Another Action-Packed Adventure for Anita Blake

I have felt such power only once before...

Malcolm, head of the vampire Church of Eternal Life, is no particular friend to Anita Blake. So when he shows up in her office, to ask for her help against creatures so feared that no vampire will willingly speak their name, Anita is surprised. But she believes him. Malcolm may not be a Master of the City, but he’s an old and powerful vampire, a leader of men, and he does not easily ask for help - especially from Anita and Jean-Claude, whose power Malcolm considers corrupt. That was the first warning of The Harlequin.

The second warning is presented like a gift, left where she’d be sure to find it, with "Anita" printed on the box. Inside, carefully wrapped in folds of pristine tissue paper, is a white mask, utterly plain. The fact that it’s white, Jean-Claude tells her, is the good news. White means they are only being watched.

The flow of power that connects Anita Blake with Jean-Claude, vampire Master of the City, and with Richard, Ulfric of the werewolves, has been growing and changing, increasing exponentially. Their power seems to have attracted attention, and it’s a kind of attention no one would desire. Jean-Claude and Richard need to be strong allies now. Nathaniel and Micah need to give all their love and aid. And Anita will need to call on Edward, whose utterly human ruthlessness in her defense makes him the right man for the job.

Anita Blake has the authority to pass judgment on vampires. The Harlequin have the authority to pass judgment on her. It is forbidden to speak of The Harlequin unless you’ve been contacted.

And to be contacted by The Harlequin is to be under sentence of death.

Title: The Harlequin

Author: Laurell K. Hamilton

Series: Anita Blake, Book 15

Published: June 5, 2007

Publisher: Berkley

Pages: 432

Genre: Urban Fantasy

The Anita Blake series; by my absolute favorite author Laurell K. Hamilton, is what introduced me to what is now known as "mixed genre" (romance, mystery, fantasy, horror, etc. all rolled into one) and how I discovered some of my other favorite authors, Kelley Armstrong, Charlaine Harris, Kim Harrison, and MaryJanice Davidson. I eagerly await the time of the year when Hamilton puts out a new Blake book (or a Merry book from her faerie series for that matter!). This year the book is The Harlequin and it is currently the 15th novel in the series.

Anita is as usual collecting more strange talents, battling bad guys, and dealing with her very messed up love life. This time she’s fighting the boogeymen of the vampire world and it gets so bad she enlists Edward as back-up. He hasn’t changed much since the last time he appeared in the series (Obsidian Butterfly, I think) but has become an even more interesting character. I hope he makes another appearance in the near future.

I have to say I’m very satisfied with the way the book ended and I’m looking forward to seeing how Anita handles the newest edition into her life and rids herself of the one of the others. The Harlequin really left me wanting the next book in the series, very badly! You’d think that with as many books in the series as there are that they would start to be repetitive and predictable but that is the last thing you think of when you read any of Hamilton’s books.

Anita Blake Series

1. Guilty Pleasures (1993)

2. The Laughing Corpse (1994)

3. Circus of the Damned (1995)

4. The Lunatic Café (1996)

5. Bloody Bones (1996)

6. The Killing Dance (1997)

7. Burnt Offerings (1998)

8. Blue Moon (1998)

9. Obsidian Butterfly (2000)

10. Narcissus in Chains (2001)

11. Cerulean Sins (2003)

12. Incubus Dreams (2004)

13. Micah (2006)

14. Danse Macabre (2006)

15. The Harlequin (2007)

16. Blood Noir (2008)

17. Skin Trade (2009)

18. Flirt (2010)

19. Bullet (2010)
20. Hit List (2011)

First Paragraph: Malcolm, the head of the Church of Eternal Life, the vampire church, sat across from me. Malcom had never been in my office before. In fact, the last time I'd seen him, he'd accused me of doing black magic and being a whore. I'd also killed one of his members on church grounds, in front of him and the rest of his congregation. The dead vamp had been a serial killer. I'd had a court order of execution, but still, it hadn't made Malcom and me buddies.

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Anita’s Ringtone- Wild Boys by Duran Duran

Audio Excerpt

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Interview:

Upfront and Unscripted: Laurell K Hamilton (podcast)

Source: Personal collection, hardcover

Laurell K. Hamilton Q&A Part 1:

Laurell K. Hamilton Q&A Part 2:


Laurell K. Hamiton Q&A Part 3:

Also By Laurell K. Hamilton:
Meredith Gentry Series
1. A Kiss of Shadows (2000)
2. A Caress of Twilight (2002)
3. Seduced By Moonlight (2004)
4. A Stroke of Midnight (2005)
5. Mistral's Kiss (2006)
6. A Lick of Frost (2007)
7. Swallowing Darkness (2008)
8. Divine Misdemeanors (2009)

Anita & Jason Take a Trip

Jason Schuyler is a werewolf. He's also one of Anita Blake's best friends, and sometimes her lover. And right now he needs her- not to be a vampire hunter, or a federal marshal, or a necromancer, or even for her rank in the werewolf pack, but because his father is dying. He needs Anita because she's a pretty woman who loves him, who can make him look like an everyday guy, who agrees to go home with him and help him say good-bye to the abusive father he never loved. The fact that Jason is about as much an everyday guy as Anita is a pretty woman is something they figure they can keep under wraps for a couple of days in a small town. How hard can that be?

Really, by now, Anita Blake should know better.

Marmee Noir, ancient mother of all vampires, picks this weekend to make a move. Somehow she has the cut the connection that binds Anita and Jean-Clause, leaving Jean-Claude unable to sense what is happening. Dangerous even as she sleeps, buried in darkness for a thousand years somewhere beneath the old country of Europe, Marmee Noir reaches out toward power. She has attacked Anita before, but never like this. In Anita she senses what she needs to make her enemies tremble...

Title: Blood Noir
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Series: Anita Blake, Book 16
Start & Finished: 6/10/08
Published: 2008
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 352
Genre: Paranormal

Laurell K. Hamilton’s sixteenth book in her bestselling Anita Blake series Blood Noir was originally meant to be a short novella like her 2006 release Micah. However Jason, the laidback werewolf who is “everyone‘s best friend and bed-buddy,” had much more to reveal than the author thought he did!

