Blood and chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause

When their rural property is attacked by the local towns people Vivian and her pack flee with their tails between their legs, licking their wounds and mourning the loss of key members of their pack.  Living in the city is challenging, the pack has been split up into different households and instead of wide open forests they have small patches of wood to run free in.  It's a dangerous time for the pack, their last leader died in the fire and they can't decide on a new leader which leaves everyone unsettled and playing power games.  For Vivian it is a time of coming to terms with loss, being disgusted by the behaviour of her age mates in the pack, and trying to avoid the attentions of the men who are starting to notice her change from girl to woman.  It seems as though nothing is going right - and then she meets Aiden.

Aiden is like no one she has ever met before - he is nothing like the brash and crude Five, and nothing like the men and wolves who have started sniffing around.  For the first time Vivian is spending time with humans rather than pack, and while the others can't understand her fascination with the 'meat boy', Aiden and his friends accept her as one of their own.  As the summer moves on there is an almost dream like quality to their relationship, a sweetness that Vivian has never seen with the wolves and for the first time she is tempted to tell a human what she really is.  It's a bad time to expose her secret though, because someone has killed a human - and everyone knows that once you have a taste for blood you can't stop the craving.

Blood and chocolate appeared on a recommended reading list recently and it made me want to pick it up and read it again to see if it had stood the test of time - and basically the answer is yes.  Annette Curtis Klause wrote a story focused on relationships, so although this is quite an old story now, it doesn't have all the little place markers that pinpoint it to a certain place in time.  It is the characters that make this such an amazing story, and it is the characters that stay with you long after the story ends.  In some ways the story is too short, because the story is so neatly written and the pace is quite quick, but it is a very enjoyable read.  If you have never read Blood and chocolate before then I highly recommend it, because while it is a very well written and interesting twist on the werewolf genre, it is also a very well written first love story and coming of age story.

If you like this book then try:

• Paranormalcy by Kiersten White
• Anna dressed in blood by Kendare Blake
• Firelight by Sophie Jordan
• Daughter of smoke and bone by Laini Taylor
• The girl in the steel corset by Kady Cross
• Sweet shadows by Tera Lynn Childs
• Born at midnight by C.C. Hunter
• A court of thorns and roses by Sarah J. Maas
• Graceling by Kristin Cashore
• Grave mercy by Robin LaFevers
• The glass spare by Lauren DeStefano
• The girl of fire and thorns by Rae Carson
• Court of fives by Kate Elliott
• Bound by blood and sand by Becky Allen
• The hunt by Andrew Fukuda
• Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst
• The demon trapper's daughter by Jana Oliver

Reviewed by Brilla