Wednesday 7 December 2011

Review: Broken by Kelley Armstrong

Broken by Kelley Armstrong
(Women of the Otherworld #6)
4 out of 5 stars

Published by Orbit Books
This review may contain spoilers for the previous books in the series

Part six in the extremely diverse Women of the Otherworld series, Broken is sad to say, not the best one.

Elena, only known female werewolf, is pregnant of werewolf boyfriend Clay. This makes her more vulnerable, having to rely on her Pack to protect her. When they are sent to Toronto on Pack business, they get tangled up in supernatural troubles, including rampaging Victorian serial killers, a bunch of long-extinct diseases and a multi-dimensional portal spitting out zombies. The Pack can use every supernatural help they can get.

After all this focussing on the witchcrafting part of the Women of the Otherworld family (Dime Store Magic, Industial Magic, Haunted) I was glad to be back to the reason I love this series. The werewolves! As far as the narrators go, I still enjoy Elena the most. She is so utterly kick-ass that I just love being in her head. And I guess that's why I didn't like Broken as much as say, Bitten; Elena can't kick butts with a baby on board. I had to say it, but Awesome Elena has become Elena the Clumsy Pregnant Lady. And I don't really like her. All of a sudden Clay is this cutesy protective guy. I miss my socially retarded Clay, he was much more fun.

Apart from my grumbling on the character-changes, the plot was of the calibre we are used to by Ms Armstrong. It has intrigue, betrayal, friendships, plot-twists you don't see coming. Even though there was a lot of meaningless running around, doing research and calling people, I still enjoyed this part a lot. It was good to see a decent plot again, after a little bit of a meh one in Haunted.

A minor concern I'm starting to have is that there are too many characters in this series. Every book, we meet new ones, and it's becoming really hard to keep track of them all. At some parts of the story, I was rather confused to who they were calling to now. Having had a few months break between books, I could use a memory-refresher.

Broken is very nice read and a great addition to the urban-fantasy genre. I hope kick-ass Elena is still down there somewhere. I would love to see her back.

Blurb

When half-demon Xavier calls in the favour Elena owes him, it seems easy enough, steal Jack the Ripper's 'From Hell' letter away from a Toronto collector who had himself stolen it from the Ripper evidence boxes. But nothing in the supernatural world is ever as simple as it seems. Elena accidentally triggers a spell placed on the letter, and opens a dimensional portal into Victorian London, releasing zombies, disease, and maybe a notorious serial killer himself.

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