The vampire executioner Anita Blake burst into the publishing world with her cross and her gun at the ready 15 years ago in Guilty Pleasures. Saving innocents, kicking bad guy butt, and raising the dead for a living, she has since gone through many changes and could even be considered “one of the monsters” that she so despised to begin with. Or at the very least, she has become so firmly entrenched in the supernatural world that she’ll never be the person she once was and sometimes that’s not a bad thing. Then again, sometimes I do miss the more dangerous edge to the books that has been replaced with lots and I mean, lots of sex (there is a reason but it’s kind of complicated to explain- let’s just say Anita is kind of a living vampire now that feeds off of sex instead of blood).

Officially, Anne Rice was my introduction into the paranormal but Laurell K. Hamilton was my introduction to this type of paranormal mixed genre that has become so popular over the past few years. It’s because of Ms. Hamilton that I discovered Charlaine Harris and MaryJanice Davidson (who in turn made me discover Kim Harrison, Kelley Armstrong, etc.). As the “queen” of the mixed paranormal genre, Hamilton has been around for awhile and many of her fans have been with her from the beginning (she also has newer ones thanks to the graphic novels that have recently come out based on her series) but over the years, some of the original fans have become disappointed with the direction the plot has headed. Most of them still keep coming back because they love the characters in the world that the author has built though. I am kind of in the middle because while I love the characters and reading about them in every novel, I too am getting tired of the repetition.

Blood Noir had a little more of action in it than I was expecting, so that was a pleasant surprise but there were plenty of parts that only over the past three or four years have become normal for the series. From this, you would probably think I hated the book but the thing is I really liked it; I like all of Hamilton’s books! My problem is that the author writes one book of each series every year and recently the Anita books have lost the “substance” that would tide me over until the next book came out. Now it’s getting where there is more of a romance plot than anything else and the books are, dare I say it? Brain candy.

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter
1. Guilty Pleasures (1993)
2. The Laughing Corpse (1994)
3. Circus of the Damned (1995)
4. The Lunatic Cafe (1996)
5. Bloody Bones (1996)
6. The Killing Dance (1997)
7. Burnt Offerings (1998)
8. Blue Moon (1998)
9. Obsidian Butterfly (2000)
10. Narcissus in Chains (2001)
11. Cerulean Sins (2003)
12. Incubus Dreams (2004)
13. Micah (2006)
14. Danse Macabre (2006)
15. The Harlequin (2007)
16. Blood Noir (2008)
17. Skin Trade (2009)
18. Flirt (2010)
19. Bullet (2010)
20. Hit List (2011

Links: Laurell K. Hamilton (Wikipedia), Anita Blake (Wikipedia), Myspace, Author Blog (What’s Blood Noir About?),
Interviews: The Dragon Page (podcast), Capes and Cowls

Laurell K. Hamilton Reads From the Book (4 parts):


Picture Explanations
Jet: Anita is scared of flying but she flies with Jason to his hometown.
Hospital: The reason for Jason visiting is his dad is dying.
White Tiger: Anita has several different strands of Were in her and Marmee Noir "gifted" her with a white tiger too.

Gods and Grisly Murders

New York Times bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton offers a sexy, suspenseful new novel of human -- and inhuman -- passions, narrated by the vampire hunter known as Anita Blake. There are a lot of monsters in Anita Blake's life. And some of them are human. One such individual is the man she calls Edward, a bounty hunter who specializes in the preternatural. He calls her to help him hunt down the greatest evil she has ever encountered. Something that kills and maims and vanishes into the night. Something Anita will have to face alone...

"MY NAME IS ANITA BLAKE. I'D LIKE YOU TO MEET EDWARD...
'Edward was a hit man. He specialized in monsters. Vampires, shape-shifters, anything and everything. There were people like me who did it legal, but Edward didn't sweat the legalities or, hell, the ethics. He was an equal opportunity killer. I may be one of the few friends that Edward has, but it's like being friends with a tame leopard. It may curl on the foot of your bed and let you pet its head, but it can still eat your throat out...'"

Title: Obsidian Butterfly
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Series: Anita Blake, Book 9
Start & Finished: 7/7/10-7/8/10
Published: January 2000
Publisher: Ace
Pages: 608
Genre: Mystery-Horror, Urban Fantasy

In book four of this series The Lunatic Café, Anita killed Edward’s backup in a kill or be killed situation (she has so many of those doesn’t she?) and he said either they’d find out which one is better or she would owe him a favor. Anita chose the favor and in book 9 of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series Obsidian Butterfly, he’s calling in his marker and even the monsters are afraid of the things happening with this case. The title of this book refers to an Aztec vampire who goes by the name Itzpapalotl which means Obsidian Butterfly and is the name of the vampire’s club too.

It hasn’t been since the very early days that the main plot of the novel was more police investigation than Anita’s love life which right now is non-existent because she’s taking time to herself from both Jean-Claude and Richard. Neither of them; or anyone from the rest of the series besides Edward and Anita (Olaf does show up again in a later book), are even in this book technically, though they are mentioned and Jean-Claude appears in a dream (they share dreams because of the triumvirate marks). Anita does start having some unusual reactions in this book that will be addressed later in the series. She also realizes that she just doesn’t want to do police work anymore because she’s “seen too many horrors in too short a space of years” which is interesting because that’s exactly what these books started off as, hard-boiled mysteries with a generous splash of supernatural. That weariness that she wears like a mantel through this book really is kind of depressing and there are hardly any moments that she’s not constantly fighting something, even if it’s herself.

Edward hasn’t been in every book but he’s been in over half up to this point in the series (not the last two though) and the reader just doesn’t really know him. I’m not a 100% if even the author even knows him. He’s a stone cold killer that is a somewhat friend of Anita’s: “It wasn't friendship the way most people understood it, but it was friendship. There were several people I'd trust with my life, but there is no one else I'd trust with my death.” However, Anita and the reader finally get to know a little about him in this book. Not much mind you, and nothing too personal, but he let’s his mask slip a little here and there. I’ve always liked Edward for being exactly who he is, someone who can pull Anita’s butt out of the fire when she needs it and when the bad guys are raining down. I’ll always look forward to his guest appearances within the books.

