Rating: 
Summary: Wake me up when it's over
Review: This novel could be 75 to 100 pages shorter if Hamilton would cut down the excessive descriptions of character's clothing and appearance. She describes every stitch on every character. Paragraphs about their hair color, what their eyes remind her of, skin appearance, and an in depth analysis of their footwear. Please. The prologue kicks off very nicely, but it goes way down hill from there. With every book, it seems Hamilton gives Anita more and more power for only one reason -- to continue this contrived story and prolong the series. Yes, there are a few good books in the series, but this is certainly not one of them. You know it's bad when you can predict the next scene before you even read it.
Rating: 
Summary: The series is starting to lose it
Review: I have read all of the Anita Blake books except the two following Obsidian Butterfly. Sad to say, what once was a terrific series is starting to lose it, and the beginning of the end is this book. As a professional editor, the one thing that made me wince was the repetition and occasional poor word choices in the first few novels---made me think the books had been slapped together and rushed into production. Reading this book made me realize just how wrong I was! The lack of "polish" in the earlier novels worked to their advantage and made them that much more readable. This book, aside from its unwieldy length, has lost a great deal of the force and charm of the earlier books BECAUSE it has been "polished" to the Nth degree. Far too much dithering around before the plot coalesces, too many tangents into supernatural mysticism, and I'm sorry, bringing Richard's family into it just so there would be someone else for Anita to save from a fate worse than death is just plain overkill. As for the continued devolution into outright porn, I'll only say this: I like sex scenes as much as anybody, but there comes a point where it doesn't really do much to further the plot and is there simply because the writer can't think of anything else to do but have her character screw somebody. Ditto for the violence. Laurell Hamilton, quite simply, is getting lazy--if she's even writing the books at all at this point, which I'm starting to doubt. The follow up to this book, Obsidian Butterfly, is worth reading simply because it brings Edward back into the mix and tones down a lot of the "which-boyfriend" angst that is OH SO BORING in the more recent books... but don't go any farther. Sayonara Anita, it was nice meeting you.
Rating: 
Summary: God, I love these books..
Review: I have yet to be bored by one of these fabulous books. I swear..I dont know how Anita can hold herself back when shes surrounded by all of those hott hott men!! Sometimes I wish she'd just give in to each and everyone of them...I suppose that makes me sound awful, but hey..its fiction... :o)...Anyways..I was happy to see more of Asher in this book..I find him to be the yummiest and wish Anita would go for him...Soo many choices!! "Blue Moon" was ,of course, full of tons of action and I am planning on starting the next installment as soon as Im done writing this review. I wholeheartedly recommend getting into this series..it is wildly entertaining and is coming with me to the Isle for sure.
Rating: 
Summary: Yey more Richard!
Review: I was happy Richard was brougth back at first then LKH made him out to be a jerk, but later in the book his attitude changed which I personolly felt was a good thing because if you love someone as much as they love each other your emotions SHOULD plumet and then rise like it happened here. I was glad to see she miracuously mixed sex with action. A book i'm glad to own.
Rating:
Summary: Not my favorite but good nonetheless
Review: Circus of the Damnded and Burnt Offerings are probably the two best in the series so far, but this one is very good. The reason I think I liked it less is I missed Jean-Claude. Like Bloody Bones, in this book, Anita leaves home. She goes to rescue Richard who has been arrested. Jean-Claude cannot go with her. This book is good. There's a lot of mystery and new characters, and Anita rekindles her romance with Richard. But overall I was left wanting more vampires and less Richard, who just draisn you.
Rating:
Summary: The First NON-page Turner in the Series...
Review: At first I was sorry there was going to be very little Jean-Claude in the book. But, I told myself the story alone could be very good. The story was good, up to a point. Unfortunately, Hamilton began the "Anita as Sex Power Machine Girl" thread that the next two books in the series, especially Narcissus in Chains, appear to be built around. The good story is overpowered by the gratuitous sex. Though I can see the plot development using sex, I think it could have been done in a much better, perhaps subtler way. All in all, the only reason I continued to read books 9 and 10 in the series after this one is because I kept hoping they'd get better, return to the wonderful page turners of books 1 - 7. If the new book due out in April does not give me what I have always loved in this series I am done with Anita Blake.
Rating:
Summary: Great, but can you say typos? :-)
Review: "Blue Moon" was the first Anita Blake-book I've read - and I still think (after going back and reading all others in sequence) it's one of the strongest. What puts me off (but maybe that's a job hazard because I work as a book editor, if for non-fiction) is all the typos that remained even in the umpteenth edition of the book. Where is her editor? Is the editor just as blind to homophones (to instead of too, -ei- instead of -ie-) as Blake? But spelling (and sometimes plotting :-) aside: I love the world Hamilton creates. She takes vampire and wer-writing to new levels. There is nothing that feels formulaic in her books, but a whole new world to discover. (I'll put my criticism of clothes/style and punctuation in her books in another review ;-)
Rating:
Summary: My favorite books so far
Review: Maybe it is because I am hoping for Anita and Richard and Jean-Claude to all stay together in one big happy family, maybe it is because the two of them finally (*teaser*) consumatate their lust. Either way, this book is my favorite so far. Besides Richard and Jean-Claude, I love Damian, Asher, Jason, and Nathanial. They are great. :) Yum Yum. I'll be their chew toy any day.
Rating:
Summary: I can't figure out WHERE this series is going
Review: I don't know how I got into this series, since I have zip interest in the supernatural as a normal thing. I do like heroines that can kick ... though! I really enjoyed the the first few, even though Killing Dance gave me pause. All that dominant/submissive touchy feely stuff among the lycanthropes gives me an advanced case of the heebie jeebies. I was reading the series because of the fun involved, and there seems to be less and less of that. If the point is that one can't run with monsters without becoming one---well, DUH!!! Anita definitely needs to get some more human beings back into her life. Larry for instance. Richard's angst annoys me to the nth degree-at least Jean-Claude is always INTERESTING! I'm going to keep slogging on this series unless the next one is even worse. Anita Blake, where are you?!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Road to Hell
Review: I think the most interesting thing about this series is seeing Anita transform slowly from your average PI type into a stone cold Psycho. It happens so slowly it becomes unnoticable up until near the end of Blue Moon. Those of you who read it know what I'm talking about. Anita has always killed fairly easily, and thats a good reflex to develop when you're dealing with stuff that can rip you in half. But to see her do the one thing she said she would never do (despite all her despair afterward) was truly amazing. This is not the Anita of Guilty Pleasures. She's still gaiNng a new power every book, (which is annoying...come one Hamilton you've got to come up with something better), and she's still a hypocritcal little prude, but underneath all that she slowly turning into Edward. Thats refreshing. Richard is still the world's biggest boyscout. Hopefully some of that will end with this book. And Jean Claude...well he's still French. I'd be happy if they both died, that way she'd lose some of her power and go back to relying on wits and steel. But I see that not going to happen, so I hope they work their stuff out and Hamilton finds a new formula. I mean just how many Men are there with Long Hair, exotic eyes, and impossible hansome not quite human bodies are there in Saint Louis? With all that said, one must realize that this isn't exactly 'deep' reading and its a bit silly to pretend it is. Its entertainment for sado-masochist goth fetishists. Sex and Violence refined to perfection and slapped with a coating of 'good story'. So please don't expect anything more.
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