Stolen

From Publishers Weekly Elena Michaels, the only known female werewolf, cavorts on a more fully cultivated supernatural playing field in this sure-footed follow-up to Bitten (2001). While investigating a suspicious notice advertising information for sale about werewolves, Elena meets witches Paige and Ruth Winterbourne-and, to her misfortune, a team of mortal and supernatural commandos who abduct Elena and Ruth to a remote underground bunker in the wilds of Maine. There Ty Winsloe, ''billionaire and computer geek extraordinaire,'' is collecting a menagerie representing all the supernatural species that coexist anonymously with humanity (vampires, werewolves, witches, etc.). While his scientists study such creatures in the hope of distilling their uncanny powers as salable commodities, Winsloe hunts those captives who have outlived their usefulness in cruel most-dangerous-game fashion. Elena's efforts to outsmart Winsloe long enough to apprise her Pack of her whereabouts are complicated by a werewolf wannabe among the captors. Though the tale is pretty much a prison-break story spiffed up with magic, Armstrong leavens the narrative with brisk action and intriguing dollops of werewolf culture that suggest a complex and richly imagined anthropologic backstory. The sassy, pumped-up Elena makes a perfect hardboiled horror heroine, with enough engaging attitude to compensate for the loose ends left untied to set up her next adventure. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review 'When two desperate witches lure part-time journalist and full-time werewolf Elena Michaels into a carefully laid trap, she quickly learns that her perceptions about humanity are based on some fundamental flaws. In Kelley Armstrong's supernatural thriller, Stolen, the world is populated with vampires, demons, half-demons, magical shamans and other supernatural races living anonymously among the human population--a concept that Elena has a hard time accepting, just as she struggled with her own lupine identity in Armstrong's remarkable debut, Bitten. But when Elena returns to her werewolf pack in upstate New York, pack leader Jeremy reveals that the threat people pose to the supernatural races should not be taken lightly. When Jeremy, Elena and her lover Clay decide to take action to protect their pack, Elena gets kidnapped on the orders of a power-crazed billionaire. While being held captive she learns that while some magical beings are good and some evil, none are capable of more outright cruelty and savage betrayal than ordinary, non-magical human beings. Armstrong actively solicited reader input via her Web site while writing the second title of her Women of the Otherworld series. This unconventional creative strategy sheds light on Armstrong's justified literary confidence. Her large cast of characters is fully realised, despite their great diversity, which ranges from insecure research scientists to unreliable half-demons, as well as Paige, an orphaned and highly volatile adolescent witch. Most gratifyingly, Armstrong's horror is tempered with a sly and very satisfying dose of humour.' - Deirdre Hanna, AMAZON.CA REVIEW 'a Taut, Sensual Thriller That Grips From The First Page. Elena Michaels Is At Once Sublime And Sympathetic, A Modern Heroine Who Shows That Real Women Bite Back' - Karin Slaughter 'there Is Nothing Overtly Gothic About This Fast-paced, Sexy Thriller And Its Model Contemporary Heroine -- It's Just That She's A Werewolf Who Is Trying To Make A Go Of Things Among Humans.' - Bookseller Uk Elena Michaels Is A Wanted Woman. Ten Years Ago She Was Transformed Into A Werewolf By Her Lover. Her Transformation Makes Her Powerful. But In The Wrong Hands, It Also Makes Her Deadly. And Now, Just As She's Coming To Terms With It All, A Group Of Scientists Learns Of Her Existence. They're Hunting Her Down, And Elena Is About To Run Straight Into Their Trap. But They Haven't Reckoned On Elena's Adoptive Family, Her Pack, Who Will Stop At Nothing To Get Her Back. They Haven't Reckoned On Elena, Either. And That's A Very Big Mistake . . . Books By Kelley Armstrong: Women Of The Otherworld Series Bitten Stolen Dime Store Magic Industrial Magic Haunted Broken No Humans Involved Personal Demon Living With The Dead Frost Bitten Walking The Witch Spellbound Thirteen Nadia Stafford Exit Strategy Made To Be Broken Wild Justice Rockton City Of The Lost A Darkness Absolute This Fallen Prey Watcher In The Woods Alone In The Wild Darkest Powers The Summoning The Awakening The Reckoning Otherworld Tales Men Of The Otherworld Tales Of The Otherworld Otherworld Nights Otherworld Secrets Otherworld Chills Darkness Rising The Gathering The Calling The Rising Cainsville Omens Visions Deceptions Betrayals Rituals It was in Bitten, Kelley Armstrong’s debut novel, that thirty-year-old Elena Michaels came to terms with her feral appetites and claimed the proud identity of a beautiful, successful woman—and the only living female werewolf.In Stolen, on a mission for her own elite pack, she is lured into the net of ruthless Internet billionaire Tyrone Winsloe, who has funded a bogus scientific investigation of the “other races” and their supernatural powers. Kidnapped and studied in his underground lab deep in the Maine woods, these paranormals—witches, vampires, shamans, werewolves—are then released and hunted to the death in a real-world video game. But when Winsloe captures Elena, he finally meets his match.