Home :: Books :: Horror  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes
Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels
Computers & Internet
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body
History
Home & Garden
Horror

Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers
Nonfiction
Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families
Professional & Technical
Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance
Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
Bloody Bones

Bloody Bones

List Price: $6.99
Your Price: $6.29
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 .. 9 >>

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Even more character than the last
Review: The one thing missing from this book was Richard, but, after Lunatic Cafe, he seems to be fading into the woodwork anyway. I found it very telling that she calls Jean Claude rather than Richard in this book when she is in trouble. I enjoyed this book too, because Larry, Anita's protege from previous novels returns and we get a bigger glimpse into HIS psyche. Anita and Larry develop a kind of big sis, little bro relationship that works well. He also serves as keeping her moral compass pointing straight. I loved the sexy scenes with Jean Claude here. Unfortunately, they don't last long. *BIG POUT!* There are hints that Jean Claude is...something more than just Master of the City. I can't wait to find out what. Also, we get a glimpse of Anita's power, as she discovers new, previously hidden talents. The most poignant thing in this book was the way Seraphina, the evil master vampire, used mind tricks on Anita to make Anita think she was her mother, who died years ago. That was so sad, and yet, it reminds you that we all see what we want to see. The book has *alot* of plots going on...and the time that goes between the zombie raising, the fairies and the police and the vampires is a bit much. I got confused as to who was doing what and when. But, thankfully, it ties up rather neatly by the end, still leaves you wanting to know more. I am already ready to read The Killing Dance because I'm now hooked on these books. They keep getting better and as Martha Stewart says, That is a good thing.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Anita Blake - No more nice girl
Review: BLOODY BONES was actually the first book by Ms. Hamilton that I read. It hooked me and I'm now impatiently waiting for the 10th Anita Blake book. In BLOODY BONES Anita faces her most powerful enemy to date, Serephina. Serephine wants to control Anita and nearly succeeds. Another great story from Ms. Hamilton.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Grim Fairy Tale
Review: Bert, the owner of Animators Inc., and Anita Blake's nominal boss, is too greedy to refuse a fat fee. This time his compulsive avarice has got Anita in over her head. Her new client needs her to raise an entire graveyard of bones, many of which are over 300 years old. In addition, the client seems to have run a bulldozer through the remains - several times. Anita may be the only animator who is capable of accomplishing this, but even she is less than confident.

No sooner is she at the gravesite when Anita is called in to help investigate some gruesome killings. Deaths which appear to have been done by the first serial killer vampire on record, one who specializes in the young. In her efforts to prevent further deaths Anita manages to alienate both the local police and the FBI. She also discovers that the small country town of Branson is sheltering several people with fairy heritage, and that they are not happy about her efforts at raising the graveyard.

Realizing that she needs more help than Larry the apprentice animator, Anita decides to call in vampire Jean Claude. Unfortunately, Branson has it's own master vampire, Seraphina, who is much stronger than Jean Claude and will stop at nothing to take over the control of his own territory, St. Louis. In the process of trying to get information from Seraphina about the rogue vampire, Jean Claude and Anita are forced into an all out war with Seraphina and her powerful cohorts.

The suspense goes from intense to extreme as Anita has one confrontation after another with her clients, the Fae, master vampires, and creatures from legend. She, Jean Claude, Larry, and Jason the werewolf are badly overmatched in a struggle where no one can be trusted and nothing is what it seems to be. Laurell Hamilton has put together a truly gothic roller-coaster ride.

I am particularly fond of "Bloody Bones." Rather than perpetually introducing new cast members, Hamilton takes the time to dive deeper into characters the reader already knows from earlier volumes in the series. Even Bert gets a good bit of attention. This makes the characters come alive, and sets the stage for subsequent volumes where Anita has to deal directly with her problematic relationships with Jean Claude and alpha werewolf Richard Zeeman. If you are a Blake fan this is required reading. If you are new to the series I would suggest starting with an earlier volume in the series, although this volume still stands on its own

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Bloody Bones
Review: While Hamilton won't ever win any awards for her writing, in the technical sense, she is a great storyteller, and her characters are among the most vivid of any genre. Anita Blake is probably the strongest heroine I've ever read, and she continues to grow as the series progresses. Jean-Claude is the bad boy who is much more caring and vulnerable (emotionally) than he seems at first. By this time, Jean-Claude and Anita ought to be set in stone, almost predictable, but they're not. Even the secondary recurring characters have depth and are clearly defined: Jason, Bert, Edward, Larry, Ronnie. You feel like these are people you know.

