Blood and Chocolate (novel)

This article is about the novel by Annette Curtis Klause. For other uses, see Blood & Chocolate (disambiguation).

Blood and Chocolate

First edition cover
Author	Annette Curtis Klause
Cover artist	Cliff Nielsen
Language	English
Genre	Fantasy novel
Publisher	Random House Inc.
Publication date	1997
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	264 pp
ISBN	0-440-22668-6
OCLC	42412510

Blood and Chocolate is a 1997 romantic supernatural werewolf novel for young adult readers by Annette Curtis Klause. It is set in the contemporary United States.

The Loups-garoux

In Klause's novel, the loups-garoux are a separate species from humans, referring to themselves as Homo lupus. Legend states that their ancestors were humans blessed by the moon goddess Selene with the power to shapeshift at will into wolves, and the urge to transform becomes painfully irresistible with the coming of a full moon. Loups-garoux are portrayed as glorious beasts who revel in their dual nature, but do not reveal this truth to humans at the risk of violent backlash. In keeping with the traditional werewolf lore, silver is poisonous when introduced into the bloodstream, often proving fatal, and death is a real danger in that "anything that will sever the spine will do".

Loup-garou is the French word for "werewolf". Its plural form is loups-garous. A faux-French plural could be loups-garoux.

Plot summary

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?

Attending a normal high school she encounters a fellow student wearing a pentagram pendant and is immediately interested in him, she comes to learn his name is Aiden - a poet and music lover with a deep interest in the supernatural. Against all the rules of her pack and kind Vivian befriends Aiden and quickly falls in love with him. Her pack mates tease her and try to get her to dump the "meat-boy". As their relationship deepens Vivian finds herself falling more for Aiden's kind and gentle nature and she 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. A few times over the course of the book Vivian comes close to telling him her secret but stops at the last moment. As she spends more time with Aiden and his human friends her divided loyalties are strained further when a brutal murder threatens to expose the pack. Vivian begins to suspect she was the wolf who killed the human as she cannot remember the night in question and comes to fear the danger she may pose to Aiden as she had to suppress her true nature around him.

At the same time the pack is experiencing significant changes a new alpha needs to be chosen. The mysterious Gabriel, a handsome man and a strong wolf, comes to the pack's territory to put himself in the running for alpha. Since his arrival he expresses deep interest in Vivian, even going so far as to befriend Vivian's mother and pack's former Alpha female, Esme, so he has excuses to see her. Gabriel checks on Vivian often and advises her not to reveal herself to Aiden. In turn Vivian keeps rejecting Gabriel's advances and the advice of her mother to consider Gabriel as a suitor, which seems to further drive her to Aiden and separate her from the pack as well as worsen her blackouts.

When the full moon comes and it is time for the alpha 'dance' to determine who will lead the pack - in actuality it is a competition of strength where pack members will fight as wolves until defeat, submission or death and where only one victor will come out on top. The males fight first and a couple pack members die in the process, Gabriel eventually comes out on top and is immediately recognized as new Alpha of the pack. Before the female's dance can officially begin Astrid (Vivian's aunt), attacks Esme and is quick to dominate her. Vivian jumps into the fight to defend her mother and defeats Astrid after causing severe injuries (took one of her eyes). As a result all the females of the pack submit to Vivian as Alpha female to which Vivian realizes to her horror that she was among the only three females eligible for the dance and by defeating Astrid she is now expected to become a mated pair with Gabriel. Vivian fleas the scene and Gabriel.

The next day she wakes and recalls her horror at becoming Alpha female and then that she had blacked out for the rest of the night. Another human body is found and Vivian's suspicion increases at her own guilt at the events of the previous night. She refuses to see Gabriel and seeks out Aiden where she finally reveals her true nature to him in hopes that he will accept her and they can be together and she can reject her new place in the pack. However Aiden is horrified and frightened of her and chases her away. Heartbroken Vivian fleas and proceeds to blackout once again.

In the aftermath Vivian takes to experimenting with drinking and in the following days at school she tries to get Aiden alone to explain what she is and ease his fears but he does not give her a chance and uses his human friends as buffers or runs away from her. Vivian also notices he no longer writes the poetry he used too or wears the pentagram necklace. In an attempt to get Aiden pack she attends a concert that they had planned to attend together, however at the concert Aiden's friends confront her with the lies that Aiden told them were the reason he broke up with her. Shocked and hurt that he would say such awful things about her Vivian breaks down and is about to flea from the concert when Gabriel suddenly appears and takes Vivian away. Once he takes her home he proceeds to comfort her, hinting that he had once revealed himself to a human and like her now regrets what he had done.

