Kelley Armstrong has created a whole world similar to ours but with the addition of supernatural creatures, the stuff of myth and legend come to life. She calls this series, Women of the Otherworld. The first book in the series, Bitten, focuses on Elena, an oddity even for this odd world. Elena is unique, the only female werewolf. There are two ways to become a werewolf. The first way is hereditary – males pass along the werewolf gene to their sons. The second way is to be bitten by a werewolf and then to survive, rare occurrences since werewolves are unlikely to stop at just one bite.
Bitten begins ten years after Elena became a werewolf. Not having been brought up in a werewolf pack Elena stills thinks of herself as human. She rejects the werewolf way of life and struggles to live as a human in the human world. Bitten highlights the pull both worlds have on Elena.
Fans of supernatural fiction are likely to enjoy reading Women of the Otherworld. In addition to werewolves, the series focuses on the lives of several females – witches, a necromancer and a half-demon. The series also includes two books of short stories – Men of the Otherworld and Tales of the Otherworld – that fill in some of the background on the main werewolf characters.