While this book isn't the best of the series, dragging out far too long and wrapping up too tidily, the scene where Anita stays with Jean-Claude at dawn merits 20 stars. It is both heart-wrenching and horrifying, one of the most memorable scenes of the entire series.

One thing that bothers me about all of Hamilton's books: Tons of typos and other assorted errors. It's almost laughable at times, and distracting as hell.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Anita Blake is really put through the wringer this time
Review: The titles of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake novels always refer to some sort of establishment frequented by monsters and while "Bloody Bones" is the name of a eating place out in the sticks it is also the name of something much, much worse. Anita Blake and her trainee Larry (not Lawrence) Kinkaid are out in the sticks of Missouri to raise a bunch of really old zombies to settle a development issue. But then Dolph calls Anita to tell her the local cops need her help with a murder investigation that sure looks to our heroine like an incredible fast vampire using a really big sword. Of course, these and every other plot line in the book are all related. The "romantic" triangle between Anita, Jean-Claude and Richard is pretty much on the back burner this time around, although Jean-Claude and his pet werewolf Jason show up to help Anita meet Serephina, the local master. Boy, does that ever turn out to be a mondo-mistake.

"Bloody Bones," the fifth book in the Anita Blake "Vampire Hunter" series, is similar to the previous couple of books. The menagerie of monsters continues to grow, with faeries and worse being added to the roster, while Anita's powers as a Necromancer continue to grow at the most opportune moments. In terms of writing pure horror, Hamilton knows how to lay it out big time. If Hollywood ever dared to film these books as she writes them they would be NC-17 (at least). Yes, Hamilton tends to play the same cards in getting Anita out of her dire predicaments, but as a writer of horror novels with scenes of disquieting intensity that will make it difficult for you to sleep at night, she has Lovecraft, King and Barker beat. She is so good at coming up with scenes of outright horror that go on and on, that I will not let my teenager daughter read these books.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bloody Good...
Review: I bought this book (Bloody Bones), the Killing Dance, and Blue Moon one evening a week and a half ago. It had been a couple of years since I read Guilty Pleasures and other Hamilton books. I've now read these three books and found them rather entertaining. I read the other reviewers' comments with interest. I found the Killing Dance to be the least strong of the three. In Bloody Bones and Blue Moon, however, I enjoyed Hamilton's efforts to expand the plot beyond the usual cast of characters.

In all, I concur with other reviewers--this series is better started somewhere near the beginning--these three books are great stories, but are better informed by the background of the earlier Blake stories.

Enjoy and have fun!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: In which Anita meets a nasty fey
Review: This book starts off with real-estate developers and lawyers, wishing to despoil the natural beauty of the countryside near Branson, MO by razing a mountain and building a luxury development. Villians from the world we know! However, fear not, there are also the sorts of villians we look for Anita to be dealing with: Magnus Bouvier, who owns the bar & grill called "Bloody Bones," is a fairy who is not as nice as we might hope - or, as Anita puts it, "f - - ing unseelie court!" We also meet some other new types of characters - a nursery boggle, that is, the kind of monster used to threaten children with, the old "if you don't behave, the monster will come get you!" type of monster. And a vampire who uses a sword- I have to admit, I didn't quite see the point of that, pardon the pun. It is never clear to me why we would have the swords involved.

Much of the action involves Jean-Claude coming down to Branson to help Anita meet the master of the Branson area. He brings Jason the werewolf with him, and Anita has young Larry Kirkland, the animator-in-training, with her, so we get two sidekicks for our leads to deal with.

There's a mass zombie raising, and there's a satisfactory come-uppance for the nasty real estate developer, and there's a gruesome vampire-burning-to-death-in-sunlight if that's your thing... along with the swords, there's even more than the usual amount of violence for the series.

