Rating: 
Summary: Much better than the last one
Review: In the 11th book in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series Anita has to deal with Musette, a vampire sent by Jean Claude's maker to meddle in their affairs. Musette takes a disturbing interest in Asher and Anita will have to go to great lengths to keep him safe. There are also a series of gruesome murders that are not easy to solve especially since Dolph's pent up rage has started to explode.This is hardly the best book of the series but it put to rest all my fears about this series going bad. The only thing really wrong with the book is the pacing of the plot. Laurell K. Hamilton needs to either write longer books or not try and cram so many sub plots into them. Where this book really shines is character development. Anita finally gets some much needed character development that will keep her character for getting stale. Some fans will undoubtedly not like her change in character though. This will really please Asher fans. He gets a lot of scenes and a few of them are some of the most emotional writing Laurell K. Hamilton has ever done. Jason also gets some character growth as does Richard. This book even gives me hope for Richard. If you've given up on the series you should still give this book a shot because you may be pleasantly surprised.
Rating: 
Summary: Anita Blake confused and fading
Review: I still enjoyed ths book, it was a fun read, but come on. The focus of this one is hard to find. I think Hamilton needs to review her concept. Where is this all going? Characters slide in and out for no apparent reason than to confuse the already nearly invisible plot line. I will continue to read Anita Blake because I really enjoy the world Hamilton has created but please try to define some plot points in the next one.
Rating:
Summary: Non-stop Action!
Review: I am an avid fan of Laurell K. Hamillton, and when I read the reviews on Amazon, I was expecting to be disapointed in the novel. But, WOW, I loved everything about the book including the steamy sex scences. I felt all of this had to do with the developement of Anita in the Vampire world. Richard is a bit disapointing, but did readers expect him to change overnight? I loved the ending, because Hamilton has left us with the next story line. Anita is still sexy and kick ... and I loved the book. I also loved the inclusion of Asher in more depth to the story. Way to go Ms. Hamiltion, I think the book is great and eagerly await the next one.
Rating:
Summary: Mostly good, some bad
Review: Complications that have been added will definitely thicken the plot, esp. in Anita's lovelife. I can't help but being dissappointed as to how far down Hamilton has taken Richard's character. It's just sad, but meanwhile, Anita is experiencing a frantic loss of control in her life. There is endless drama, and problems everywhere, very stressful on the main character. Dolph takes his anger about problems going on in his peronal life out on Anita, and Asher offers her an ultimatum. She has to include him in a meange trois with JC, or risk losing him, and having JC be dissappointed in her. But Anita is not entirely copmfortable with all this sex she's having. Also, she gets emotionally closer to Jason who offers her some surprisingly wise words of advice. Overall, it was a good book, but I'm hoping Hamilton takes it in the direction I want with Richard in the next book. It wasn't exactly the best book in the series, and sadly, she made their relationship( Rich and Anita) deteriorate completely.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Disappointment
Review: Sex, sex, and more sex. I am so disappointed in what LKH has done with her characters and why she insists on throwning
away the very things that made me love this series. As far as I'm concerned, the last two books were not about Anita Blake and the monsters, they was about Anita Blake having sex. I used to be her biggest fan but no more. I will say she is a fantastic writer and I loved the first nine books. In fact, they are my all time favorite books. That's why I'm so upset with the last two books. I feel like I have lost a close friend.
Rating: 
Summary: A Definite Improvement
Review: With the Obsidian Butterly and Narcissus in Chains, I felt Hamilton was going totally off-road. The character development was skewed (Edward with a family? Puh-lease.) and plotting was submerged in favour of kinky sex scenes. In Cerulean Sins, Hamilton comes back to the police and necromancer work that first got me interested in the character of Anita Blake. Although I feel the serial killer sub-plot and the Belle Morte primary plotline should have been reversed, it was still a step in the right direction in returning to the mystery foundation of the series. That said, I was very disappointed that I didn't get to witness the ancestor raising Anita scheduled in the first few pages. The intriguing client disappears and is never seen again in this book. If it was a tease for a future appearance, it was irritating and unfair to the reader. I knew Hamilton was a good enough writer that she would tie up that loose end, but the even the tie was weak. The book could have started at the cemetary and been the better for it. In this reader's opinion, Anita needs to pare down her life and Hamilton could help by paring down the characters. Asher (while interesting) is an unneeded distraction as is the addition of more sexual entanglements. As for Richard, I know he's there as the love she can never truly have (an example of what happens when compromise is required but seemingly unattainable), but his self-loathing is getting to be a dead bore. He's always either angry and feeling sorry for himself or sad and feeling sorry for himself. Bah, humbug. After all this time, he should either indulge in a little character growth or go away completely. One of the reasons I found Anita's character so interesting in the beginning is the tension between her spiritual beliefs and her reality. While I think it's a good thing that she is seeking balance, I don't feel her struggles to find it are being adequately represented. Her friend and police mentor Dolph's personal struggle comes into the novel as another example of what can happen when one refuses to compromise, but the example comes and goes, dealt with summarily at the end of the novel without any real examination. There are a lot of interesting threads going on here: christian witches, persecution, the definition of evil for each person, but they're all left more or less dangling, perhaps to be taken up again in a future book. While it's true that the characters talk mostly to themselves instead of each other about their problems, I don't find this particularly frustrating, since that's how most people deal with things. If they did talk with each other, they'd have a Dr. Phil moment and the tension would be over. However, it would be nice to see them occasionally trying, which might provide hope that someday they could work things out if only serial killers and other people wouldn't come in to gum up the works. To sum it up, I would like to see the Blake novels become more plot driven rather than angst driven. I would like the emotional stuff to return to being secondary to whatever threat or threats she is having to deal with. I want more crime, more mystery, less Dawson's Creek.
