“Waking The Witch” by Kelley Armstrong

Waking The Witch is young witch Savannah’s first full length story, and follows her as she decides to cover her first solo investigation unbeknownst to Paige and Lucas who are enjoying a well deserved holiday. I loved how Armstrong shows Savannah trying to prove that she has conquered her hot-headed, impetuous nature and act like a mature, experienced investigator, all the while making some mistakes and some enemies along the way.

Lots of twists and turns to keep the reader on their toes, the story of the case is pacy enough to keep you turning the pages leading to an almost Scooby Doo style reveal at the end, something I certainly hadn’t seen coming, and it is left with the promise of more Savannah stories to come.

I’ve never been disappointed by a Kelley Armstrong book yet, and this was no exception. A worthy addition to the Women of the Otherworld series.

“Tales of the Otherworld” by Kelley Armstrong

I can’t deny it, I’m addicted to Kelley Armstrong’s supernatural series Women of the Otherworld. This collection of short stories is a great addition to the canon, with some short stories giving us glimpses of the vampire world, the wedding of Paige and Lucas, and the slightly longer look at how Eve Levine and Kristof Nast got together. But for me, the most enjoyable stories were the two longer novellas, the first being the story of how werewolves Elena and Clay met, while the second focusing on an investigation into an alleged vampire kill by Paige and Lucas.

My favourites in the main series tend to be the stories focusing on the werewolves, but Paige and Lucas as quickly catching them up, so this book was a fantastic interlude between books in the main series, and has totally whetted my appetite for the next instalment Waking The Witch due out later this year.

“Men of the Otherworld” by Kelley Armstrong

I’ve read all the Women of the Otherworld books from Kelley Armstrong, a series fantasy novels based around female supernatural heroines such as werewolves, witches, necromancers, etc. They’re exciting adventures and perfect for light entertainment.

I was dubious about reading this book, because I always felt the strength of the Women of the Otherworld was the female characters, but I was happy to be proven wrong. Ostensibly, this is a collection of two short stories, but actually it’s two short stories, and two novellas. The first short story centres around alpha werewolf Jeremy’s father, then come the two novellas, detailing how Clay became a werewolf and the story of his childhood, adolescence and integration in to the pack, before the final short story brings the focus back to Jeremy.

The great thing about the whole of this book was that it was like reading the authors notebook to a certain extent, as it’s basically the back story of the male characters in the main series. It was fascinating to go back into the history of characters I thought I knew well, and understand more about how they came to be the people they are. As I expect from Armstrong now, it was an easy style of writing, and the strong storytelling which makes you want to keep going with the book and never put it down. Pure entertainment.