack is headquartered. And there she finds Clay, just as she left him, waiting for her, still in love with her.

Like Elena, Clay is also a dark, tortured hero. And the relationship Armstrong weaves for the two is both passionate and painful and oh-so wonderful, and the fact that the relationship was secondary to the urban fantasy plot of an all-out werewolf battle for territory didn't make it any less satisfying.

No spoilers here, so I won't say anything else, except that I highly, highly recommend!

The problem I encounter with a significant number of urban fantasy works is that there appear to be extremely few that manage to transform werewolves into likable figures. Mostly, they always seem to be depicted as arrogant jerks. This particular book had received high ratings, and since it solely features werewolves as paranormal beings, I had anticipated it to be somewhat better.

To a certain extent, I was correct. The entire werewolf society is described in much greater detail and comes across much more favorably in this book compared to others. For the initial half of the book, I was truly enjoying it. However, around the midway point, some of the flaws really began to grate on my nerves. We repeatedly read about how remarkable the wolves' senses of hearing and smell are. They can detect a scent that is weeks old or a car that is several blocks away, yet apparently, they cannot sense someone approaching from behind them. This occurred more than once, and it always happened when they were walking into a trap or ambush for the second or third time! The pack leader was an ineffective control freak, and I was hoping that he would meet a gruesome end by the conclusion of the book.

To be fair, this book is aimed at a female audience, so it is rather obvious to say that it wasn't for me. I'm glad to have read it, but it is definitely not a series that I will continue.

I’m going to start off by saying this is my all-time favorite series of books for the adult mind. I love a lot of series, but I read this one when I was in high school (which, I shouldn’t have honestly) and INSTANTLY fell in love with it.

Why shouldn’t I have read it then? Well it is 100% an adult book. It has graphic scenes, sexual and bloody and probably shouldn’t be read by a fifteen year old. I was tired of reading the high school equivalent reading level though, and my Kindle recommended this series to me so I bought it and I was hooked!

Even though this is in the erotica category on some pages, this is not an erotica. It has sexual content, but I wouldn't go as for as that.

I have said many a time that I am very in love with weird books. Well, this is one of those books. It’s a werewolf book. DON’T STOP READING I PROMISE IT IS DIFFERENT THAN BOOKS YOU ARE THINKING OF THAT WE SHALL NOT NAME ON HERE.

This book was originally published in 2001; four years before werewolves started to become popular. Kelley doesn't glorify them as some books, she actually inputs how their instincts change, how "the change" from both forms is actually super difficult and agonizing.

Elena is the heroine in this book. She is a werewolf. Not by choice though, she was bitten. Bitten by someone in “the Pack” I would say. She left the pack to try and get her life back on track and do things her own way.

The Pack: the law and order of the werewolf community in America. I have read the rest of the series (a long time ago) and I believe there are different packs in different countries that keep order. Mutts: those werewolves that aren’t in the pack and are usually out killing, raping and eating anything that they see. Very out of control and wild.

The Pack:
Jeremy: The leader of The Pack
Clay: His body guard/more wolf than human; Nick’s closest friend
Nick: Womanizer; follower; Clay’s closest friend
Peter: Nick/Clay/Logan’s age; another friend and pack member
Antonio: Nick’s father; Jeremy’s closest friend
Logan: Elena’s only friend when she left the pack

She’s the only female werewolf to live through the change into a werewolf. Most have died and the hereditary wolves can only be male. So she is very wanted by all werewolves because of, you know, their nature to want to find someone who is their equal.

The story starts out with Elena in Toronto with her live-in boyfriend Philip. The only person that makes her feel human. He doesn’t know her species and she plans to keep it a secret from him for forever, which isn’t easy.

She gets a call from Jeremy, the Pack leader, saying that he needs to talk to her and its urgent.

After a few phone calls back, since Philip insist that she calls back someone she claims to be her family (she’s an orphan; which has a back story of its own), she gets annoyed and she flies out to New York to see what is up.

There’s a mutt killing on Pack territory. That isn’t acceptable. Jeremy enlists her help without her say-so. She helps though because she feels she owes Jeremy everything.

Things go scary wrong… and the Mutt behind everything? MY WORD.

Read this book. Kelley Armstrong is one of my favorite authors. She knows how to grab your eyes and ears and not let go. She has written other series and I plan to read them all! Her writing style is glorious. I feel it is harder to write in first-person like she does; but, as I have said before, she does it flawlessly.

Bitten was a good book.

The plot wasn't as interesting as I'd hoped, yet I was impressed by many aspects and thus finished it.

Kelley Armstrong is quite talented. She satisfied my need to relate to the characters. For me, it's crucial to experience the same feelings as the characters to understand them. Every time Elena was a wolf, Armstrong blew my mind. The description of her feelings, senses, and what was happening in her mind was fantastic. It was as if I was Elena, and I enjoyed it more than I should have. Of course, the same occurred when she was in her human form. I loved being able to follow her thoughts and completely understand the reasons behind her actions and behavior.

