Bitten by Jordan Stephanie Gray
Published by Hachette UK
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: Fiction
Genres and Categories: Asian Characters, Lesbian Characters, Sapphic Characters, Blood Magic, Compulsion, Divination, Dream Magic, Plant Magic, Potions, Supernatural Regeneration, Truth Magic, Coming of Age, Family Drama, Dark Fantasy, Modern Fantasy, Paranormal, Portal Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Fae/Fey, Shapeshifters, Werewolves, Faerie, Magic Users, Royalty Characters
My Rating:
Published on: 2nd October 2025
Pages: 384
Buy this Book! Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Blackwells / Bookshop.org US / Bookshop.org UK / Waterstones
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A fast-paced and romantic fantasy debut, in which a teenage girl must survive ruthless werewolves, a glittering court, and deadly politics to exact revenge on the monsters who destroyed her. Perfect for fans of Belladonna, Crave and Powerless.

The night her best friend is brutally slaughtered by wolves, Vanessa Hart's life is changed forever.

Because these are no ordinary wolves . . . they're werewolves. And when Vanessa's father discovers that she has been bitten, he hands her to them - and to the treacherous Wolf Queen's court.

Taken as prisoner to the enchanted Castle Severi, Vanessa vows to seek vengeance for her friend, even as she finds herself mesmerised by the golden prince Sinclair Severi, and his brooding disgraced cousin, Calix.

Vanessa has two choices: swear her life to the Court, or die the agony of a lone wolf. But the malevolence of werewolf society goes far beyond a single murder in the forest. The Court is at war, and Vanessa just a pawn in its deadly game . .

This book was provided for free by NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book!

Content Warnings:

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Before I begin my review of Bitten by Jordan Stephanie Gray, I want to mention that there are some controversies surrounding this author and book. Details about the former can be found on Goodreads if you wish to know more. As for the latter, I’ll be discussing it in my review. 

Bitten is a werewolf fantasy that begins in present-day America with two friends, Celeste and Vanessa, two teenagers worrying about boys and joining their friends at a beach party. Vanessa’s biggest worries are being caught by her dad, the local sheriff, and whether her dancing is up to scratch. That is, until things go south and werewolves crash the party. In the blink of an eye, her friend is murdered, and she’s been bitten.

Dragged into a supernatural world of wolves and rules, Vanessa’s transformation breaks one of the Wolf court’s foundational rules. Her survival hinges on the decision of the Wolf Queen, a terrifying figure who controls the American court. Seeing potential in Vanessa, the Queen lets her live, and the young woman is inducted into their court. Expected to live and learn alongside the other teenage wolves, Vanessa is mourning the loss of her best friend and her old life.

One of her classmates may have killed Celeste and bitten her. She’s determined to find out the truth, but as she learns more about her new home and the intricacies of the Wolf courts, she learns that not everything is as it seems.

I am always looking for books that offer a new spin on pre-existing ideas, and the world-building of Bitten does just that. Taking elements of well-known werewolf and shapeshifter myths, Gray has created her own. Weaving in the concepts of Alphas and betas, as well as fae, Bitten offers a unique and intriguing universe. I particularly liked the way that Gray includes fae without making them the focus point of her universe. 

The world-building went a long way to my enjoyment of this book, and while the characters were good, they weren’t the most complicated. A book is a sum of its parts, and that is the best way to describe Bitten. Something about this book just worked for me, and I was hooked from the start. 

One of the controversies that I referred to at the start of my review is that Bitten is being marketed as a young adult book. I’m all for sex-positive books for teens; however, the spicy scenes in Bitten feel more adult than I would expect from a young adult novel. In a YA novel, I expect the sex scenes to have a certain feel, showing the age and inexperience of the protagonist. Gray does explain that Vanessa has some experience, although it is notably very limited. This doesn’t translate into the spicy scenes, and that is what makes it (more) awkward. As a result, I had a certain amount of disbelief when reading them.

Some of the issue comes from how ‘young adult’ is defined. Not to go into this issue too much, but there are two definitions which clash. The first is the age of the reader, and the other is the age of the protagonist. Most of the time, these match; however, as with Bitten, they do not. Vanessa is seventeen, with the other characters ranging from seventeen to nineteen. It would have been simpler if Gray had aged up her protagonist to eighteen or nineteen. I’m not quite sure why she chose to make her a high schooler when her classmates are older, but alas, that is a moot point. Based solely on Vanessa’s age, Bitten is considered a young adult novel.

Personally, the age of the protagonist isn’t a huge issue for me. In the UK, sixteen is the age of consent, so seventeen feels normal to me. The issue is more how young adult novels are marketed, particularly that it is such a large age range, twelve to eighteen. While I would say that Bitten is suitable for the higher end of that scale, it isn’t for the lower end. I do not think it’s fair to level the blame for this at the author or even the publisher; it is a precedent set by publishing as a whole. They are working within that framework, one that is certainly broken, and I doubt it will be fixed anytime soon.

This is one of those books that you will need to decide for yourself whether you want to read it or not. For what it’s worth, I liked it quite a bit and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series. 

About Jordan Stephanie Gray

Jordan Stephanie Gray is the author of the young adult paranormal romantasy, Bitten, and the adult mermaid romantasy, The Wicked Sea.

When she isn’t lounging by the pool and typing away at her computer, she is likely cuddling her pugs in sunny Florida.

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Thanks for reading my book review for Bitten by Jordan Stephanie Gray!

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