During an interview Laurell K. Hamilton said, “In Obsidian Butterfly, the reader is confronted with a very violent, sexual episode involving children. This scene is probably one of the main reasons that I have been reluctant for any other supporting character to have children. Look what happened to Richard's family in Blue Moon, and they were both grown-ups. Anita and her cast live in a very violent world. It is not a good place for non-combatants. Obsidian Butterfly brought that home for me, for Anita, and for Edward. I did not know what the bad guys were doing with the children they had taken hostage until Anita saw it. It being a total surprise to me helped the writing up to a point, then trying to do the scene justice, and not cutting away. This scene is probably the scene I most wanted to do as the 40s pan to the sky, and not look at what was happening. I have actually talked to abuse survivors, and I felt strongly that if I blinked, if the camera turned away, that I would be betraying all the people who shared such painful memories with me. Looking away from something doesn't make it go away, it just makes it harder to talk about. We will be going back to New Mexico and doing a follow up book with Edward and his would-be family. We will see how the children have coped with what happened. I am both looking forward to that book, and sort of dreading it.”

Edward was a hit man. He specialized in monsters. Vampires, shapeshifters, anything and everything. There were people like me that did it legal, but Edward didn't sweat the legalities, or hell, the ethics. He even occasionally did a human, but only if they had some sort of dangerous reputation. Other assassins, criminals, bad men, or women. Edward was an equal opportunity killer. He never discriminated, not for sex, religion, race, or even species. If it was dangerous, Edward would hunt it and kill it. It's what he lived for, what he was -- a predator's predator.

I raised eyebrows at Edward. Oh, pooh. The most dangerous man I'd ever met was engaged to a mother of two that said things like, "Oh pooh." It was just too weird.

I've learned over the years that if someone says they're a god, you don't argue with them unless you're better armed. So I didn't try and get the business moved up. She was nuts and had enough muscle backing her in this building to make her brand of craziness contagious, or even fatal. So we'd do arcane vampire shit, then when the self-proclaimed goddess was satisfied I'd get to ask my questions. How bad could it be, watching them prove they were gods? Don't answer that.

"If it can die, I'll kill it." I said it because she needed to hear it. I said it because after what I'd seen it do, that was the plan. Maybe it had been the plan all along. Knowing Edward it probably had been. He said solve the case when what he usually meant was kill them, kill them all. As a plan, I'd heard worse. As a way of life, it lacked a certain romance. As a way to stay alive, it was just about perfect. As a way to keep your soul intact, it sucked. But I was willing to trade a piece of my soul to stop this thing. And that was perhaps my biggest problem. I was always willing to compromise my soul if it would take out the great evil. But there always seemed to be another great evil coming down the road. No matter how many times I saved the day and took out the monster, there was always another monster, and there always would be. The monster supply was unlimited. I was not. The parts of myself that I was using up to slay the monsters was finite, and once I used it all up, there would be no going back. I'd be Edward in drag. I could save the world and lose myself.
And staring down into the woman's face, watching that perfect faith fill her lost eyes, I wasn't sure the bargain was a good one, but I was sure of one thing. I couldn't say no. I couldn't let the monsters win, not even if it meant becoming one of them. God forgive me if it was arrogance. God protect me if it wasn't. I got up out of bed and went in search of monsters.

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter
1. Guilty Pleasures (1993)
2. The Laughing Corpse (1994)
3. Circus of the Damned (1995)
4. The Lunatic Café (1996)
5. Bloody Bones (1996)
6. The Killing Dance (1997)
7. Burnt Offerings (1998)
8. Blue Moon (1998)
9. Obsidian Butterfly (2000)
10. Narcissus in Chains (2001)
11. Cerulean Sins (2003)
12. Incubus Dreams (2004)
13. Micah (2006)
14. Danse Macabre (2006)
15. The Harlequin (2007)
16. Blood Noir (2008)
17. Skin Trade (2009)
18. Flirt (2010)
19. Bullet (2010)

20. Hit List (2011)

First Paragraph: I was covered in blood, but it wasn't mine, so it was okay. Not only was it not my blood, but it was all animal blood. If the worst casualties of the night were six chickens and a goat, I could live with it, and so could everyone else. I'd raised seven corpses in one night. It was a record even for me.

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Crescent Blues

Source: From personal collection

Picture Explanations
Obsidian Blade: The Obsidian Butterfly’s priest uses this on the followers for various reasons.
Aztec: This could easily be the Obsidian Butterfly’s human servant/ priest
Submachine gun: There’s a gun fight Edward and Anita vs. the bad guys.
Aztec Warriors: The Aztec warrior god Tezcatlipoca is depicted as a jaguar so the guards and some of the performers in the club wear costumes like these.
Submachine Gun: Anita gets to play with one of these for the first time.

Killer Zombie on the Loose

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter for Animators, Inc., is offered a cool mil to raise a 283-year-old corpse. But she knows that "the older the zombie, the bigger the death needed to raise it". Only a human sacrifice is "big" enough to raise this old soul--and Anita's no murderer.

Now, a creature from beyond the grave is tearing a swath of murder through St. Louis. And Anita will learn that there are some secrets better left buried—and some people better off dead...

“After a few centuries, the only death 'big enough' is a human sacrifice. I know, because I'm an animator. My name is Anita Blake.

Working for Animators, Inc. is just a job - like selling insurance. But all the money in the world wasn't enough for me to take on the particular job Harold Gaynor was offering. Somebody else did, though - a rogue animator. Now he's not just raising the dead ... he's raising Hell. And it's up to me to stop it ... "

"THEY WERE TREATING ME LIKE I WAS A VERY DANGEROUS PERSON.
At five-three I am not imposing. Raise the dead, kill a few vampires, and people start considering you one of the monsters. Sometimes it hurt. But now... it had possibilities. 'Do you really think I came in here unarmed?' I asked. My voice sounded very matter-of-fact... 'Want to bet your life on it?'"

