Blood and Chocolate

by Annette Curtis Klause

Overview

Vivian Gandillon relishes the change, the sweet, fierce ache that carries her from girl to wolf. At sixteen, she is beautiful and strong, and all the young wolves are on her tail. But Vivian still grieves for her dead father; her pack remains leaderless and in disarray, and she feels lost in the suburbs of Maryland. She longs for a normal life. But what is normal for a werewolf?

Then Vivian falls in love with a human, a meat-boy. Aiden is kind and gentle, a welcome relief from the squabbling pack. He's fascinated by magic, and Vivian longs to reveal herself to him. Surely he would understand her and delight in the wonder of her dual nature, not fear her as an ordinary human would.

Vivian's divided loyalties are strained further when a brutal murder threatens to expose the pack. Moving between two worlds, she does not seem to belong in either. What is she really--human or beast? Which tastes sweeter--blood or chocolate?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385734219
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	08/14/2007
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	132,019
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.63(d)
Lexile:	720L (what's this?)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Annette Curtis Klause is head of children's services at the Aspen Hill Community Library in Maryland.  Born in Bristol, England, she now lives in Hyattsville, Maryland, with her husband and their cats.

When she was young, Annette's daddy sat her on his lap and told her the plots of the best old horror movies.  This seems to have made a strong impression.

Annette Curtis Klause holds a B.A. in English literature and an M.L.S. from the University of Maryland, College Park, but when excited, she still has a tendency to howl.

Read an Excerpt

The flesh of her arms bubbled and her legs buckled to a new shape. She doubled over as the muscles of her abdomen went into a brief spasm, then grimaced as her teeth sharpened and her jaw extended. She felt the momentary pain of the spine's crunch and then the sweet release.

She was a creature much larger and stronger than any natural wolf. Her toes and legs were too long, her ears too big, and her eyes held fire. Wolf was only a convenient term they had adopted. Those who preferred science to myth said they descended from something older—some early mammal that had absorbed protean matter brought to Earth by a meteorite.

Vivian stretched and pawed at the ground, she sniffed the glorious air. She felt as if her tail could sweep the stars from the sky.


Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause. Copyright (c) 1997 by Annette Curtis Klause. Excerpted by permission of Delacorte Press, a division of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Editorial Reviews

"Klause's imagery is magnetic and her language fierce, rich, and beautiful... [a] powerful, unforgettable novel."
--Booklist, starred

" [A] fierce, suspenseful chiller."
--Kirkus Reviews

"...as addictive as chocolate."
--Publishers Weekly

"Gripping, thrilling, and original."—School Library Journal, Starred

From the Publisher

When a 16-year-old werewolf falls in love with a human, she begins to live uncomfortably between two worlds. Klause propels her bloodthirsty tale with "darkly sexy prose and suspenseful storytelling," said PW. Ages 14-up. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 9 UpA vivid portrayal of a young female werewolf coming of age. Vivian's father was killed in a fire that was the result of one pack member's thirst for human blood. The pack flees to regroup and select a new leader. At a new school, Vivian is attracted to Aiden, a sensitive human "meat-boy." With the pack in disarray, her mother's grief, and her loneliness, Vivian reaches out to him, believing that he will understand and love her even when she reveals herself "in her pelt." Therein lies the premise for this powerful story. The book is well constructed with visual imagery and deft descriptions. Klause's representation of the pack as a microcosm of society reveals the fragile nature of human behavior and emotions. Teens are shown that they can make mistakes and survive as they test the waters of friendship, love, belonging, and trust. The character's growth and development drives the plot, which sustains and creates moods that move readers from excitement to despair to hope. And throughout, they struggle between fascination, empathy, and revulsion with "werewolf culture." Few recent novels involve readers in such multiple levels of engagement. The climax is bittersweet and poignant. There are sexual overtones, both subtle and overt as Vivian's sexual awareness surfaces in scenarios throughout the book, as she struggles between human flirtation and her animal nature. There is no doubt that Blood and Chocolate is gripping, thrilling, and original. It is delicious and smooth, like chocolate, but only a good novel, like good chocolate, is this satisfying.Molly S. Kinney, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

School Library Journal

Klause returns to the steamy sensuality of her first book, The Silver Kiss (1990), for this tale of a hot-blooded teenage werewolf who falls for a human "meat-boy."

Grieving for her father and unimpressed by the age-mates in her pack, Vivian defies her mother and fellow lycanthropes by setting her sights on suburban poet-schoolmate Aiden Teague. It's an experiment that's doomed from the start. Vivian may look human (when she chooses), but her attitudes, instincts, and expectations are decidedly wolflike; short-tempered, direct in action and emotion, rough in love and play, shapeshifters make dangerous companions, their veneer of rationality as thin as their senses are sharp. Poor Aiden—as a prospective lover he's not so different from prey; to Vivian his smile flashes like heat lightning, and at times he looks so delicious she wants to "bite the buttons off his shirt." When, after a series of sultry but frustrating dates, Vivian reveals herself to him, he responds, not with the pleasure and lust she expects, but stark terror. Extrapolating brilliantly from wolf and werewolf lore, Klause creates a complex plot, fueled by politics, insanity, intrigue, sex, blood lust, and adolescent longings, and driven by a set of vividly scary creatures to a blood-curdling climax. The werewolves' taste for risky pranks and the author's knack for double—and even triple—entendres add sly undercurrents to this fierce, suspenseful chiller.

Kirkus Reviews