Book Review: Broken by Kelley Armstrong

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Broken (Women of the Underworld #6) by Kelley Armstrong
Release Date: April 25th, 2006
Book Format: Paperback
Rating: 3 stars

In this thrilling new novel from the author of Industrial Magic, a pregnant werewolf may have unwittingly unleashed Jack the Ripper on twenty-first-century—and become his next target.

Ever since she discovered she’s pregnant, Elena Michaels has been on edge. After all, she’s never heard of another living female werewolf, let alone one who’s given birth. But thankfully, her expertise is needed to retrieve a stolen letter allegedly written by Jack the Ripper. As a distraction, the job seems simple enough—only the letter contains a portal to Victorian London’s underworld, which Elena inadvertently triggers—unleashing a vicious killer and a pair of zombie thugs.

Now Elena must find a way to seal the portal before the unwelcome visitors get what they’re looking for—which, for some unknown reason, is Elena.

Elena's never been my favorite character in this series. I never knew why, to be honest, when she's a half werewolf who have proven herself that she can hold her own in many situations. She's someone that, if Jeremy (the head werewolf in the pack) isn't around, they listen to her. That's pretty darn awesome. Of course, that probably helps that there aren't many female werewolves around other than her, but I digress. Even so I still loved her first two books in this series, Bitten and Stolen with Elena as the main character.

This book didn't do much for me, though.

I'm not saying this book is bad. I mean, I think those who are fans of Elena could probably like this. I just don't.

This time around, she's discovered to be pregnant which was formerly told to be quite impossible if not rare. I would guess this is also because there aren't many women werewolves to get pregnant? Nonetheless, this eventually makes her bored because women who are pregnant usually are encouraged to remain in bed and relax as to not stress the baby? (I've never carried a child so I wouldn't really know so forgive me if I sound a bit ignorant...). But that's not Elena's style, of course. But then she receives a call- a friend needs help getting a prized possession which is a letter supposedly written by Jack the Ripper himself.

Nothing wrong with that, right?

Well, after Clay accidentally kills a mosquito on top of the said letter while they examined it (in public, nonetheless... doesn't anyone know that it's just better to examine a 'priceless artifact' in privacy or something? Maybe it's just me...) and suddenly dead people are walking around. Old diseases that haven't been around in years pop up suddenly and Elena's well-being is in danger with her baby in tow. What was suppose to be a simple mission turned out to be something bigger than her and her pack and, for some reason, whoever is the cause of all of this just happens to be after Elena.

There is a lot going on in this book but I feel like it just wasn't as good as it could have been. On top of that, most of it was pretty much centered on the fact that Elena is pregnant. Alright, I get it. She has a kid in her stomach. Can we concentrate on mostly the paranormal part of the story (which wasn't as much as you would think).

I don't know. I just didn't like this book. I found myself dragging on and on and this is probably the longest I've ever read a book to date. I'm still going to read the rest of this series (especially since the next one has a new character- so excited!!) but I don't know if this book contributed to the series as a whole aside from that now we know what her kid is called.

Review originally posted and shared February 17th, 2014