The only thing that bothered me was the transition between the actual story and Elena's flashbacks and back again. One moment something was happening, and then suddenly, we were years back and something else was going on. I got lost many times but managed to connect the dots. After reading half of the book and getting to know Armstrong's writing style, I could follow without trouble.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the plot wasn't as interesting as I expected. Maybe it's because I'm in a strange lovey-dovey mood and needed something more fluffy and cheesy. Even though Elena's love life was a major topic in the book, the most thrilling parts were the action scenes. They were detailed enough and well-built, keeping me on the edge of my seat. There was also a dose of creepiness, and sometimes I wished I hadn't read certain parts of the action scenes.

Elena was an awesome badass and a great example of how female leads should be. Maybe I liked her so much because of her age, experiences, and the fact that her way of thinking was closer to mine. I usually read YA books, and most of the heroines are quite annoying and, well... quite teenagers. She was determined, focused, and professional, and even though she was trying to hide it, I could see her caring and loving side.

Clay, on the other hand, besides the wildness and temper he couldn't really help, was a really adorable creature. He was all about love and affection, and sometimes I just wanted to hold him and love him forever. Yes, he seemed cool and untouchable, but I could see behind his facade, and I'm telling you that the vibes he was giving off were different from what was expected.

I'm not really into action and thriller books, but I read this one because a friend recommended it, and I'm glad I wasn't disappointed. I'll read some more because Kelley Armstrong is great in this genre, and I appreciate a good book from an author who knows how to do the job.

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I felt as if I had an extremely difficult time making my way through this book.

Perhaps it was simply an inopportune moment for me. I truly desired to have a deep affection for this particular one, yet at this juncture, I just couldn't manage to immerse myself in it.

I did have a fondness for Elena and Clay. Additionally, the writing style was quite good.

I find myself rather curious about the direction in which things will progress and what events will unfold with Jeremy and the pack at Stonehaven.

Nonetheless, I am determined to continue this series. I simply need to get my mind into the appropriate mindset.

I firmly believe that once I do so, I will be able to fully appreciate and engage with the story on a deeper level.

It's just a matter of finding that right mental state and giving it another chance.

I'm hopeful that I'll have a more fulfilling reading experience the next time around.

In reality, I really loved it. It is a very well-crafted and "believable" werewolf novel, if that qualifier can be applied. Of course, there is no shortage of action, intrigues, and conspiracies.

Besides the supernatural context, the story is precious. It focuses on the search for identity, belonging, and happiness, and how we refuse to accept the things that life offers us, obsessed with stereotypes that often don't even match ourselves, striving to fit in.

It is also a love story, but not treated in the idyllic way that romantic novels usually offer us. On the contrary, we encounter a relationship that progresses between the good and the bad of human nature: selfishness, betrayal, resentment, and fear, but also loyalty, understanding, and the ability to forgive.

This author was a great discovery. I loved her style and how she uses jumps in the timeline to present the story and its characters, allowing the reader to discover them in such a way that it is impossible not to become attached to them.

Hmmm, I had a rather odd experience with this book.

To begin with, I didn't particularly care for either of the main characters. Elena, who we are repeatedly told is the only female werewolf in existence, or Clay, the super alpha wolf with Chippendales looks, just didn't seem all that likable to me.

However, despite my misgivings about the characters, I found the story itself to be quite compelling. Elena despises Clay, yet at the same time, she loves him too. All she wants is to live a normal "human" existence. Clay, on the other hand, was born and raised a werewolf and just can't seem to figure her out. He wants her, and she wants him, so what's the problem?

Well, for starters, Elena lives with another man whom she claims to love, yet she still fools around with Clay when she's in his territory. Her wishy-washy behavior in this regard really annoyed me.

But, if we set aside the character flaws for a moment, I did enjoy this book. As the story progressed, I began to understand Elena's dilemma a bit better (although she still managed to annoy the hell out of me at times). And Clay's ruthlessness and possessiveness were nicely balanced by the whole "mating forever" concept that exists among wolves.

I still felt sorry for the poor human sap that Elena was stringing along, but oh well... Overall, it was an interesting read.

This book didn't meet my expectations in terms of fun. After devouring Kelley Armstrong's City of the Lost, I was anticipating a thrilling adventure filled with action and a protagonist I could truly root for. However, what I got was quite the opposite. The main character was rather unlikable.

For my safety-conscious friends, this heroine will drive you crazy. She cheats on her boyfriend without much remorse. I understand she has a history with the other man (who is supposed to be the hero), but what about her kind and sweet boyfriend who patiently waits for her to return? I'm relieved the author didn't turn him into a secret villain to justify the cheating.

Besides the issue with the heroine's actions, the writing style also left something to be desired. There was a lot of telling rather than showing, which made the first-person narrative feel long and drawn-out. Some parts seemed to drag on forever. And despite all the explanations, there were still aspects that didn't make sense to me. For example, what's the deal with the Pack? Where does it get its authority to allocate territory, and why are there so few members? I had expected packs to be larger. Maybe the next book will provide more answers.

Thankfully, the heroine has started to redeem herself, and I'm now willing to see where this series goes. Perhaps without all the indecision, we'll begin to understand why the main characters are so good together.