Made to Be Broken (Nadia Stafford, Book 2) by Kelley Armstrong

I was excited about the release of Made to be Broken because I really enjoyed the first book in this series, Exit Strategy.

And I wasn't disappointed. The characters are still three dimensional, there is wit and humor, and the mystery keeps you in suspense until almost the very end. And the bit of a love triangle is enough to make it interesting without being annoying.

Kelley Armstrong is best known for her urban fantasy series Women of the Otherworld. In those books she has created a world where supernatural creatures exist.

In the Nadia Armstrong books there are no supernatural anythings. But we still get a world that is not familiar to us - the world of the contract killer. I'm sure that the reality of the hitman-underground is nothing like the books, but that's okay. Because the world the author creates is still believable, and she manages to give us hitmen that we can identify with. Sort of. I mean, I can't see myself ever killing someone for money, but she humanizes them in a way that makes us not hate them for their job. If I'd grown up in Nadia's shoes, would I have made the choices she has made? I honestly don't know. With her background, the things that have happened to her, you can understand a little bit why she's made the choices she has made.

This isn't the first time an author has given us a hitman we can like. There is Edward in the Anita Blake series, and Cormac in the Kitty Norville series. And now we have Nadia and Jack and Quinn and Felix in this series. (The jury is still out on how I feel about Evelyn at this point.)

The plot in this book was... disturbing. But I think it was that way for a reason. People who are worse (morally speaking) than the contract killers. We are supposed to like these hitmen, what better way to help us do that then to have us comparing them to people who do things so much more reprehensible than a simple contract killer.

And that's probably all I can say without using spoiler text. Made to be Broken is good, and I enjoyed it. I like Nadia (and Jack, and Quinn) and I want to know what happens next.

I don't believe the author has stated whether there will be more books or not, but she certainly ended this book with a way to make the next book pretty interesting.


Book Rating: 9 of 10
Series Rating: 9 of 10




Nadia Stafford Series
1. Exit Strategy
2. Made to Be Broken (February 2009)

Exit Strategy (Nadia Stafford Series 1) by Kelley Armstrong

I'll review Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series at some point, but I figured I would throw a non-vampire, non-werewolf, not-a-shred-of-supernatural-anything book out there for a change.

If you have a thing for Edward in the Anita Blake series, or Cormac from the Kitty and the Midnight Hour series, then you might find a few characters in this book that are also a bit interesting.

Basically, Nadia Stafford is an ex-cop turned professional hitman, and she ends up in a situation where she's working with several other hitmen. Talk about looking at the shades of gray that exist between good and bad, this is a book where the professional hitmen are the good guys.

This isn't anything like the Women of the Otherworld series. Well, except for the author not being scared to use strong, kick-ass women in this story, either. Yeah, women, plural. Not just the lead character. But they aren't so strong and kick-ass that they get on your nerves. You get to see the weak parts as well as the strong parts. Real women on the inside with normal wants and needs and hopes and fears and idiosyncrasies, who happen to be able to handle themselves in almost any situation.

As for as genre, I'd guess that this is a crime thriller. As of now there are two books planned for the series and as soon as the second comes out I'll be buying it. Kelley Armstrong says that whether she writes more after those two will depend on how well the series is doing.

Book Rating: 9




Nadia Stafford Series
1. Exit Strategy
2. Made to Be Broken (February 2009)