Aiden reaches out to Vivian and requests that she meet him in a wooded area so they can talk. Overjoyed and thinking he had a change of heart she goes to meet but finds that Aiden has come with a gun and silver bullet that he made from his pentagram necklace and intends to kill her believing that she was the one who killed the murdered humans. Vivan begs and talks him down telling him that she loves him. Before he can shoot her Astrid appears in hybrid form with a young pack member who she seduced into helping her kill the humans, she explains to Vivian that no good comes from humans and that she intends to kill Aiden for her. Vivian and Astrid proceed to fight and in the process Vivian is shot by Aiden. Gabriel arrives with others as back up and Astrid is killed, the pack then detains Aiden for harming one of their own. Medical help is brought for Vivian who now finds herself stuck in her hybrid form, unable to fully take either human or wolf form.

In the following days Vivian has locked herself in her room refusing to see anyone or to leave, she is still stuck in her hybrid form. Finally Gabriel forces himself in, refusing to leave her to wallow in her misery, fear and heartache. He sits with Vivian and coaxes her to felt go of her fear and feelings for Aiden - which he states is what is preventing her from shifting. He then finally tells her his story, that he had once loved a human woman and like Vivian had been convinced that she would accept and love him regardless of what he was. He admits that when he had been making love to the human woman he had to suppress the urge to shift and admits that it is not just simply advised not to get romantically involved with humans but that due to their dual natures it is impossible and dangerous. Gabriel's story ends with him revealing that he had accidentally shifted before his girlfriend and in both their combined panic had killed her. Gabriel's raw sadness and honesty makes Vivian realize how she had been in love with the idea of Aiden's acceptance of her and not because he was the mate that she needed. Vivian is finally able to shift to human form and comforts Gabriel as he had once done for her.

The novel ends with Gabriel taking Vivian outside for the first time in days and they both run off into the woods together in their wolf forms - a black and silver wolf respectively. Vivian runs with him, finally accepting her place in the pack as Alpha female and Gabriel's mate and reflects on the joy she has in being a werewolf and having someone who now finally and completely understands her.

Plot Synopsis

The book starts out with a description from the main character Vivian, a sixteen-year-old loup-garoux. She explains about her father, the old leader of the pack, and her group of best friends, the Five. The Five consist of Rafe, Finn, Willem, Ulf, and Gregory. They are the only pack members of Vivian's age and their group used to include another boy called Axel. In their old town, the Five started to become more feral, using their wolf forms to scare humans. Vivian was afraid they might betray the pack's secret, but in the end it was Axel who lost control. Axel killed a human girl and someone saw him change back from his wolf form to human after he did it. When Axel was in prison, the Five killed another human to make it look like the "real" killer was still loose, and he was released. Vivian's father killed Axel for endangering the pack, but she pleaded with him to let the Five live. Not long after, a group of suspicious neighbors set fire to the pack's house. Vivian's father, Rafe's mother, and a few others were killed and the pack quickly had to relocate.

A year later, Vivian starts high school in the new town, where she has no friends because of her reserved and secretive nature. Many girls she attends school with find her intimidating and are jealous of her beauty. Yearning for acceptance, she goes after a boy named Aiden who wrote a poem about werewolves that was surprisingly accurate with regard to their transformation. She soon figures out Aiden is fully human, but she is still attracted to him and pursues a relationship in spite of her mother Esmé's disapproval.

It becomes clear that the pack is restless in their new location. Rafe's father Lucien goes around getting drunk and the Five are growing out of control. To Vivian's embarrassment, Esmé and another woman named Astrid, who is also Ulf's mother, are continuously fighting over a man named Gabriel, despite his being twenty-four while they're both in their forties with children. Vivian hates Gabriel because he seems the most likely candidate to take over her father's position as alpha male of the pack. In addition to that, Gabriel is attracted to her and doesn't bother to hide it or listen to her rejections.

