Frostbitten by Kelley Armstrong

Elena is the only female Werewolf in existence, and she is also a bitten Werewolf rather than a born Werewolf, which makes her extremely rare. She is married to Clay, another werewolf who also happens to be the one who bit and infected her long ago. For a long time, all Elena wanted was a normal human life, but loving Clay has sold her on the life of a Werewolf, and she's also become an enforcer for Jeremy, the Alpha wolf of her pack.

Elena is on the hunt for Reese, an Australian Werewolf who has been accused of mankilling by Liam Molloy and Rene Santos, two other Weres who are the real mankillers. Apparently, they think they can continually pin the blame on other, innocent Werewolves, then kill the innocents and not have to pay the price of their own sins. And Elena just wants to make sure Reese really is innocent so she can string the other two up before they call pull the same stunt again.

But Reese manages to get past her and to the airport, where he takes the first flight for Alaska. Elena wants to go after him, but she also wants to get back to her kids as well. When she calls Jeremy, he tells her that three women have died up in Alaska, and that it might be Werewolves, so between that job and Reese, she agrees to go north and look into it. Joining her in Alaska is Clay, her husband. He's got a job as a professor, but he also works for Jeremy as his crazy killer. Back when Clay was younger, he deliberately reveled in such a role, and now he's just resigned to it.

Back long ago, Clay used a chainsaw to dismember a Were who'd done bad- mostly so that people would think him crazy and try to run from him rather than deal with him. But now he comes to realize that while he's one generation of Weres bogeyman, the new generation doesn't have the fear of him that the older one does, and so he's seen as less of a threat. He joins Elena and helps her out in finding Reese, who's been attacked by a group of Werewolves in the area, who chopped off two of his fingers for no reason he can discern.

Elena talks to him, and tells him she isn't looking to punish him for the crimes of Molloy and Santos. She wants him to testify about them to Jeremy, who will see that they are taken care of. But she begins to suspect that these new Werewolves may be the ones responsible for the killings/disappearance of the three girls.

She's also stunned to hear from Clay that Jeremy will soon be stepping down as Alpha, and that he wants her to replace him. She's afraid that anyone else will think that a female Alpha is weak, and thinks Clay should take the job, but he emphatically doesn't want it. He knows he's not suited for the position. The position of scary guy enforcer suits him just fine. As Elena mulls that over, she gets a call from Jeremy and he has another wolf, the Alpha of the Russian packs, call her. The Russian Alpha says that some of the wolves recently arrived in Alaska might be his, thrown out for being general troublemakers. If she wants some help, he says, she should call him back. She agrees to do so if she needs it.

But these other wolves aren't the only ones in Alaska. Two Weres left Jeremy's pack, a father- son team named Dennis and Joey. But when they check on Dennis shortly after arriving, they discover him killed in his shack in the woods, and Joey has become an old man who doesn't want to know them any more. Nor is Dennis's tortured body all they find in the woods- there is a dead body killed and partially eaten- probably by Werewolves, and Clay is attacked by something that looks like a cross between a Werewolf and a bear.

As they try to track down the rogue weres, Clay and Elena have to deal not only with the rogues and the hostile Joey/Joseph, but find out what is the creature that attacked Clay and for Elena to lose the uncertainty about being Alpha and learn to stand on her own. Because if she can't be strong and powerful, she'll be dead, and when her foes have raping her high on their list of wants, she'll have to be able to do more than just defend herself to win...

I haven't read many of Kelley Armstrong's books, but what I have read, I enjoy. I certainly like her "Women of the Otherworld" books, of which I have read four. Elena featured in two of those books and the first was about how she stopped wanting and craving the kind of normal life she could never have and learned to accept who and what she was- a werewolf. This book takes place several years later, when she's been married to Clay and they finally have kids together.

And what a difference that time makes. She was really cautious in the first book and wanted life with a human guy while suffering her life in the city. Now, she's much more strong and confident, but she still has to accept that not only can she be an Alpha wolf, she among the whole pack is best suited for the job. She worries most that she can't be ruthless enough, and eventually finds out that she *can* be ruthless, if she needs to be, and having to deal with similarly ruthless rogues is what allows her to step up to the plate and use all her wiles and wits to defeat them.

I found this a very good novel. Alaska is the real last frontier of America, and she presents readers with an wilderness that is not only stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine, a harsh and ruthless land where even powerful creatures like Werewolves can be outclassed and outmatched by what is already there. And with the big mystery presented to the characters and the readers, what the strange creature Clay fights happens to be is a mystery both to the characters and the readers.

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from Kelley Armstrong, both about this character, and about her other characters. I highly recommend her books as ones that make you think even as you are enjoying them. Pick up her Women of the Otherworld books if you enjoy reading about strong female characters who can hold their own even in very strenuous and trying circumstances.