Mini Review--Forbidden by Kelley Armstrong

The team-spirit sign by the side of the highway seems a good omen to loner Morgan Walsh, as he drives to what could be the most important visit of his life — a chance to join the North American Pack. Then he wakes naked in the woods, surrounded by wolf tracks and a ring of suspicious cops. The situation only gets worse when he’s bailed out by Alpha-elect Elena Michaels and Clayton Danvers, her terrifying enforcer and mate.

Disappointed that such a promising young werewolf risked exposing them, Elena isn’t expecting anything from the pesky retrieval job except some much-needed alone time with Clay. Instead, she finds a different kind of evil stalking the streets and forests of Westwood, New York. Trapped in town by a snowstorm and sabotage, Elena, Clay and Morgan must find the mysterious threat before it sets its sights on them.

I decided to take a little trip back to The Women of the Otherworld series with Kelley Armstrong's novella, Forbidden! I picked this up at HPB one day when I saw it just sitting there and I decided, why not? The novellas are always fun because you can basically read them without having to read the original series. Since I did read the series already, I was even more game, but it also helped that it wasn't necessary since I read Frostbitten when it came out in 2010 and this book takes place right after that sometime! So yeah, it's been a while! Lol!

In this one we have Elena and Clay who are called to a small town just outside their own home when a potential werewolf recruit gets himself into a bind. This is the part that I couldn't really remember, though I vaguely recall Morgan's character, just not his entire role in things. Morgan was considering joining the Pack, but gets waylaid in the small town and winds up in jail.

After being snowbound with twin five-year-olds, Clay and Elena jump at the chance to get out of the house for a bit. Though Westwood was a small town where everyone knows everyone, there is definitely something weird happening in this town. Elena can shake the feeling of being watched constantly and when they try to leave town the next day, they find that the tires of their car have been slashed. 

While wandering around the town, they uncover a decomposing body and it basically sets the course for them in the mystery solving area as the strange happenings don't stop there. There's the sheriff who seems a bit dodgy and secretive, a few deputies who may or may not have secrets of their own, and of course whoever the mystery vandal in town is. 

This story read really fast for being just over 200 pages! The time just flew by and I found myself really missing the Otherworld. I know I have a good amount of novella compilations in my TBR pile that I really ought to drag out, but who has the time!? Lol. I will have to make time for that return soon though.

I think that Clay and Elena will always be my favorite Otherworld couple. They were the first and there's just that special bond a reader develops with those first book characters. That holds true for me with this series! I also enjoyed that there was just the tiniest bit of romance in this one! Clay and Elena definitely deserve some alone time after the chaos of their twins! I'm also really interested in checking out their serial story, but I am terrible with reading serial episodes. I'm an all or nothing kind of reader! Lol.

Forbidden was a fun trip down Otherworld memory lane! It was great to return to one of the first adult series I ever read and what basically got me hooked into the urban fantasy genre! This is a read no Otherworld reader should be without!


Overall Rating 5/5 stars