“I will court you,” he said. “And I won’t give up. I will wait for you like I waited for you out­side that cave, and I’ll fol­low you like I fol­lowed you home that night, keep­ing you safe. I will wait for you because you are meant to be mine~” his voice grew husky with desire~“and because you’ll be worth the wait.” Excerpt from Blood and Chocolate

Blood and ChocolateBlood and Choco­late by Annette Cur­tis Klause was a big sur­prise to me. That scene I just quoted for you is why. I stayed up till 1am read­ing this book and fin­ished it this morn­ing. This story has a really hot hero only that I didn’t notice him until halfway through the book. Just in case you hadn’t real­ized, Blood and Choco­late is now a major motion pic­ture. After see­ing the com­mer­cial for it on TV, I went search­ing for my copy of the book and decided to sit down and read it. I’d had it for years.

Vivian makes the mis­take of think­ing that she can live in two worlds: one with her pack and another in the human world. Right now, the sta­bil­ity of the pack is in trou­ble because they are lead­er­less. In open­ing of the story, Vivian and the pack had to flee West Vir­ginia because of an inci­dent that hap­pened there. Things went ter­ri­bly wrong and a life is lost as a result. So off to Mary­land they go and that’s where they stay and try to set­tle in tem­porar­ily with­out draw­ing much atten­tion to themselves.

How­ever, there are the “Five” which is a group made up of five teenage boys who are somewhat, uncontrollable. Vivian and the rest try to keep an eye on them but every­one knows that they are a rest­less bunch. A leader is needed soon to keep them in order among other things. Thus, the elder pack mem­bers meet and assem­ble a rit­ual from the old days, to find a leader for the pack to mete out the Law. It is after that rit­ual is over that the story really starts to get inter­est­ing for me.

Again, this book would have been an “A” read for me if I was half-way inter­ested in the teen stuff but I wasn’t. Yet, this is a YA novel where the teenage expe­ri­ence is a major part of the story. The author spent most of the book show­ing us how Vivian tries to blend into the human world and some­times feel­ing shut out of it. Then there’s the other world, wolf-kind. Unlike most char­ac­ters we read about who can’t stand that they are a mon­ster, Vivian embraces her wolf-skin. She hopes that Aiden, the boy she likes, will see the beauty of the Change. Will he see the beauty of it or shriek in hor­ror? You’ll have to read it to find out.

I liked the sec­ond half of the book much bet­ter than the first; but it’s like Rachel from AAR said, the hero in this book is hot.  The plot/story was good but again I had to speed read through the teenage angsty stuff. I doubt I’d want to see the movie but I am glad that I have finally read this book. My track record with this author hasn’t been a good one but I may go back and give The Sil­ver Kiss another try. Maybe. My grade, B+.