The Gathering Review

The Gathering
Kelley Armstrong
4 Stars
Published April 5th 2011

Summary:
Sixteen-year-old Maya is just an ordinary teen in an ordinary town. Sure, she doesn't know much about her background - the only thing she really has to cling to is an odd paw-print birthmark on her hip - but she never really put much thought into who her parents were or how she ended up with her adopted parents in this tiny medical-research community on Vancouver Island.

Until now.

Strange things have been happening in this claustrophobic town - from the mountain lions that have been approaching Maya to her best friend's hidden talent for "feeling" out people and situations, to the sexy new bad boy who makes Maya feel . . . . different. Combine that with a few unexplained deaths and a mystery involving Maya's biological parents and it's easy to suspect that this town might have more than its share of skeletons in its closet.

Review:I love Kelley Armstrong, I have read ever book she has written so of course I had to like this one. It's set in the same world as the darkest power series, but with new characters and it takes place in Vancouver. The  St. Clouds are still doing testing on Paranormal teen in a small town with a population of 200.
When I read the first couple of chapters a year before it actually came out I was so looking forward to finding out what dragged her friend the captin of the swim team under the lake and killed her. But we never find out in the book at all, the characters never even came close to solving the mystery of their friends sudden death. And of course in Kelley Armstrongs book the charcters have to supernatural, but we also don't find out what any of the are, we know they have special abilities. Maya is the only character who discovers that she is not just a noraml teen.Nothing much happened in the book, there was no climax to keep readers interested. It seems like a lead up for the series, but I felt she could have sped things up a bit so we could at least know what kind of supernatural creatures these teens are.
kelley Armstrong is an amazing author, I love her writing ( and she's really nice in person). The characters were really well put together, and were all strong in their own way. I love Maya she is an great main charcter, she funny, witty, and smart and will her point of view in the books makes it a good read. Maya is also a really neat paranormal that I haven't seen Kelley write about before and the mythology is really good. I like how the mythology is a canadian one! The sequel ,The calling, will be realease April of 2012.

Cover: 3/5, It's a really neat cover, but I'm not a huge fan... I don't know why I don't love it, I just don't. The covers for the darkest power series were much prettier.