| Bitten | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Kelley Armstrong |
| Cover artist | Dominic Harman |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Series | Women of the Otherworld |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy, Romance, Adventure |
| Publisher | Viking Adult (United States), Little, Brown & co. (U.K.), Random House (Canada) |
| Publication date | 1 October 2001 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) & Audio Book (Cassette) |
| Pages | 400 pp (hardcover) 384 pp (paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 978-0670894710 (hardcover) |
| Followed by | Stolen |
Bitten, a fantasy novel published in 2001, is the first book in the Women of the Otherworld series. It is Canadian author Kelley Armstrong's first novel.
Contents |
Elena Michaels is the only known female werewolf. And she's tired of it. Tired of a life spent hiding and protecting, a life where her most important job is hunting down rogue werewolves. Tired of a world that not only accepts the worst in her— her temper, her violence— but requires it. Worst of all, she realizes she's growing content with that life, with being that person. So she left her Pack and returned to Toronto where she's trying to live as a human. When the Pack leader calls asking for her help fighting a sudden uprising, she only agrees because she owes him. Once this is over, she'll be squared with the Pack and free to live life as a human. Which is what she wants. Really.[1]
The main character of "Bitten" is Elena Michaels, an ordinary woman - who also happens to be a werewolf. She lives in Toronto, Canada and writes for a popular newspaper. Elena is also the only known female werewolf in the world. This gives her a very special place in the werewolf world, and especially with the werewolf pack. She struggles to deal with her other-ness and to assimilate to the human world. She also contends with her terrible childhood, and with the man who bit her and turned her into a werewolf.
Elena has managed to settle into a somewhat normal existence, living with her ad-exec boyfriend and ignoring her wolf side as much as possible. However, she learns that her Pack (the governing body of werewolves) is in trouble, and comes to their aid, flying to Stonehaven, the country estate of the pack Alpha. It is in Bear Valley, a fictional city in up-state New York. When Elena arrives, she is greeted by her ex-lover, Clayton Danvers, who is also the man who bit her and made her a werewolf (without her consent). Clayton is also the bodyguard and foster-son to Jeremy Danvers, the pack Alpha (leader). Elena learns that a local woman was found murdered on Stonehaven's land, and that she had been savaged by what authorities thought to be a dog. However, the Pack has determined that she was murdered by a Mutt, a rogue werewolf. They track the mutt and find out he is a recently escaped killer, who has even more recently been turned by a bite into a werewolf. Clay and Elena chase him into a rave and after several of the partyers are killed, the police shoot him in wolf form.
Soon, the rest of the Pack arrives on the scene to help with the problem: Antonio Sorrentino, his son Nicholas Sorrentino, Logan Jonsen, and Peter Myers. The werewolf Pack are the self appointed governing body of the werewolf world, and they kill to keep the existence of werewolves a secret. This means if they feel any non Pack wolves(whom they term "Mutts") become noticeable to humans, they kill them. They kill humans too, but not as often. First, Logan and Peter are killed. This greatly saddens Elena, and she starts sleeping(cheating) with Clay again, without telling her boyfriend, Phillip. As Logan and Peter are not the best fighters, the Pack wonders why that would happen. They also wonder why any Mutt would dare to go near the Pack. Most are terrified of being noticed by them. Then Jeremy, the Alpha is attacked. Finally, the pack figures out that the "mutts", tired of being brutalized by the Pack, are trying to free themselves from their rule. To do this one mutt in particular, Daniel, who has reason to hate Clay from childhood, has started turning human killers and other escaped convicts into werewolves to fight the pack.
Armstrong says Bitten was inspired by an X-Files episode on werewolves. She had the idea to portray werewolves as other than "bloodthirsty, ravening beasts", and quickly wrote a short story about a young woman who becomes a werewolf to present to her writing group. Eventually, Armstrong fleshed out the short story into a novel that became Bitten.[2]
In the Women of the Otherworld series, unlike many modern horror fiction stories, werewolves transform into full wolves in a painful transmogrification, while maintaining their hair colour and body mass, making them extremely large wolves. Although transformations have to occur regularly, Armstrong's werewolves are not affected by phases of the moon, can shape-shift at will and, with practice, can learn to transform a single part of their body (as of yet, Jeremy and Elena are the only ones shown to be able to do this though it is strongly implied that Clay can as well). Werewolves can be killed by anything that can kill a human, and have no extra sensitivity to silver. They do, however age slower than humans. For example, Antonio and his son Nick, despite an age gap of 17 years, pass themseleves off as brothers in human company. In fact, Pack sons are raised referring to their fathers as 'uncle' while amidst humans, in order to avoid questions.
While in human form, werewolves have wolf-like characteristics, better hearing, a keener sense of smell and a wolf's instinctive reactions, while in wolf form they maintain their intellect but cannot talk and are more driven by instinct. In both forms they have greater strength and reflexes than a normal human or wolf and heal significantly faster. Hereditary Werewolves acquire these enhanced abilities gradually, following puberty, and have their first change in their late teens or early 20s. Non-hereditary werewolves start changing shortly after they are bitten, and not all survive the process; the bitten mutts took around a month to recover. In the case of Clay he could transform and had the enhanced abilities from when he was bitten around age five.
For a while, there was discussion of making a movie adaptation of this novel. Angelina Jolie was approached to play the central role of Elena. This has however been scrapped for now but there is still a script floating around for it.[3][4]
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