13

I had been putting off reading Kelley Armstrong's 13, as I didn't want my adventures with the inter-racial council to end, but I couldn't wait any longer to crack open my beautiful hardcover addition.  I'd started reading a few pages here and there but the turning point was when I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep.  Therefore early morning logic dictated that I should read a few chapters and drift back off to my much needed slumber.  Instead, I read over half the book and by the end I was in tears, proper sobs, trying to stifle them so I didn't wake anyone else up.  Now, I'm not saying that this is my favourite entry in the Women of the Otherworld series (my heart will always belong to Jamie Vegas and book no.7 No Humans Involved) but I don't think I would have wanted such a great urban fantasy series to end any other way. 

War is coming to the Otherworld.  A sinister cult known as The Supernatural Liberation Movement is hell-bent on exposing the truth about supernaturals to the rest of the world.  Their violent, ruthless plan has put everyone at risk: from werewolves to vampires, from witches to half-demons.
  Savannah Levine - fiery and unpredictable - stands at the heart of the maelstrom.  There is a new, dark magic inside her, granting her the power to summon spells of terrifying strength.  But wether this magic is a gift or a curse, no one knows.
  On the ever of battle, all the major players must come together in a last, desperate fight for survival - Elena and Clay; Adam and Savannah; Paige and Lucas; Jeremy and Jamie; Hope, Eve and more...
They are fighting for their lives.  They are fighting for their loved ones.  They are fighting for the Otherworld.

  I was a bit miffed as the blurb had implied something much bigger was brewing and about to be revealed.  Plus I wanted an old style Buffy season finale or something akin to the showdown in Jim Butcher's Changes.  However, what I got was something that enabled my beloved characters to get together and fight for their right to stay anonymous.  There's plenty of action and gore, especially at the start, but there's a lot of heart to 13 and plenty of character development.
Armstrong has said that this is isn't the end for Elena and company, they'll appear in short fiction, but I'm glad she's resting the series so it won't have the chance to enter Sookie Stackhouse or Anita Blake territory.

Waking The Witch

Waking the Witch is the eleventh installment in Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series.  It's strange having read all of the books in just under two years, as I still think of Savannah (who narrates this story) as an annoying twelve year old brat.  Now twenty-one, she is still slightly annoying and very cocky but it would be out of character if she wasn't! 

The book starts with Savannah being somewhat desperate for her first solo job as a private investigator.  With her guardians, who also happen to be her bosses, away on holiday, and a stranger propositioning her with a case, it seems like the perfect time to prove her worth.  The case in question brings her to a small town where three young women have been murdered.
  As with all the plots in Armstrong's series, everything is not as it seems and there are multiple possible suspects and tangents that make her novels a pleasure to read.  What I also like about this series is that you don't necessarily have had to have read any of the other books and you could pick a book and read it out of sequence.  While I don't think Waking the Witch isn't Armstrong at her best (my personal favourite from the series is The Living Dead) hopefully it has lead the way for a stronger second act in Spellbound.