Review – The Becoming by Jeanne C. Stein (4/5 stars)

This is the first book in the Anna Strong Chronicles by Jeanne C. Stein.

Anna is a bounty hunter who is savagely attacked while hunting one of her bounties. When she wakes up from the attack she finds out that she is not quite human anymore. This book details the process of her discovering new found abilities and hunting the one who attacked her.

This book was well-written. Stein has a very straight-forward unembellished writing style. The plot was fast-paced and contained enough twists and turns to keep you interested. The vampire concepts she uses in this novel are pretty routine, at least up to the point where this novel leaves off.

Anna Strong is a strong straight-forward character. I like that she wasn’t whiny, and that she accepted the changes in her life pretty well. I liked her independence as well. I also like that she was confident, without out being stupidly over confident. Dr. Avery’s character didn’t do much for me; I thought he was shallow and predictable. That part of the book ended exactly how I thought it would.

However, Anna’s boyfriend Max seems like a very interesting character and I look forward to meeting him in more detail. Also the guy who took care of her partner in that hole of a place (I am forgetting his name) who was not human but not vampire could be very interesting.

I like that Stein put sex into the story without having to describe every moment of the act. Sometimes it is sexier to leave some of the sex to the imagination.

I think this series shows promise. Hopefully the coming books develop this world into something more. I would hate for this to be just another vampire series with a female lead. Unfortunately with the book market saturated with these types of books right now; I think Stein is going to have to have something that makes these books really special to keep readers interesting.

It’s a promising debut and I will read the next one to see what happens.