Once again we’re plunging into the spooky, moonlit forest – where both human and supernatural malfeasance dwells – with Kelley Armstrong’s sharp-fanged heroine Elena Michaels, whom fantasy enthusiasts will remember from Armstrong’s debut novel Bitten. Like Bitten, Stolen paints a perfectly convincing portrait of a woman who quite literally runs with the wolves.
Tall and striking, Toronto-bred Elena is a downtown babe like any other – except that she’s a werewolf. Years ago she was bitten by her lover/mentor Clay – himself a werewolf – and has since relocated to the States with him. Most of the time, Elena is a 32-year-old woman with a smart mouth and glamorous job as a journalist, but there are other, restless times where she is compelled to hide, and to change – into a full-fledged member of an ancient werewolf pack. Elena the werewolf has Supergirl strength and eternal youth, plus an appetite for the wild, wild thing, not to mention a steady diet of rabbits and deer. Life is good – until, inevitably, there is a disturbance.
Elena receives a long-distance entreaty from two very alarmed witches, who are convinced that members of all the supernatural communities are in danger. A summit of magic beings is convened, in which Eleana and the witches are joined by a vampire, a demon, and a shaman. Together they discover that an obsessed tycoon is amassing a private collection of supernaturals, whose powers he plans to harness for himself. When Elena herself is taken prisoner the fur flies in all directions.
Stolen works because Armstrong has created a persuasive, finely detailed otherwordly cosmology – featuring sorcery, astral projection, spells, telepathy and teleportation – that meshes perfectly with the more humdrum world of interstate highways and cable news bulletins. And except for a rather snarled portion in the middle, where the heroine is confined for too long in a confusingly laid out bunker, the plot moves along at a swift lope. More than just a thriller with extra teeth, Stolen is for anyone who has ever longed to leap over a SUV in a single bound, or to rip an evil security force to shreds, or even just to growl convincingly.
Stolen