The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong

Title: The Gathering

Author: Kelley Armstrong

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Age Group: Young Adult

Grade: 93% or A-

Strange things are happening in Maya's tiny Vancouver Island town. First, her friend Serena, the captain of the swim team, drowns mysteriously in the middle of a calm lake. Then, one year later, mountain lions are spotted rather frequently around Maya's home—and her reactions to them are somewhat . . . unexpected. Her best friend, Daniel, has also been experiencing unexplainable premonitions about certain people and situations.

It doesn't help that the new bad boy in town, Rafe, has a dangerous secret, and he's interested in one special part of Maya's anatomy—her paw-print birthmark.

When I first found out that what I thought was the end of the lovely Simon, Derek, and Chloe, I nearly cried. The Darkest Powers books were definitely in my top 5 series. But then the sun shined through, Armstrong was just finished with their story for now and wanted to move on to other characters in the same world. I made sure to get this book as soon as I could.

Maya is a pretty good main character for now. I like her story and it's going to be fun not only seeing whats going to happen but also investigating her past. I'm also really enjoying the side characters. I'm trying to imagine what abilities they might have and what part they are going to play in whatever happens next. I am thinking about love interest stuff somewhat and I hope this isn't another instance where two guys are going to compete for her love. I always find that ridiculous. And for some reason I feel that it is a strong possibility.

Something that I really liked was that the story is moving much more slowly than it did in past books. It was still very interesting and I wasn't bored, but not a lot of things were revealed or discovered. We're only able to come to a couple of conclusions based off of what we know from the past books. Like, when some..bad..people were mentioned, we knew certain things were going on.

I really like what Armstrong was doing. She went with her gut by not continuing with Chloe instead of doing so just to please the readers. It makes me respect her. I also think that people who didn't like the character or setting from the first 3 books but were fascinated by the story will get a second chance.

Overall I think this is going to be the start of a great continuation. I wish other authors would think about doing something like this. Readers love to see some familiar faces. I'd recommend this book to anyone who liked the previous 3 or any newcomers to the books.