Title: The Laughing Corpse
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Series: Anita Blake, Book 2
Start & Finished: 7/2/10
Published: September 1, 1994
Publisher: Ace
Pages: 301
Genre: Mystery-Horror, Urban Fantasy

The character Anita Blake made a big splash in her initial appearance in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Guilty Pleasures and the author continued Anita’s story in The Laughing Corpse. In the second book of this series, the violence and gore go up a notch. There’s a killer zombie on the loose that is tearing families apart (literally) and somehow voodoo is involved. Published the same year as The Interview With the Vampire film, 1994 was a good year for vampires!

Anita wants several things in The Laughing Corpse: “Dominga [Salvador, voodoo queen] out of the picture, dead or in jail. To stay alive. Not to be in jail on a murder charge. To catch the killer zombie before it killed again. Fat chance that. To figure out how John Burke fit into this mess. Oh, and to keep Harold Gaynor from forcing me to perform human sacrifice. Yea, I almost forgot that one. It had been a busy week.” She’s also got a rather persistant vampire named Jean-Claude who wants her to be his human servant and he’s not taking no for an answer (he doesn‘t have that big of a part in this story though).

As you can tell, this book is a lot like the first story where it takes off and doesn’t slow down until the very end with bad guys coming out of the woodwork all wanting a piece of Anita’s power. I did find this one a little more grisly than the first and the zombies being used for whatever anyone wanted them as since they had no rights was sickening but that’s what makes this whole series so good. Hamilton isn’t afraid in the least to get down and dirty to show you her world.

Laurell K. Hamilton said she “found hard-boiled detective fiction the summer after college [where] the male detectives got to cuss, have sex, and kill people. The women, even the most liberated of them, didn’t cuss much, if there was sex it was sanitzed or off stage, and if they killed someone they had to feel very, very bad about it. This seemed unfair to me, so I decided to write a character who would even the playing field. Enter Anita Blake. The rest is history! Ms. Hamilton is an author who has paved the way for many of today’s favorites (including Charlaine Harris) though The Laughing Corpse is a long way from where the series is at today.

I’ve had people warn me about supernatural shit before. Don’t go in that room; the monster will get you. There usually is a monster, and it usually tries to get me. But up till now I’ve been faster or luckier than the monsters. Here’s to my luck holding.

I was the vampire equivelant of an electric chair. They didn’t like me much. Surprise, surprise.

Wanda considered me one of the monsters. She may have been right.

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter
1. Guilty Pleasures (1993)
2. The Laughing Corpse (1994)
3. Circus of the Damned (1995)
4. The Lunatic Cafe (1996)
5. Bloody Bones (1996)
6. The Killing Dance (1997)
7. Burnt Offerings (1998)
8. Blue Moon (1998)
9. Obsidian Butterfly (2000)
10. Narcissus in Chains (2001)
11. Cerulean Sins (2003)
12. Incubus Dreams (2004)
13. Micah (2006)
14. Danse Macabre (2006)
15. The Harlequin (2007)
16. Blood Noir (2008)
17. Skin Trade (2009)
18. Flirt (2010)
19. Bullet (2010)

20. Hit List (2011)

First Paragraph: Harold Gaynor’s house sat in the middle of intense green lawn and the graceful sweep of trees. The house gleamed in the hot August sunshine. Bert Vaughn, my boss, parked the car on the crushed gravel of the driveway. The gravel was so white, it looked like handpicked rock salt. Somewhere out of sight the soft whir of sprinklers pattered. The grass was absolutely perfect in the middle of one of the worst droughts Missouri had had in over twenty years. Oh, well. I wasn’t here to talk to with Mr. Gaynor about water management. I was here to talk about raising the dead.

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Source: From personal collection

Picture Explanations
Comedy Club: The Laughing Corpse is a comedy club owned by Jean-Claude.
Gray Cat (comic book): Anita and Jean-Claude go down to the Grey Cat Club to talk to Wheelchair Wanda, an ex-girlfriend of Gaynor.
Basement: Dominga Salvador wants to test Anita’s power down in her basement of horrors.

Into the Dark Big Top

Featuring Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, the novels of New York Times bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton introduce readers to a world of supernatural pleasure- and pain. When a powerful, centuries-old vampire hits town, a battle of the undead ensues, with the soul of the city- and Anita's life- at stake...

"SO I WAS AFRAID; SO WHAT?
I had to go, and the sooner I left, the sooner I could come home. If only I believed that Jean-Claude would make things that simple. Nothing was ever simple where he was concerned. If I learned anything about the murders tonight, I'd pay for it, but not in money. Jean-Claude seemed to have plenty of that. No, his coin was more painful, more intimate, more bloody."

Title: Circus of the Damned
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Series: Anita Blake, Book 3
Start & Finished: 7/2/10- 7/3/10
Published: May 1, 1995
Publisher: Ace
Pages: 336
Genre: Mystery-Horror, Urban Fantasy

The Laughing Corpse saw Anita Blake catching a killer zombie while dodging people who wanted a piece of her power. In Circus of the Damned; the third book in Laurell K. Hamilton’s series, Anita is investigating murders done by rogue vampires so of course she needs to go see the Vampire Master of City, Jean-Claude. He wants her to be his human servant and he’s not the only one…

Jean-Claude has always been my favorite male in this series so you can imagine my surprise when I learned that he almost was killed off at the end of this story. Ms. Hamilton didn’t plan to have a romance in this series because she “began the series believing, as Anita did, that the monsters are monstrous, and people are somehow better just because they aren't vampires. It would take us several books to realize that the world was not black and white, but oh, so gray.” Fortunately for all of us this author’s characters have minds of their own. She said, "I've found over the years that if I argue with my characters, it doesn't work," she says. "Early in the book, if I sit there and say, 'No, I don't want that, I've got this plotted out, and I want this to happen,' and I make sure it happens that way, then later on I'll have to go back and rewrite it or throw it out. They're right. The characters know more about their world than I do. They're walking around in it. I'm just following."

