Elena, a successful magazine writer in downtown Toronto, is keeping a secret from her live-in lover: a biological clock compels her to change into a wolf and run unhindered through the city’s parks and ravines a few nights every month. Kelley Armstrong’s debut novel, Bitten, combines hints of the decadent sexuality and cool-outsider mystique of Interview with the Vampire with the creepy hominess of Stephen King. But the story derives its greatest tension from a classic paperback-romance dilemma: to love the man who’s good for you, or love the man who make you feel good.

In this case, Mr. Right is Philip, an understanding, supporting older man who tries to believe that Elena’s frequent late-night walks satisfy a simple need to be alone and think. Mr. Wrong is Clay, the brooding, fiercely loyal werewolf who bit Elena a decade previously to transform her into a captive life partner. Elena believes she can pass as a human, and has left behind the safety of Clay and the Pack, a group of werewolves who live by a strict code of ethics enforced by Clay’s adoptive father, Jeremy. When a group of rogue werewolves threatens the Pack’s safety, Elena is drawn away from Philip and back into the secret world of the Pack – and the temptation of good werewolf sex.

Armstrong exploits these multiple genre conventions, as well as smatterings of Bridget Jones-ish self-deprecating humour, to tell the tale of a thoroughly modern werewolf. Elena’s insecurities are those of the prototypical young career woman trying to succeed and express a full range of emotion in what is still essentially a man’s world, only here the conflict is writ large in the central metaphor of Elena’s repressed lycanthropy. Realistic details – such as the best strategy for felling a deer without ending up on the receiving end of an antler thrust or hoof kick – complement a convincing portrait of werewolf society and its intricate codes of behaviour.

Elena’s one-liners and sometimes excessive self-consciousness occasionally dissipate the suspense, and the romance subplot is a tad predictable, but Bitten will satisfy genre fans and those who like their thrills served up with literary savvy.