The Gathering (Darkness Rising, Book 1) [Hardcover]

I've finished "The Gathering" the 1st book in her Darkness Rising series by Kelley Armstrong.

Product Description

The setting for the Gathering is a small medical-research town called Salmon Creek on the island of Vancouver Island. Salmon Creek was built by St. Cloud Corporation, the owners of the town and surrounding park. It was built for their employees. Maya, the main character, is the adopted daughter of the park ranger. The events actually start a year before with death of Maya's friend, Serena. She, Maya, and Serena's boyfriend, Daniel, were swimming in a lake. Serena, captain of Salmon Creek High swim team, drowned in the lake, and Maya is guilt ridden for not being able to save her friend.

A year later, Maya is getting ready to celebrate her sweet 16. She wants to tattoo her birthmark -- a paw-print shape on her hip. She doesn't want it altered in any way, though; she just wants to make it more noticable. However, she doesn't get it because the tattoo artist's aunt insults her by calling her a witch in Navajo. Later, she invites Rafe, a new bad-boy at school, to her birthday party at Daniel's house. At the party, the teens have a competition on Maya's new rock wall: if she can beat all the guys, they have to add more footholds, but if she loses to even one guy, she has to kiss him.

After she defeats all the contestants, Rafe shows up. He challenges Maya individually, and beats her. He doesn't kiss her, though, promising to claim his prize without prying eyes. Maya and Rafe start going out. One day, when Maya was going over to his house for dinner with him and his childish older sister, Annie, she is attacked by someone looking for Rafe. She sees Annie transform from a cougar into herself.
Rafe tells her about skinwalkers and how their mothers were in an experiment to bring them back through their children, but Maya's biological mother seemly learned the truth about it and abandoned her when she was baby and Maya learns she may have a twin brother out in the world somewhere. Rafe explains more about the calling and how Annie fell a victim to it and describes the warning signs which Maya realized she being going though and is scared to do so after hearing what Annie went through. She dumps Rafe after feeling used and not feeling he's trustworthy anymore. The forest is set on fire by people who wanted break into ST.Clouds labs and the book then with the group escaping expect Annie who's out there somewhere.

Product Details
Reading level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: HarperCollins (April 12, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061797022
ISBN-13: 978-0061797026

My Review:

I highly recommend reading this series if you like a snarky heroine and well written characters with different personalities and a great storyline.

Maya is a great heroine and I loved the snarky comments that she says for example:

Maya: "Have you met the tattoo artist?  Is he hot?"
Mom: "He's a she."
Maya: "Is she hot?  Cause I'm still young, you know.  My sexual identity isn't fully formed."

She has balls and she tells you like it is and doesn't pussyfoot around and she really cares for her family and friends.  She's attracted to Rafe but she doesn't quite trust him and besides he has a reputation of being a ladies man.  He enjoys the chase but once he has them he loses interest.  I really enjoy reading how she loves animals and they seem to be attracted to her too (they don't want to hurt her but protect her).  She has a German Shepard Kenjii as a companion.

I felt really sorry for Daniel after reading about his childhood and that his dad blames him for his mom leaving when he was 13 yrs. old.  He used to beat Daniel up until he was bigger and stronger and could take care of himself.  I really like how he's very protective of Maya his best friend and even more since Serena's drowning last year.  He's very popular because he's a sensible and fair leader and people like to be around him.  He's starting to get feelings about things and it's not the good kind.  Maya is learning to trust his instincts.

Rafe is the American Teen Rebel because of the way he dresses and he acts so cool.  He pretends to smoke cigarettes and he's something of a ladies man.  I didn't really like learning he only dated Maya briefly to see if she's a Skinwalker like him.  But everyone can sense he really does like Maya including me.

4.5/5

Thanks Authors on the Web and HarperCollins for sending me this book to review, greatly appreciated!