It’s so interesting when you re-read a book and re-meet a character that you’ve known for years. Several repeating characters in this series show up during this book including a major one Richard Zeeman. I actually didn’t even recognize him at first! I know he’s important to the series but I’ve always had a problem with him (he‘s my Bill for this series). However, he’s a lot more lighthearted than I remember later on in the series. This is also Larry (Anita’s new apprentice animator) and Stephen’s (a werewolf whose a minor character) first appearance too.

Though different Weres have appeared in this series (wererats were in the first book Guilty Pleasures), Circus of the Damned is where Hamilton really starts to delve into the shifter world. The man-eating cobra was a great scene! Think Jafar transformed in Aladdin then put it in a circus tent. I could have done without the lamia though since that was incredibly creepy. Off to The Lunatic Café!

Zerbrowski and I looked at each other. We started giggling and couldn't stop. I could claim sleep
deprivation. I'd been on my feet for fourteen straight hours, raising the dead and talking to right-wing fruitcakes. The vampire victim was a perfect end to a perfect night. I had a right to be hysterical with laughter. I don't know what Zerbrowski's excuse was.

I had been stabbed, beaten, shot, strangled, and vampire-bit in the space of four months. There comes a point where you just have too many things happening too close together. I had battle fatigue.

Raising the dead makes a lot of people class me with the monsters. There are even days when I agree with them.

Being friends with Edward was like being friends with a tame leopard. You could pet it and it seemed to like you, but you knew deep down that if it ever got hungry enough, or angry enough, it would kill you. Kill you and eat the flesh from your bones.

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter
1. Guilty Pleasures (1993)
2. The Laughing Corpse (1994)
3. Circus of the Damned (1995)
4. The Lunatic Café (1996)
5. Bloody Bones (1996)
6. The Killing Dance (1997)
7. Burnt Offerings (1998)
8. Blue Moon (1998)
9. Obsidian Butterfly (2000)
10. Narcissus in Chains (2001)
11. Cerulean Sins (2003)
12. Incubus Dreams (2004)
13. Micah (2006)
14. Danse Macabre (2006)
15. The Harlequin (2007)
16. Blood Noir (2008)
17. Skin Trade (2009)
18. Flirt (2010)
19. Bullet (2010)

20. Hit List (2011)

First Paragraph: There was dried chicken blood imbedded under my fingernails. When you raise the dead for a living, you have to spill a little blood. It clung in flaking patches to my face and hands. I'd tried to clean the worst of it off before coming to this meeting, but some things only a shower would fix. I sipped coffee from a personalized mug that said, "Piss me off, pay the consequences," and stared at the two men sitting across from me.

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Source: From personal collection

Picture Explanations
Circus: Just like Nikolaos, Jean-Claude sleeps under his property Circus of the Damned, which is an indoor circus run by mostly vampires and shifters.
Cobra: A giant cobra goes berserk in the circus. Guess elephants are too tame for vamps…
Cave: Richard and Anita’s first date was supposed to be caving but she accidentally goes without him.

A New Chapter in Anita’s Life

Laurell K. Hamilton, author of the New York Times bestseller A Kiss of Shadows, returns to the series that started it all. Narcissus in Chains, the tenth installment in the ever-popular Anita Blake series, finds everyone's favorite vampire hunter back on her home turf and delving into the heart of human—and non-human—darkness.

Men are men. Jean Claude and Richard are each something else entirely. Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, torn between them, has been avoiding both vampire and werewolf for months. But when a kidnapper targets innocents she has sworn to protect, Anita turns to them for help, which will require harnessing both their powers—and their hungers...

Six months of celibacy have made Anita crave the two men in her life like never before. But merging their powers together will give this mortal woman a taste of immortal hunger that she’ll never be able to forget.

Title: Narcissus in Chains
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Series: Anita Blake, Book 10
Start & Finished: 7/8/10-7/9/10
Published: October 2001
Publisher: Ace
Pages: 656
Genre: Mystery, Urban Fantasy-Romance

SPOILER ALERT

In Laurell K. Hamilton’s tenth book Nacrissus in Chains, Anita Blake abandons police work completely for the first time. Jean-Claude, Richard, and her have finally completed the last marks that makes them a true triumvirate and they’re powers are growing and spilling over into one another. It is here when Anita contracts the ardeur from Jean-Claude which makes her kind of like a succubus (she literally feeds off of sex). There are also enemies in town that mean to do them harm. United we stand, divided we fall and the very unique bad guy in this book takes advantage of that.

This was Micah the wereleopard and a Nimir-Raj (rare in the wereleopards) to Anita’s Nimir-Ra first appearance in the series (book number 13 is named after him) and like all of the other important men in Anita‘s life, he too has an interesting introduction. Anita first meets him when she wakes up between him and another wereleopard after being attacked by other shifters. She’s demonstrating all of the signs of being a shapeshifter now and needed their warmth to heal but no one knows if she‘s one or not. He’s also the first (but not the last thanks to Jean-Claude’s secondary power of sex, the arduer) man besides Jean-Claude and Richard (they do break up again in this book) she’s had sex with in this series. Hamilton said she had brought in another man in the series to make Anita’s love life less complicated but only managed to make it more so.

Even more werewolf politics in this one because Richard, their Ulfric (king), has made the pack into a democracy instead of monarchy and though he means well,"You know what they say about good intentions. If he's determined to take himself to hell, fine. But he has no right to drag the rest of [them] along with him." Anita has also shown that while we were away from her (between books), she’s gotten used to her wereleopard’s touchy-feelie ways and most are staying over at her house and sleeping in the same bed with her often (no, it‘s not sexual in the least). She’s still slightly uncomfortable but no where near as bad as before.

The previous book Obsidian Butterfly was almost like the closing of a chapter on Anita’s life and Narcissus in Chains starts a new one. Anita may be gaining more powers in this one but she’s far from happy about it. In fact, she’s freaked out and world weary. Though this book does start taking a more different tone in the series doesn’t mean I like it any less. True, Anita going from being sexually repressed to what she’s becoming now is interesting to say the least but I don’t see it as inconsistent and I still enjoy this series even if Ms. Hamilton has said that it was on of her most difficult to write.

