Kiss the Dead, Laurell K. Hamilton

So, it's still Read a Romance month, so next up is some hot and steamy Anita Blake.

However....it wasn't one of my favorites. The plot was just kind of...lacking. Wah wah. Basically, a group of vampires want to be" free." Unfortunately, their methods for doing that are to kidnap a minor and then martyr themselves (aka suicide by cop - or executioner, in this case). The have a leader, a master, but they haven't blood oathed. Somehow the master misses the part where he can influence lesser vamps without a blood oath.

So, when they're around him, he can keep them on board with his plan for peaceful dissent. Unfortunately, when he's not around, his mojo wears off and they decide being martyrs and killing cops is the better plan.

Sigh.

Antia ends up setting them straight. That's basically the entire book plot wise.

Now, relationship wise, there was much more.

Anita Blake in Review

You're only as much monster as you choose to be.

That seems to be the theme of the Anita Blake Series. The series isn't over, of course, but I'm waiting for the next few. Kiss the Dead will be out in paperback at the end of May, and Affliction is coming out in hardcover this year. I just don't do hardcover. So, I'll have to wait for more of the series.

There are some halves out now. Strange Candy is a collection of short stories by various authors; as are Cravings and Bite. Strange Candy is what Anita Blake without the Vampire Hunter might have been like. It's short and fairly...limp. It's not boring, but it's not really great either. Good thing Hamilton added the Vampire Hunter part. I wouldn't really recommend their purchase, unless you're a) into the other authors or b) really love short stories. Well, the Anita Blake story in Cravings is just the beginning of Incubus Dreams, about Larry's wedding, so...  Bite is it's own story, and takes place between Blue Moon and Obsidian Butterfly, when Anita is still trying to distance herself, and falls off the wagon after seeing Jean-Claude, but for me it wasn't worth the purchase. Finally, Beauty, which can be purchased as an ebook and comes between Hit List and Kiss the Dead. It's basically just a sex scene between Anita, Jean-Claude and Asher.

So, for me, the series is over for the moment. Therefore, I thought I'd talk about the series in general: pros, cons, and thoughts.

Skin Trade, Laurell K. Hamilton

Remember those vampires in Incubus Dreams killing the strippers? Remember how they got away? Not this time, beotch!

Anita is back on the case and headed (no pun intended – wait for it…) to Las Vegas. She heads (keep waiting…) to Vegas after receiving a severed head in the mail (NOW you get it) postmarked Vegas. She calls the cops there and it turns out the head belongs to a cop that was killed by the vamps during the attempt to execute them. A few cops died, but more have gone into a mysterious sleep. Not a coma, they're asleep and can't be woken. I'll give you three guesses as to how they're supposed to be woken up........Did you guess? That's right, sleeping beauty, Love's Kiss. No. Really. It doesn't have to be romantic love, just love. One victim doesn't have any family, so his dog does the trick. Adorable, right?

Blood Noir, Laurell K. Hamilton

I loved this book! Ok, so we're still leaning toward the more relationship oriented story lines, but this book is what I will forever consider Jason's Book. It's still from Anita's point of view, but it's all about Jason and his family.

Jason gets dumped, which he's not too sad about, the same day as he finds out his father, who he's estranged from, is dying of cancer and only has weeks left. Anita gets talked into coming home with him as his girlfriend to prove to his father that he's not gay. Hamilton treats this fairly carefully, I think. She makes clear, through Jason, that it's not his family thinking he's gay that bothers him, but that they don't believe him. His dad was abusive in many ways and always treated Jason like he wasn't a good enough son.

Jason is Anita's friend with benefits. They use the term fuck buddies, but I think friends with benefits is more accurate. It's the only friends with benefits relationship that has ever actually worked. So, of course it's fictional. :) They are best friends, and Jason and Nathaniel are best friends. Jason is Jean-Claude's pomme de sang, his daily blood donor. He lives with JC and the vampires. He's mischievous and adorable. He's one of my favorite characters but he's always been a fairly minor one. He longs for love. He and Anita have a platonic love, though they have sex, but he wants what Anita and Nathaniel have. And he's so likable, you want it for him.

Incubus Dreams, Laurell K. Hamilton

This is the first book I've felt was really Romance. I guess the whole series would be considered Supernatural Romance, but it just didn't really feel that way – this one does. I'm not a huge Romance fan. I don't hate it when it's done right (or my version of right), but I'm not really into. I have the 60/40 rule: 60% needs to be plot (action, mystery, thriller, fantasy, whatever), and 40% can be all mushy. It's not that I dislike Romance, it adds most of the time, what I mind is when it ends up feeling like the whole plot is just there to serve the couple. Then I get bored. I will accept 50/50 occasionally too, if the plot is interesting enough.

In the other books, there's usually an over arching story, a case, a mystery, something. The council is there. A new pard comes to town and people are trying to kill/capture Anita. Richard is framed for rape. SOMETHING. Despite the lack of a strong over arching story, I still enjoyed this book. That's not to say there's nothing going on, just not the fast paced, action packed, mystery/thriller type story we normally get. Nor does it come to a conclusion.