Rating:
Summary: Impressed
Review: I woudl not call my slef a book critque but I am very impressed with this series. The main character Anita has a very interesting time dealing with the twists and turns her life takes both personal and professional. This lates enstallment you think that the wold is going to come crashing down on her casue there are 3 problems at leat happening at once. I cannot recomend the books enough. Have a good read.
Rating:
Summary: This Can't Be For Real?
Review: I would've given this book 5 stars, if I thought its intent was to inspire fits of hilarity. But seeing as how the author wants to be taken seriously for this laugh riot, I have to go with 1 star. None wasn't available. Now, don't get me wrong, its quite an achievement to put the word "ardeur" in the books as many times as Ms Hamilton does. And its not just anyone that can make sex scenes so mechanical and uninteresting. And one particular sex act gets described in painstaking detail not once, not twice, but THREE seperate times. Is this a book or a sex manual? (and a bad one at that). And its frankly miraculous that so many incredibly stupid characters can find their way onto these pages. I think they might have had a brain once, though not since Blue Moon. But now? Whether its the totally self-absorbed Anita, a character that has become so unappealing its amazing that the rest of the characters haven't ganged up and staked her already. Or Jean-Claude, the once clever and manipulative vampire who seems to lead his life according to what Anita wants on any given day. Or Richard, the once sympathetic and very human werewolf who now gives new meaning to the terms "bipolar and moody". Or how about Micah? A character that wouldn't know a personality if it bit him on his enormous...uh...nose. And then there's the increasingly whiney Asher who puts his foot down with Anita. At least for a whole 50 pages he does. Then he caves like the rest of the girly-men that inhabit this book. Someday I might understand why Ms Hamilton thinks men with long hair, feminine feature, the ability to wear Anita's clothes and no visible signs of a backbone are interesting. But I seriously doubt it. What was once a very interesting, fun and exciting serious seems more and more to me like a soap opera/authobiographical/erotica mishmash. Someone send in Edward with an uzi to clean house, and make sure not to miss Miss Blake.
Rating:
Summary: Let Me Tell You Why it Is 4 instead of 3
Review: At first I hated this book. I thought it was just like the last one, only Anita was willing to sleep with more guys. I know many fans that have followed this series feel that there is a little too much gratuitous sex. I was one of them. I started by re-reading all of the books starting with Guilty Pleasures and working my way up chronologically. I did this in 4 days, and let me tell you the character progression is there when you do it this way. Once Anita started sleeping with JC, this was a natural, it just gets lost when you have not currently read them all sequentially. The biggest problem I have is the lost characters that I loved. Edgar, Manny, the cast of animators. This book at least brought Dolph back in, but it has really been awhile since we had this much Zerboski and Dolph. What I have come to realize is that LKH has given such wonderful secondary characters that we have come to love an rely on, that is it hard to accept new characters because they take up plot development time, and it seems to take away from the characters we are used to. The books are becoming very "character heavy", but it is an ongoing series. I would recomend this book, but not as a starter, I would only read this series in order, or you will lose alot of it, and think that Anita is pretty trampy. If you like erotica, you will like this book by itself as well as Narcissus in Chains. Keep in mind that it is otherworldly erotica. I am very glad for the development that will keep Asher in the series as a primary character. Richard needs to grow up or go, I am sick of his histrionics. Go Jason!!! Loved what he said to Anita. I am giving this 4 stars instead of the 2-3 I originally planned because I did find the reason behind Anita's sleeping around, and it did seem to make sense. Again I highly recommend reading all of the books from start to finish if you were disapointed with this one. Good luck. If you are looking for a great vampire series, i would suggest Charlain Harris "Dead" series. They are wonderful. Kind of Stephanie Plum meets Anita.
Rating: 
Summary: disappointing
Review: Well, the book had all of the requisite Anita Blake plot point items. It's like she has a list - dead bodies, check. Police snarkiness, check. Vampire politics, check. Mystery, check. So she put the minimum amount necessary in for each required item, and then spent the rest of her pages on boring and pointless introspection. Nothing is better at the end of this book, and some things are much worse. The bones of a good novel are in there, but the way it's fleshed out, the character development, the action... Nothing hangs together. The times of day are all wrong. Going from one place to another takes too little time, or too much. It's like the editors just didn't care, or were too anxious to get the book on the shelves to insist on anything like a consistancy check. I know the author is capable of much better writing. I don't think I'll be buying her hardbacks until she returns to the level of quality she showed in Blue Moon and Obsidian Butterfly.
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