The last thing on God's green earth that I needed was another man in my life. I didn't have a clue what to do with the two I had already. The fact that they were, respectively, a Master Vampire and an Ulfric, werewolf king, was only part of the problem. That fact alone should let you know just how deep a hole I was digging. Or would that be, already have dug? Yeah, already dug. I was about halfway to China and still throwing dirt up in the air.

I couldn't explain the tears to him, because I didn't want to say it out loud. But I knew. I'd tried not to be one of the monsters for so long, and now, in one fell swoop I was them, both of them. You couldn't be a bloodsucking vampire and be a lycanthrope at the same time. They canceled each other out as a disease or a curse. But I had felt my beast curl around Micah's. I had felt it like an embryo in a safe warm place, waiting. And I had fed off of him as surely as any vampire. I'd always thought I'd have to drink blood to be one of them. But I had been wrong, wrong about so many things. I let Micah hold me. I felt his heart pounding against my back and wept.

I'd been trying not to be a sociopath because it made me a monster. I just hadn't known what I was saying. I needed to feed off humans, lust instead of blood and flesh, but it was still feeding. Being a sociopath was beginning not to sound so bad.

They held me until I fell asleep, exhausted with crying, skin hot. But down in the center of my being was a cold, icy spot that they couldn't touch. It was the place where I loved Richard, had always loved Richard, almost from the first time I'd seen him. But he was right on one thing. We couldn't keep doing this. I wouldn't keep doing this. It was over. It had to be over. He hated what he was, and now he hated what I was. He said he wanted someone that he wouldn't have to worry about hurting, and he did want that, but he also wanted someone human, ordinary. He couldn't have both, but that didn't keep him from wanting both. I couldn't be ordinary, and I wasn't sure I'd ever been human. I couldn't be what Richard wanted me to be, and he couldn't stop wanting it. Richard was a riddle with no answer, and I was tired of playing a game I couldn't win.

I'd fought so long and so hard not to be what I was. Not to be Jean-Claude's human servant, not to be Richard's lupa, not to be anything to anyone. Everyone seemed to be paying the price for that. I hated having other people pay the price for my problems. It was against the rules somehow.

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter
1. Guilty Pleasures (1993)
2. The Laughing Corpse (1994)
3. Circus of the Damned (1995)
4. The Lunatic Café (1996)
5. Bloody Bones (1996)
6. The Killing Dance (1997)
7. Burnt Offerings (1998)
8. Blue Moon (1998)
9. Obsidian Butterfly (2000)
10. Narcissus in Chains (2001)
11. Cerulean Sins (2003)
12. Incubus Dreams (2004)
13. Micah (2006)
14. Danse Macabre (2006)
15. The Harlequin (2007)
16. Blood Noir (2008)
17. Skin Trade (2009)
18. Flirt (2010)
19. Bullet (2010)

20. Hit List (2011)

First Paragraph: June had come in like its usual hot, sweaty self, but a freak cold front had moved in during the night and the car radio had been full of the record low temperatures. It was only in the low sixties, not that cold, but after weeks of eighty- and ninety-plus, it felt downright frigid. My best friend Ronnie Sims, and I were sitting in my Jeep with the windows down, letting the unseasonably cool air drift in on us. Ronnie had turned thirty tonight. We were talking about how she felt about the big 3-0 and other girl talk. Considering that she's a private detective and I raise the dead for a living it was pretty ordinary talk. Sex, guys, turning thirty, vampires, werewolves. You know, the usual.

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Source: From personal collection

Picture Explanations
Hyena: We meet the werehyenas in this book at the club of their Oba (leader) Narcissus in Chains.
Leopard: Anita is cut up in a fight with shifters when one of her own accidentally damages her. She may just become a real Nimir-ra…

Vampire Politics are Not Fun

With her New York Times bestselling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels, Laurell K. Hamilton wraps readers up in stories of suspense and sensuality. Cerulean Sins is no exception. Now, Anita learns what it's like to be at the new end of a centuries-old bloodline-and just how far she'll let herself get pushed around...

How the mighty have fallen! Once a sworn enemy of all vampires, Anita is now the human consort of both Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire, and Micah, the leopard shapeshifter. But her love life doesn't stop there. It can't. For Anita-not quite as human as she once was-is consumed by both the lusts of the vampire and the primal hungers of the wereleopards. Desires that must be sated-time and time again...

But it is Jean-Claude who needs her now. His oldest ancestor has sent one of her vicious and powerful underlings to St. Louis, putting Jean-Claude and his clan on the defensive. Unsure of where she stands with the interloper, Anita finds herself tested as never before-needing all the dark forces her passion can muster to save the ones she loves the most...

Title: Cerulean Sins
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Series: Anita Blake, Book 11
Start & Finished: 7/9/10- 7/10/10
Published: April 2003
Publisher: Ace
Pages: 529
Genre: Romance, Urban Fantasy

Narcissus in Chains may have started a new chapter in Anita Blake’s life but it’s Laurell K. Hamilton’s next book, Cerulean Sins where we see just what that means. Anita’s learning how to control the ardeur which means she’s being put into a lot more sexual situations than she’s really comfortable with (she’s is very sexually repressed but at one point says, “My moral standards just weren't that finely cut anymore”) but she’s learning how to walk that fine line of just what she’s willing to do to feed it so it doesn’t get out of control.

As I said in the last book, things are changing in Anita’s world, personally and otherwise. Mainly the sexual theme, which many fans of this series were not happy with. I believe it wasn’t entirely necessary and they certainly read more like romance now then what the first nine books were. Ms. Hamilton said that the reason she added the sexuality into the series was because “Chiefly because people told me I couldn't. That I couldn't write strong sexuality from a woman's point of view. The series simply evolved as it has. There was no plan for it to do so, okay, no conscience plan at least.” Anita has always been adamant on her stand of casual sex (she has her first in this book but at least he’s a friend which really doesn’t matter to the ardeur) and for a good part of the series she’s celibate. However, I still find it interesting that in an early book (Circus of the Damned I believe), a lamia once gave Anita the advice: "A woman should always have more than one man." Let's just say, she took it to heart.