When Astrid, Lucien, and a few other pack members run around near the suburbs in their wolf skins, it becomes evident the pack badly needs a leader. Since there is no agreement over who it should be, it is decided to elect the leader in the Old Way. This involved a ceremony called the Ordeal, a free-for-all brawl where any male who is of age can participate. Anyone who has blood drawn is disqualified, the last two left standing can fight to the death if they wish. The winner automatically becomes leader. After he is declared, the pack females can start the Bitch's Dance, a fight to determine who will be the new leader's mate.

Gabriel wins the Ordeal, and Astrid instantly starts the Bitch's Dance by attacking Esmé. While Vivian is watching, it becomes clear that Astrid is out to kill. Without realizing what she's doing, Vivian leaps in to save her mother's life, she seriously wounds Astrid and takes out one of her eyes. However, in doing this Vivian has declared herself Queen Bitch and Gabriel's mate. Once she realizes this she runs away to her home, terrified of Gabriel. The next day Gabriel makes it clear that he'll wait as long as Vivian needs, but eventually Vivian will belong to him and he won't give up on courting her.

The pack thinks Vivian will eventually come around, but she keeps rejecting Gabriel and pursues Aiden with even more effort. When she and Aiden start to get to the point where they might have sex, she decides she wants him to know the truth before they get intimate. When she reveals her beast form to Aiden, he crouches into a corner in fear and starts to throw things at her to chase her away. Hurt and afraid of losing her self-control, she jumps out of his window.

She wakes up in her own bed the next morning, with human blood on her nails and no memory of what happened after revealing herself to Aiden. Later on, watching the news, police describe the death of a man. It seems as though he was killed by a "wild animal." Another murder occurs and again Vivian wakes up with no memory of the incident but finds a human hand on the floor of her bedroom. Sure that she is the murderer, Vivian decides to commit suicide for the sake of the pack. She manages to douse herself in kerosene but before she can light the match she is apprehended by Gabriel, Willem, and Ulf. Willem makes Ulf tell her that his mother, Astrid, and her new lover Rafe were setting her up for the murders. Astrid still carried a grudge against Vivian for winning Gabriel and ripping out her eye in the process, and Rafe was mad at her for acting like a human. They'd committed the murders and put blood on Vivian to make it look like she was the killer.

Earlier, Aiden had sent Vivian a note asking Vivian to meet him "for the sake of what we used to have." Remembering this, Vivian realizes that Astrid and Rafe must have found the note, which was carried by Aiden's friend and the two killers' latest victim. Vivian goes to meet Aiden and try to get him out of danger while Gabriel, Willem, and Ulf go to gather the pack so they can be there when Judgment is passed on Astrid. When Vivian gets to the meeting place, Aiden points a gun at her, explaining he has a silver bullet made from the pentagram that he had once given her. Vivian tries to explain she wasn't the killer, but since Aiden doesn't know there are other werewolves he refuses to believe her. Just as he's about to shoot her, Astrid and Rafe show up in their half forms. Astrid says that they're going to kill both Aiden and Vivian and pretend they "did what they had to do." She also explains that it's mainly because of her grudge over Gabriel that she wanted to do this to Vivian. Rafe didn't realize she meant to kill Vivian and he's hurt when she mentions she wanted Gabriel, and the two of them start arguing. In the middle of it Vivian tells Aiden to shoot Rafe while she leaps for Astrid.

Aiden's shot works and Rafe falls dead. Just as Vivian and Astrid's fight start to get serious, Gabriel steps in and two other pack members apprehend Astrid. Gabriel explains that they have no prisons and no jailers, there is only one sentence for endangering the pack. He then steps forward and snaps Astrid's neck, killing her. Aiden is terrified from seeing so many werewolves and shoots at Gabriel but Vivian leaps in front to take the bullet. After a furious threat from Gabriel, Aiden runs away in terror. The pack's healer manages to get the bullet out but Vivian ends up stuck in her half-form, neither human nor wolf and unable to fully change into either one.

Two weeks later, Gabriel enters Vivian's bedroom, where she is mourning about being trapped between forms. The pack leader explains his past, telling Vivian that he once loved a human whom he ended up killing by accident before he realized they couldn't truly be together. Vivian and Gabriel share a kiss, and Vivian is finally able to transform again. The book ends with Vivian accepting Gabriel as her mate and therefore her position as alpha female of the pack.

Awards and nominations

Blood and Chocolate won the 1998 YALSA Award for Best Books for Young Adults.

Film adaptation

Main article: Blood & Chocolate (film)

The novel was adapted into a film in 2007.