Book: Waking the Witch by Kelley Armstrong
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Plume, Penguin Group
Publication date: April, 2011
Pages: 386

Source: Purchased

Summary: The 11th book in The Otherworld Series by Kelley Armstrong, Waking the Witch features a grown-up Savannah Levine tackling her first solo gig for a detective agency that specializes in cases with a supernatural element. Savannah climbs on her motor bike and roars into a small town with a creepy commune, a spunky kid, and three dead women amidst traces of satanic rituals.

Thoughts: Many of the books of The Otherworld Series work well as stand-alone books, including this one, but I thought it was more fun to read since I had watched Savannah grow up in some of the other books. According to the Savannah Levine page on The Otherworld Wikia (cool!), she first appeared in Stolen when, as a young girl, she was kidnapped with her mother and kept at a research facility. Now she’s a twenty-one year old with prodigious powers, an awakening sense of how to be a responsible and effective adult, and an unrequited love. Oh, yeah, and a cool bike.

This book ended its story, but the last chapter acts as a kind of epilogue and there is a cliff-hanger at the end. I’m sure glad Spell Bound is already published.

Appeal: This is a terrific series with powerful female characters, beginning with Bitten, the story of Elena, this world’s only known female werewolf. There’s just enough romance in these books to please a romance reader like me, but not so much that they get shelved with the romances — find them with the fantasies. Waking the Witch, with its young heroine, might especially appeal to college-aged fantasy readers. I didn’t read much fiction for fun as an undergraduate, but I did in graduate school so now I know it’s possible to go to school while continue a reading habit and beneficial for stress-reduction.

Challenges:Waking the Witch is my first book for RIP VI, R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril VI. Check out over 60 reviews of books and shows with mysterious undertones: R.I.P. VI Review Site.

Reviews: Lots of bloggers reviewed this book when it came out last year. Jia at Dear Author has a more detailed description of Savannah’s history and personality from previous books: REVIEW: Waking the Witch by Kelley Armstrong. Graeme Flory at Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review believed more strongly than I did that it’s helpful to have read the previous books in The Otherworld Series before reading this one, ‘Waking the Witch’ – Kelley Armstrong (Dutton) . Since she was new to this series, I’d trust her opinion on that more than mine!

Have you read this book? What did you think?