Twisted Kingdom

The second book in the Women of the Otherworld series and my second book by the Author of the Month.

Stolen by Kelley Armstrong
Published by Seal Books in 2003

4.5/5

Even though she’s the world’s only female werewolf, Elena Michaels is just a regular girl at heart -- with larger than normal appetites. She sticks to three feasts a day, loves long runs in the moonlight, and has a lover who is unbelievably frustrating yet all the more sexy for his dark side. Like every regular girl, she certainly doesn’t believe in witches. Then again, when two small, ridiculously feminine women manage to hurl her against a wall, and then save her from the hunters on her tail, Elena realizes that maybe there are more things in heaven and earth than she’s dreamt of.

Vampires, demons, shamans, witches -- in Stolen they all exist, and they’re all under attack. An obsessed tycoon with a sick curiosity is well on his way to amassing a private collection of supernaturals, and plans to harness their powers for himself -- even if it means killing them. For Elena, kidnapped and imprisoned deep underground, separated from her Pack, unable to tell her friends from her enemies, choosing the right allies is a matter of life and death.

This book also follows Elena as the narrator. The reason I like it better is because there are werewolves, witches, half-demons, sorcerors, vampires, and so on. I liked the different characters because they added to the book. This book also does not focus on Clay and Elena's relationship like the previous one did.

In this book, a group of regular people has learned the secrets of the paranormal creatures and is determined to take advantage of their powers for the benefit of the "normal" people. This means that the main paranormal groups have seeked each other out in an attempt to not have it happen to more of them. The werewolves were not aware of the other creatures, though, so when Elena meets up with some witches, she is skeptical until they show her a taste of what it is to be them. I found the fact that she was skeptical funny because here she is a werewolf and she did not believe in anything else. She is a very close-minded werewolf.

Most of the book she is separated from the Pack because she had the misfortune of being one of the kidnapped folk. A good part of the book takes place during her captivity and what she does daily in that situation. It shows the power these people think they have and the problems that she gets herself into because the leader of the compound does not place much value on other lives.

I think I was most shocked by the ending to these book. It made sense, but at the same time it was a very graphic ending. Overall, it was interesting to both meet all the new characters and to see how Armstrong writes them with her own creative flare. I look forward to reading the next book in the series to see more of the paranormal creatures.