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…

Haunted by Kelley Armstrong, UK edition cover

Haunted (Women of the Otherworld #5)
by Kelley Armstrong

Published: 26th May 2005

Eve Levine – half-demon, black witch and devoted mother – has been dead for three years. She has a great house, an interesting love life and can’t be killed again – which comes in handy when you’ve made as many enemies as Eve. Yes, the afterlife isn’t too bad – all she needs to do is find a way to communicate with her daughter Savannah and she’ll be happy.

But fate – or more exactly, the Fates – have other plans. Eve owes them a favour, and they’ve just called it in. An evil spirit called the Nix has escaped from hell. She feeds on chaos and death, and is very good at persuading people to kill for her. The Fates want Eve to hunt her down before she does any more damage, but the Nix is a dangerous enemy – previous hunters have been sent made in the process. As if that’s not problem enough, it turns out that the only way to stop her is with an angel’s sword. And Eve’s no angel . . .

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

In Haunted we get our first real introduction to Eve Levine. Sure she’s appeared in previous books, but she hasn’t had much page time, and as such has remained rather mysterious up to this point. There are only three things that we know for certain about her: she’s a black witch, she loves her daughter, and she had a long/short enough relationship with Kristoff Nast to have Savannah. Eve is everything I expected her to be, and yet completely different.

Eve is the star of Haunted, and I have to admit that I really enjoyed her as the protagonist. I also enjoyed the fact that occasionally Armstrong slipped in a chapter from Nix’s – or one of her dupes – point of view. It broke up the narrative, and gave some interesting insight into Nix. I also enjoyed the fact that whilst the story stayed mainly in  the afterlife, we did get a quick peek at some familiar faces.

The plot of Haunted is of a similar style to that of Bitten – part bad guy chasing/hunting, part romance. This really helped to cement Eve as a complex character for me. She is very dedicated to the task that the Fates set her, but at the same time she’s blind to what is in front of her. The ending of this book was particularly poignant, I thought.

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.