Blood and Chocolate is a 1997 paranormal romance novel for young adult readers by Annette Curtis Klause.

In Klause's novel, the loup-garoux are a separate species from humans and wolves, but with elements of both in behavior and anatomy - referring to themselves as Homo lupus.

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".

In the new town, Vivian 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.

Since there is no agreement over who it should be, they decide to elect the leader via Ordeal; a free-for-all brawl where any male who is of age can participate, anyone who has blood drawn is disqualified, and the last two can fight to the death or if one surrenders to the other.

She reveals her beast form to Aiden; he crouches in a corner in fear and starts to throw things at her to chase her away.

Vivian 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.

Vivian starts experimenting with alcohol and in the following days she tries to get Aiden alone to explain what she is and ease his fears, but he avoids her and uses his human friends as buffers.

They committed the murders and planted the blood on Vivian, knowing she was experiencing a great deal of stress from keeping her wolf nature controlled around Aiden.

Vivian realizes that Astrid and Rafe must have found the note, which was carried by Aiden's friend and the killers' latest victim.

Vivian goes to meet Aiden and tries 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 his pentagram necklace.

Rafe didn't realize that she meant to kill Vivian and he's hurt when she mentions she wanted Gabriel and the two of them start arguing.

Aiden is terrified from seeing so many werewolves and shoots at Gabriel, but Vivian leaps in front of him to take the bullet.

The pack's healer manages to get the bullet out of Vivian, but she ends up stuck in her hybrid form, neither human nor wolf and unable to fully change into either one.

Gabriel's raw sadness and honesty makes Vivian realize that she had been in love with the idea of Aiden's acceptance of her, not because he was the mate that she needed.

Vivian accepts 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.

This has often led to criticism from the fans of the novel that the film's director and production team took too many artistic liberties with the source material.