There wasn’t a police case for Anita in Narcissus in Chains (though she does have some interaction with the cops when everyone thought she was dead and again when her place was shot up) but there is in this book because there is a werewolf serial killer on the loose and also there are some international spies in town too. The truly sad thing is that Dolph, the police Lieutenant who’s been in every book in some way but one, finally loses it a little (and Zerbrowski has been promoted). He’s always treated Anita like a daughter almost but he has a real problem with the monsters lately and she’s buddy-buddy with them. His son is in a serious relationship with a vampire so he’s losing it big time. Oh, and Anita finally got her federal marshal status! It’s been talked about for several books now that they were debating the law to make all vampire executioners federal marshals (she was grandfathered in but some; like her apprentice Larry, had to take courses) but now she can just invite herself onto preternatural cases whether the cops like it or not.

Though we don’t meet her in person, Bella Morte, the head of Jean Claude’s line of vampires does make a couple of appearances like in dreams, etc. She sends her emissary Musette (who she can possess at will) with two child vampires Valentina and Bartolomé (but they aren’t quite as disturbing and vicious as Nikolaos from the very first book but they are younger) and their entourage to town ahead of schedule and all in all starts to make trouble. Oddly enough, she’s one of the few scary people in this series that’s not trying to kill them, she simply considers them hers and she wants to find out what they can do in the most unpleasant ways possible. This is also Marmee Noir’s first appearance. The Mother of Darkness and the mother of all vampires and shifters. She’s still sleeping and has been for a very long time, a couple of millennia but now she’s starting to wake up because she’s found something that interests her: Anita.

I could feel myself smiling, and I didn't need a mirror to know that it wasn't a nice smile. It was the smile I got when I'd been pissed off too much and I'd finally decided to do something about it.

Micah didn't argue with me. He didn't when he knew he was wrong, or knew I was right. Richard would have argued. Richard always argued. Richard seemed to believe that if he pretended the world was a nicer place than it really was, that that would change the world. It didn't. The world was what it was. And no amount of anger, or hatred, or self-loathing, or stubborn blindness would change it.

"I never want to put my whole world in any one person's hands again, Jason. If they die, I won't die with them."

I hadn't been embarrassed about having sex with Jason, and maybe that was wrong, but it hadn't felt sinful. Maybe because it was just another way for him to take care of me. But the little talk afterwards, that had bothered me. That hard emotional truths bothered me more than having intercourse with someone I wasn't in love with probably said something about how far down the well of moral decay I had fallen. I stood in the hot, hot water, steam foaming against the glass doors of the stall, and was happy that I didn't owe my heart to anyone. It was mine damn it, and I was keeping it in one piece if I could. Richard had broken some part of me, some last bit that had been trying to hang onto a softer more romanticized view of love. He had left, dumped me because I wasn't human enough for him. My fiance in college had dumped me because I wasn't white bread enough for his mother. My stepmother, Judith, had never let me forget that I was small and dark, and she and her children and my father, were tall and blond, and blue-eyed. People had spent my lifetime rejecting me for things I could not change about myself. So fuck them, fuck them all.

But it was so much easier to concentrate on my ruined upholstery than to think about the fact that I'd been in the presence of the Mother of all Vampires, the Mother of all Darkness, the Primordial Abyss made flesh. I knew through Jean-Claude's memories that they called her Mother Gentle, Marmè, a dozen different euphemisms to make her seem kind, and, well, motherly. But I'd felt her power, her darkness, and finally, at the end an intellect as cold and empty as any evil. She was curious about me the way some scientists are curious about a new species of insect. They could call her Mother Gentle if they wanted to, but Mommy Dearest was a hell of a lot more accurate.

"It is not like you to wander off on such an important and potentially dangerous occasion. What is the matter, ma petite?" "Oh, I don't know, an international terrorist following me around, the vampire council back in town, an evening of some of the most politely vicious small talk I've ever heard, Asher being his usual temperamental self, one of my friends and favorite policemen having a nervous breakdown, a serial killer werewolf on the loose in my town, oh, and the fact that Richard and his wolves haven't arrived yet, and no one's answering their phones. Pick one." I knew the smile on my face wasn't pleasant when I finished. It was a challenging smile. It said why wouldn't I be uptight?

Anita Blake Series
1. Guilty Pleasures (1993)
2. The Laughing Corpse (1994)
3. Circus of the Damned (1995)
4. The Lunatic Café (1996)
5. Bloody Bones (1996)
6. The Killing Dance (1997)
7. Burnt Offerings (1998)
8. Blue Moon (1998)
9. Obsidian Butterfly (2000)
10. Narcissus in Chains (2001)
11. Cerulean Sins (2003)
12. Incubus Dreams (2004)
13. Micah (2006)
14. Danse Macabre (2006)
15. The Harlequin (2007)
16. Blood Noir (2008)
17. Skin Trade (2009)
18. Flirt (2010)
19. Bullet (2010)

20. Hit List (2011)

First Paragraph: It was early September, a busy time of year for raising the dead. The pre-Halloween rush seemed to start earlier and earlier every year. Every animator at Animators Inc. was booked solid. I was no exception; in fact, I'd been offered more work than even my ability to go without sleep could supply.

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Source: From personal collection

Picture Explanations
17th century child: This is Valentina.
Wolf: There’s a werewolf serial killer in this one.
Roses: Whenever a vampire tries to mess with you from a distance there’s always a smell that comes with them, Seraphina’s was powder from Anita’s mother, Belle’s is roses.

Raising the Dead for Bad Reasons

“I’ve earned my reputation, but if you really did your research on me then you also know that I don’t raise zombies for kicks, or thrill seekers, or tormented relatives unless they have a plan.”

