Each month beginning March 1st, 2012, challenge members will read or re-read the title for that month. In addition, challenge members will either post a review, their reading experience, character castings or anything else related to that title. You have freedom to have fun with your monthly post so be creative! Seeing as this series is 13 novels long, this challenge will last 13 months.

As this challenge started in March and it is already late August, you can tell that I am a little behind…

Industrial Magic by Kelley Armstrong, UK edition cover

Industrial Magic (Women of the Otherworld #4)
by Kelley Armstrong

Published: 2nd September 2004

When Paige Winterbourne is ousted as leader of the American Coven of Witches, all she wants to do is hide under her duvet for a few months. But fate, of course, has other plans. A murderer is on the loose – somone with superhuman skills and a grudge against the supernatural community. When Paige learns that the killer is targeting children, she has to get involved.

Desperate to protect those she loves, Paige is thrown into a world of arrogant sorcerers, drunkem necromancers, sulky druid gods and pretentious leather-clad vampires. Not to mention an apparently unstoppable supernatural psychopath hell-bent on revenge . . .

As with both Bitten, Stolen and Dime Store Magic, this is not going to be a “normal” review.

This book sees Armstrong return to form. Paige and Savannah are still trying to reconcile their different backgrounds, but they’ve grown surer of their relationship since the events in Dime Store Magic. I really enjoyed their interactions, especially with the introduction of Lucas Cortez. In this book we get to meet for the first time one of my favourite secondary characters Benicio Cortez, Lucas’s father. I think one of the reasons that I love Benicio so much is that it’s obvious (to me at least) that he loves his son. I’m also amused by the way Lucas dances around his father, as they don’t have the easiest of relationships.

Like in Dime Store Magic, the plot in Industrial Magic resolves around the cabal connection although this time it is Lucas’s connection rather than Savannah’s. This means that Savannah doesn’t appear much in the book, and instead we focus more on both Paige and Lucas. We also get re-introduced to Elena, Clay, Jeremy, Cassandra and Aaron. We also get to meet Jamie Vegas for the first time, and she is quite a character!

The plot of this book is very complicated and complex, and I enjoyed watching it unravel. I especially enjoyed the final parts of the book. Armstrong did a brilliant job wrapping it all up 🙂

Each month beginning March 1st, 2012, challenge members will read or re-read the title for that month. In addition, challenge members will either post a review, their reading experience, character castings or anything else related to that title. You have freedom to have fun with your monthly post so be creative! Seeing as this series is 13 novels long, this challenge will last 13 months.

As this challenge started in March and it is already late August, you can tell that I am a little behind…

Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong, UK edition cover.

Dime Store Magic (Women of the Otherworld #3)
by Kelley Armstrong

Published: 19th February 2004

Paige Winterbourne is a witch. Not that you’d notice – no warts, no green skin, no cute little wiggle of the nose whenever she casts a spell. No, most of the time she’s just a normal twenty-three-year-old-girl: works too hard, worries about her weight, wonders if she’ll ever find a boyfriend. Okay, so she does have an adopted teenage daughter. Savannah, who wants to raise her black witch of a mother from the dead. And who is being stalked by a telekinetic half-demon and an all-powerful cabal of sorcerers. But other than that, Paige has a really ordinary life. That is, until the neighbours find out who she is, and all hell breaks loose. Literally . . .

As with both Bitten and Stolen, this is not going to be a “normal” review. I adore this series and these characters. This is actually my least favourite book in the series. I just don’t get on with Paige as a main character, and as such this is actually a book I very rarely re-read.

Although not the main character of the book, Armstrong positions Savannah as one of the main characters. Paige tries very hard with Savannah, but is handicapped by the fact that they have very different backgrounds: Paige grew up in the Coven and Savannah didn’t. The impetus of the plot focuses on Savannah, and the fact that a couple of the characters want to gain control of her; Paige, of course, doesn’t make this task easy for them and of course they retaliate and the plot spirals from there.

As well as being re-introduced to Paige and Savannah, and the re-appearance of a certain telekinetic half-demon from Stolen, we are introduced to two new characters both of whom are sorcerers – a witch’s enemy. Lucas  Cortez and Kristof Nast. Both are sons of the head of a sorcerers cabal, and both play an important part in the book.

Although this is my least favourite book in the Women of the Otherworld series, it is still an interesting and compelling read.

Each month beginning March 1st, 2012, challenge members will read or re-read the title for that month. In addition, challenge members will either post a review, their reading experience, character castings or anything else related to that title. You have freedom to have fun with your monthly post so be creative! Seeing as this series is 13 novels long, this challenge will last 13 months.

As this challenge started in March and it is already the start of June, you can tell that I am a little behind…

Stolen by Kelley Armstrong, UK edition.

Stolen (Women of the Otherworld #2)
by Kelley Armstrong

Published by Orbit 22nd April 2004.

Elena Michaels is a wanted woman. She hasn’t done anything wrong. Well, not recently, anyway. But ten years ago her lover turned her into a werewolf: the only female werewolf in the world, in fact.

And now, just as she’s finally coming to terms with it all, a group of scientists learns of her existence. They’re hunting her down, and Elena is about to run straight into their trap. But they haven’t reckoned with Elena’s adoptive family, her Pack, who will stop at nothing to get her back. They haven’t reckoned with Elena herself, either, and that’s a very big mistake . . .

As with Bitten, this isn’t going to be a “normal” review. I adore this series and these characters. I haven’t read it quite as much as I have Bitten, but I do go back occasionally and re-read it.

Stolen is the second book in the Women of the Otherworld series, and honesly it doesn’t have quite the same spark for me as Bitten does. In Stolen we get to meet Elena and Clay again. Life has moved on from the end of Bitten and both Clay AND Elena are trying to make their relationship work. They still have the brilliant chemistry of Bitten, but they both seem more comfortable about it – especially Elena, though there are a few wobbles. Jeremy also turns up in this book – well someone has to keep an eye on them 😉 – but the rest of the Pack are elsewhere, so we get to meet a few new characters which set up later books in the series. We get to meet Ruth and Paige Winterbourne, who are in many ways the fulcrum of this book. This book also has the first appearances of Adam, Cassandra, Aaron, and Savannah. Elena remains the narrator of this book, and I like the way she has matured since Bitten.

‘You smell so good.’

He chuckled. ‘Like ham?’

‘No, like you. I missed you so much.’

– Kelley Armstrong, Stolen (Orbit, 2004), p. 425.

The plot of Stolen is very different from Bitten. In this book we get a greater hint of the greater world and politics of the Women of the Otherworld series. Before there were just werewolves, now there are witches, sorcerers, vampires, and half-demons. What I liked in this book is that not all the danger came from the supernatural in this book. Part of the plot is, I think, an interesting and insightful look at human nature.

If you’re a fan of Urban Fantasy then I highly recommend this series. It really is an interesting world. Don’t worry if you’re not a fan of werewolves, because they’re not alone in this world.