Men of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong

 

I love the Otherworld Series by Kelley Armstrong.

That being said, I had never read the free novellas that she offered on her web site. I don’t know why this is. Part of it has to do with the fact that I love holding the book in my hand. The other part of it, I guess, was that I didn’t want to read anything outside the actual series of books.

I know, finicky but true.

But I was extremely excited to hear that most of the online fiction would be taken off of Kelley’s web site and published into a couple of collections, the first of which is Men of the Otherworld.

I was a trifle worried that it would read like a bunch of mismatched short stories that wouldn’t really flow together very well. However, I am happy to report that I was way more than wrong.

Men of the Otherworld consists of the tales Infusion, Savage, Ascension and Kitsunegari, the collection of otherworld tales actually reads like a novel. The book follows the progress of the men of the pack including Jeremy’s birth, Clay’s being bitten, his training and acceptance of his new life.

In fact, though these tales were written at the same time as the novels, because of how they are arranged, they make for a better read than some of the more recent Women of the Otherworld novels. Not because those novels were bad; far from it. More, I think, because there is an urgency to these tales, a need that burns off the page.

If you’ve never read Kelley Armstrong’s novels before, Men of the Otherworld is actually a great place to start as everything but the last story takes place before the series itself.

And with all of Kelley Armstrong’s proceeds going to World Literacy of Canada, you’re getting a great read and doing something good. How can you go wrong?