For those wondering about the whole series, some background information. Those who already know that they like vampire novels, anything at all that features a vampire, can skip this review, and likewise, those who hate the whole idea of vampires can skip it. But for those trying to decide whether or not to read more of this genre, or whether the one vampire novel you've already read was a fluke, it may help to have some ways to categorize these novels. Thus: BunRab's Standard Vampire Classification Guide. First, most authors of vampire novels approach from one of the main genres of genre fiction; thus their background may be primarily in romance, or in science fiction/fantasy, or in murder mysteries, or in horror. Second, many vampire novels come in series; knowing whether this is one of a series, and where in the series it falls, may be helpful. Then we have some particular characteristics: Are there continuing characters besides the vampire, through the series? - Are there other types of supernatural beings? - Does the vampire have a few other supernatural characteristics, many other supernatural characteristics, or none other than just being a vampire? (E.g., super strength, change into an animal, turn invisible) - Does the vampire have a regular job and place in society, or is being a vampire his or her entire raison d'etre? - Does the vampire literally drink blood, or is there some other (perhaps metaphorical) method of feeding? - Is sex a major plot element, a minor plot element, or nonexistent? - Does the story have elements of humor, or is it strictly serious? - Is the writing style good, or is the writing just there to manage to hold together the plot and characters?

This particular book is the fifth in a series, and it's a series best read in order. If you read one out of order first, you'll want to go back and start from the beginning - the first volume is _Guilty Pleasures_. The series comes from the hard-boiled detective/thriller genres. There's a large cast of continuing characters - Anita Blake, who is NOT a vampire, she's a zombie animator and vampire executioner. The setting is St. Louis, but the specific city isn't integral to the plot the way being in Toronto is a very specific plot element in Huff's books, or Chicago in Elrod's. The other characters include the police on the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team, who are reasonably good guys - although the series also finds plenty of incompetent and/or corrupt cops along the way. Most of the vampire characters are involved in the entertainment biz - owning, working in, nightclubs. St. Louis in this universe has a very kinky nightclub district! The vampires have not only super strength and speed, but the power to cloud men's minds, and other powers that pop up unexpectedly and that differ from vampire to vampire. We have plenty of other supernatural characters: werewolves, wereleopards, wererats, and for all I know, werewombats; witches and voodoo priestesses, ghouls and zombies and ghosts. In other words, magic of all kinds. And most of them are Not Very Nice. Anita deals with them through a combination of violence and wisecracks; there is a strong dose of sarcasm and irony that runs through the books, and while the plots are serious, violent, and bloody, there are also funny moments; the characters have senses of humor, even some of the vampires!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good book, but not the best in series
Review: Anita Blake the tough as nails vampire killer is up to her neck in faeries, zombies, vamps and lots of other undead in the fifth novel of the series. Although Anita is as good as ever, I found the story here a little confusing. I did however enjoy the advancement of the Jean Claude storyline. With Richard almost no where in sight in this book, there was a lot of interaction between JC and Anita, and we learn a bit more of his background. I also enjoyed the development of of the character of Larry, Anita's protege. I think this book is more of a turning point in the series, and although I don't think it is as good as the previous four books, a not so great Anita book is still better than a lot of the other stuff out there.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A cool book
Review: _Bloody Bones_ is the fifth book in the Anita Blake series. I have to say first that Anita is one of the coolest heroines I've ever "met." She's tough, savvy, resourceful, brave, and compassionate, and she knows how to get dirty jobs done when no one else will do them. This book involves interesting character development on Jean-Claude's part, and a lot of cool evil vampires, as Anita travels to Branson, Missouri from St. Louis to investigate some strange (possibly vampiric) murders.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: More of Jean Claude
Review: I think that Hamilton is learning character development as she writes. Moving back to evil vampires was a smart move and filling in more of Jean Claude was even smarter. Anita has been shrugging and sighing through the other novels. She gets a new move, "circling her waist with her arms", but the book is worthwhile for avid fans of Anita Blake.

Although Hamilton makes each book stand alone by filling in background details, she is writing to her cult fans and should only be read in order. Saying this, spending less time on background would be more appreciated by her loyal fans, as I am one.

There are some plain silly moments in this book and Hamilton weaves in too many characters for respectability, but what she does with Jean Claude's history is admirable.


<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 .. 9 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates