Rating: 
Summary: It's still Laurell K. Hamilton
Review: I've been a fan of this author since borrowing the second book of the Anita Blake series from the local library. Since then, I've read the entire series including this newest volume. If you're just getting started with this series, pick up the first book instead. Those not familiar with Laurell K. Hamilton's writing/universe/characters will be very confused indeed as it takes a longtime fan of the series to grasp everything in this book. While not up to par with her previous novels, it is still fitting. Anita is tied closer to Richard, and Jean-Claude by marrying the marks. As she ventures through the side-effects, one begins to wonder just how much humanity Anita will retain when she finally accepts the fourth mark. I enjoyed reading this book, and I anxiously await the next volume in this great series.
Rating: 
Summary: What The Heck...????
Review: Is this an aberration or a "new direction"? If its the former, glad to hear it. If its the latter, thanks its been fun but I'm done. You ever read a book and think....what was/is going on with this author that this book is the result? Thats how I felt about this book. Maybe its just me, but having your main character screwing around every chapter with another male with an enormous schlong and calling it "characer development" is laughable to the extreme. If you're a Jean-Claude or Richard fan, BEWARE !!! They are badly written, dumped on, and in the case of Richard, unbelievably mangled. Ah, but not to worry, Anita has a new instant soulmate, Micah. A character so flimsy and useless the most memorable thing about him is the size of his willy. You had me until this one Ms Hamilton....
Rating:
Summary: Disappointment
Review: I, now, own the cassette set of "Narcissus in Chains," that our base library will probably end up owning. It is a library edition, which by the way is not in the information on the set. I understood when I purchased the tapes that the story would be "abridged." I did not take this to mean that the story would lose characters and chapters as if a kindergartener had edited the material. Asher has disappeared, along with Jason and Nathaniel. Scenes were cut that explain why certain things are occurring. I was very disappointed. The readers, who would benefit from owning this set of cassettes, are people who have never read an Anita Blake book. These people might not notice the inconsistancies. My advice, to anyone thinking about the cassette version, think long and hard before you buy it. Since there is no such thing as a zero star. I have had to give the set of cassettes one star. Do not take this one star as approval. Just remember the old adage, "Buyer beware!" To Ms. Hamilton and her publishers, I know that you can do better.
Rating: 
Summary: The sex is great but the plot drops the ball
Review: I've read and enjoyed every single one of Hamilton's books in this series, eating them up like naughty bon bons, despite plot flaws, blatant dropped threads, and the staginess of getting Anita into ANOTHER moment where having public sex while dressed in skimpy leather is the only way to save someone's life. I really enjoyed meeting the new man in Anita's life, but this book gypped your loyal readers, Laurell. There's a threesome promised at the beginning of this book, a threesome that's been promised long ago, and readers have been waiting for it patiently, waiting for Anita Blake to get over her prudery. But Laurell, you didn't deliver it. Richard's fade from the scene wasn't believable, wasn't even on stage. I would rather see him engage in the threesome and not be able to handle it than just have you dismiss him as a used-up creation of your own past discomfort with the sexual side of Anita.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good One Sitting Read
Review: Once again Laurell K. has done it. Although with a bit of a diffrent spin to Anita's life she has added another great chapter to the Anita Blake novels. I can't wait for next book by Laurell K. to come out.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad but don't make this your first Anita Blake novel...
Review: Others have said that you have to start the Anita Blake series at the beginning and I agree. The initial books start developing the characters and relationships admid various crisis. By the time we get to Narcissus in Chains - the crisis is secondary - the relationships come first. If you start off with this novel, I don't think you'll come back. The best example is at the very start. The book opens quickly with Anita getting a call that a wereleopard under her care has been captured and she has to rescue him from some new gang in town. The tone is set for having to rescue him quickly but 50 pages pass until that happens. She calls Jean Claude, her vampire lover, for help and they talk on the phone for 15-20 pages about their relationship. You can't help thinking "Hello - there's someone in trouble needing your help...stop this chatting" I also think the attraction of Anita Blake is that she is human and can hold her own against various monsters. That's appealing but in the latter novels, esp this one, her developing powers remove that very human aspect. When she has to confront some attack (physical or mental) she's as likely to develop some new mental power that she never knew she had before. At times the new powers don't seem to fit with the situation. Also Richard and Jean Claude used to be interesting characters. Powerful, wise. Both gets more emasculated with each novel. If this is your first novel then I doubt you'll see any reson why she dated Richard in the first place. In fact you'd be hard pressed to figure out why she would want to be with either of them. And these guys are supposed to be alphas/masters of their own groups? I don't think so. Just pretty boys now with no power. This book also focuses too much on the sexual aspect of Anita's growing powers. Each chapter is to make you wonder "Who will she bed now?". This is unlike the earlier novels when sex, or lack of it, provided a tension. I think the new reader needs to see how Anita's personality has moved from her cautious approach to the more barely inhibited sexual relationships in this novel. I don't think I'd be so critical of the sexual subtheme of the novel if I had not just finished Hamilton's first Merry Gentry novel. This is her new character and likely will be a series as well but in many ways they are the same book. Gentry is a private investigator living in a culture where mythical creatures are known to most people. Gentry loves to wear guns and knives. Gentry however is a faerie and a princess, only passing as human. Gentry has a strong sexual appetite as part of her background and that novel also details her sexual activities. Very similar novels. I like the Anita Blake series but the earlier ones were better. If the next novel also spends 80% of its content on the relationship of the triad and on the "do I have sex or not" subtheme as does this one then I likely will stop reading this series. If you like Anita Blake there is a similar series of a woman, ex-cop, who befriends a vampire and who deals with criminal aspects of various para-normal monsteres. THe author is Huff and all the books start with Blood such as Blood Rites.
Rating:
Summary: Maybe the best one yet... Maybe?
Review: What can you say? As these books become more and more complex, it makes reviewing them that much more difficult. (Thanks Laurell, I think...) After what has at times seemed like forever, (and not the 'couple of weeks' Anita claims) Our girl is back in St Louis, and is almost ready to jump Richard, Jean Claude, maybe even both, when trouble drops in on her. In desperation, she is forced to call in 'DDG' and the 'Furry Boy Scout', not only to rescue her some of her cats from an S and M club, but to 'marry the marks' that bind her to the wolf and the vampire. Anyone who's read the synopsis will probably have heard that this is where Anita gets 'scratched' by one of her cats during her now 'typical Anita', mid-rescue, free-for-all. I for one didn't buy the 'Anita Blake, Wereleopard' possibility. I mean, the girl's got enough goin' down without doing the furry every month, what with Raina's ghosty, munin thing, dissention in her pard, the new beau', Micah, Nimir Raj of another Pard, friction between her and Richard, who as ever seems to amass contradiction wherever he goes, and now thanks to the Vampire marks, it seems she has inherited what boils down to, in simplest terms as a 'lust monster', <apparently Jean Claude has one too.> which needs regular feeding. Oh yeah, let's not forget that there's also the Big, Bad, monster of the month, that wants Anita. <I knew it, I just knew it, everyone wants the girl!> True this book may have a somewhat thinner-than-usual plot, and also true there's now a lot of 'getting down to it' from Anita, but hey, six months of celibacy when she has these two waiting for her with baited (and probably minty) breath, Come on? My worry, once again is that Laurell now has her work cut out for her in Cerulean Sins... Only time will tell
Rating:
Summary: I wish there was an option for 0 stars
Review: Thanks Ms. Hamilton for taking a series I really enjoyed, with a fascinating alternate present with vampires and werewolves living among us and a really interesting, strong female lead with an unusual profession (necromancer) with interesting side characters like Jean Claude and just stomping your foot on it and twisting it under your, completely destroying it. There is absolutely nothing left of the original series which I enjoyed so much. Thanks!
Rating:
Summary: Slow down, Laurell
Review: I have read every single LKH novel since they originally were published, and I get the impression that this one was rushed. Very rushed. I think the real Anita is still there, still the sound hardcore heroine we all know and love, but Laurell, her backbone was trying to get the book on the shelf. Maybe it's the new baby, the new editor, who knows. I don't mind waiting an extra year for better quality.
Rating:
Summary: Love It OR Hate It OR BOTH??
Review: A spokesman for Laurell Hamilton's fan club, supposedly was quoted as saying that readers of this book would "either love it or hate it". I'd like to straddle a fence and say I loved it AND hated it. What did I love? Anita is a great female character. Hamilton has a breezy writing style that has the reader 'hearing' the story told from Anita's smart mouthed perspective. Anita still knows how to fight the monsters and win and I want to see her doing more of that. Which is part of the problem with what I 'hate' about this book. This outing has Anita marrying the marks with JeanClaude and Richard. It makes her so powerful that she becomes less human and hard to beat. Without that mortal danger to factor in, I found myself less involved in the story than in past books. I still want her to win, but I'm not afraid she won't anymore. That cuts down on the suspense factor. For reasons that are difficult to understand, Hamilton has chosen to distance Anita from both Richard & JeanClaude. She introduced ardor and made Anita into a person who is less moral and jumps around to different bed partners which would have outraged the Anita of the first books. Personally, I liked and admired the Anita who had a job, friends in the human population as well as the monster world and struggled more with the dilemmas and morality of her choices. I miss that woman, but short of the next installment opening with Anita stepping out of the shower and saying she just had the "strangest dream", I don't think we are going to have that Anita back again.
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