When Anita Blake meets with prospective client Tony Bennington, who is desperate to have her reanimate his recently deceased wife, she is full of sympathy of his loss. Anita knows something about love, and she knows everything about loss. But what she also knows, though Tony Bennington seems unwilling to be convinced, is that the thing she can do as a necromancer isn’t the miracle he thinks he needs. The creature that Anita could coerce to step out of the late Mrs. Bennington’s grave would not be the lovely Mrs. Bennington. Not really. And not for long.

Anita has been relaxing just a bit with the men in her own life. The affectionate warmth of being with them brings out something softer in her, a sense of safety she can almost trust. They do love her; that part is forever and for sure. But flirting with feeling safe is a dangerous thing…

Title: Flirt
Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
Series: Anita Blake, Book 18
Start & Finished: 7/17/10
Published: February 2, 2010
Publisher: Berkley Publishing (Penguin)
Pages: 171
Genre: Mystery, Urban Fantasy-Romance

The eighteenth book and second shortest book (Micah is the shortest) in her Anita Blake series, Laurell K. Hamilton goes back to the root of what made this series so popular with Flirt. A lot of flirting happens in this book- hence the title- some casual, some not-so-casual, and some that can be downright deadly. With no zombie raisings for the last couple of books, it’s great to see Anita back to doing what she does best, raising the dead. However, she finds out fairly quickly that it’s not too much safer than any of her other work, especially with her having so many men in her life that can be liabilities.

Ms. Hamilton said that Flirt was inspired by an incident with friends at a diner. She and her husband went to a party at a friend’s house that she had to fly to (like Anita, Ms. Hamilton is afraid of flying) and met the writer for The Devil’s Panties. Ms. Hamilton said she realized that “here were two artists experiencing the same weekend, but taking entirely different things away from it.” While Jennie Breeden (the webcomic author) seemed to walk through a world that was “brighter, happier, even funnier,” Hamilton experienced a version that was “darker, more overtly sexual, even aberrant, violent, sometimes violently sexy, and an innocent moment turned into a potential for murder and horror in [her] head.” Ms. Hamilton claimed that this was an eye-opening experience and helped her lighten up somewhat so that when she was out to lunch with the same friends later on (without Breeden), the scene in the book in the diner with the waiter, Nathaniel, and Anita occurred in real life. She said as she was leaving, “If Jennie were here she’d turn this into a funny, charming comic strip, but if I ever used it as an idea, it would all go horribly wrong. There would be violence, or violent sex, or both, and a high body count.” Well, it didn’t go wrong but it did lead to those things eventually and this one incident was what inspired her to write Flirt.

Again, like Skin Trade, this book is more plot driven than the last two books and less about the sex, however because Anita is practically a succubus now it does crop up. I found it interesting because Flirt seems more like the earlier books in this series which I’ve always loved (the later ones are good but I tend to not enjoy those as much) but Anita does collect a new man in this book, he’s a werelion. Not sure how that will effect Haven (Cookie Monster) yet. I really like him but it doesn’t seem like Anita does very much. There are actually no vampires in this one but of course, they are mentioned however, it was very refreshing to not have an Anita Blake story that wasn’t cluttered with all of her men.

This was a fairly quick read that the author wrote at the same time as one of her Merry books Divine Misdemeanors. Though the next book Bullet was released on months after this one, there is a year between them so we’ll see how well everyone has adjusted to everything by then. So in Flirt there are "new bad guys, new werelions, romance, flirting, fighting, sex, violence, preternatural psychics, and zombies." We also learn just how far will Anita go to save herself and those she loves in this book. Sometimes I think this series has gone on long enough and then Ms. Hamilton pulls something like Flirt out of her hat and it renews my faith in her and her lovely characters.

Note: A short comic strip appears in the back Flirt by the writer Jennie Breeden for the webcomic The Devil’s Panties illustrating the inspiration scene mentioned above.

Favorite Quotes

“If I could raise her from the dead for real for you, maybe I would. I won’t debate the whole religious/philosophical problem with you, but the truth is that even I can’t do what you want. I raise zombies, Mr. Bennington, and that is not the same thing as resurrection of the dead. I’m good, maybe the best there is in the business, but I’m not that good. No one is.”

Seemed this was my week for people wanting my very “alive” zombies for very bad purposes.

I was remembering why I didn’t flirt for fun-- because I didn’t know how. I could flirt with intent of dating or sex, but I sucked at casual flirting. Shit.

Hope was a bad friend when men with guns have you. But my lioness and their lions lusted after each other, sort of. Lust I trusted. Hope will lie to you, but lust is what it is; it never lies. Hope would keep me hoping, but lust might be a weapon I could use to divide them. Divide and conquer has been a strategy for thousands of years; there’s a reason for that.

“I watched them comfort you, and then watched you flirt with the waiter. You wouldn’t give me back my flirt, so I took yours, and if you take my Ilsa away from me again, I will take your men away from you forever.”

Anita Blake Series
1. Guilty Pleasures (1993)
2. The Laughing Corpse (1994)
3. Circus of the Damned (1995)
4. The Lunatic Café (1996)
5. Bloody Bones (1996)
6. The Killing Dance (1997)
7. Burnt Offerings (1998)
8. Blue Moon (1998)
9. Obsidian Butterfly (2000)
10. Narcissus in Chains (2001)
11. Cerulean Sins (2003)
12. Incubus Dreams (2004)
13. Micah (2006)
14. Danse Macabre (2006)
15. The Harlequin (2007)
16. Blood Noir (2008)
17. Skin Trade (2009)
18. Flirt (2010)
19. Bullet (2010)

20. Hit List (2011)

First Paragraph: “I want you to raise my wife from the dead, Ms. Blake,” Tony Bennington said, in a voice that matched the expensive suit and the flash of the Rolex on his right wrist. It probably meant he was a lefty. Not that his handedness mattered, but you learn to notice primary hands when people try to kill you on a semiregular basis.

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Book Trailer:


Source: My personal collection, special thanks to Zoe Reads

Picture Explanations
Cemetary: Like in The Laughing Corpse, Anita ends up in a cemetery
Lion: Quite a few werelions in this one!