Rating: 
Summary: Obsidian Butterfly
Review: Laurell K. Hamilton's latest effort featuring her heroine Anita Blake - Vampire Hunter. Another page-turner finds our heroine uping her body count in New Mexico after coming to the aid or her sometime associate, Edward - a professional assasin. Long-time readers will miss the normal interplay with her two boyfriends - Vampire Jean-Claude, Master of the City, and Richard - Alpha werewolf, but there are plenty of new friends to take their place. Edward calls in his "favor" owed to him by Anita and she responds, wondering what could bring this element of fear to stone-killer Edward. She finds out in a hurry. Not for the faint of heart, readers will find Anita remains the Queen of Slaughter that we know and love, presented with the spikey ironic humor that has marked her previous appearances. High on my recommended reading list for those who enjoy a very different type of horror book that doesn't take itself entirely seriously. But I am willing to bet new readers of LKH will be running back to find the previously issued adventures of Anita Blake - Vampire Hunter.
Rating:
Summary: A long wait but, well worth it....
Review: I have noticed many reviewers attack this book because you get to see a little bit of Edward's human side. While I must admit that cold blooded sociopathic killers are more fun, you cannot see how Anita is developing without a before and after example to compare her to. I have enjoyed this book as thoroughly as the previous 8. That includes Bloody Bones which like Obsidian butterfly was abused for ignoring Anita's relationships with Jean Claude and Richard...it is a sad state of affairs when we must define a character merely by the men she sleeps with. Which brings me to my only critisism of Obsidian Butterfly.... Was it really necessary for Anita to encounter no less than three naked male groins (outside of a romantic setting) in the duration of 1 interstate visit? It has to be a record breaker to be flashed that often in the space of a few days. Phallic flashing aside I have read this book twice so far and will no doubt read it many more times in the futre... a higher compliment I cannot give.
Rating: 
Summary: I am "so not" happy with this one
Review: As a dedicated Anita Blake fan, I was terribly disappointed with the latest chapter in the life of our favorite necromancer. It seems that Obsidian Butterfly was rushed to print without proof-reading. The frequent errors were distracting from the story, which needed some help too. Anita's constant use of the sophmoric phrase "so not", was very tiring. I noticed another customer reviewer recommended readers check-out the Stepanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. I whole heartedly agree. If you like Anita Blake, you owe yourself an adventure with Stephanie Plum. Of course, my disappointment in Obsidian Butterfly doesn't mean I'm not anxious for the next book in the series; I just won't rush to buy it in hardcover.
Rating:
Summary: Did high school dropouts edit this book?
Review: Laurel is Laurel in that her writing is still captivating and fast-paced. What drags the book down is the absence of a good, quality editor. In addition to Anita to ramble too much about her emotions and her thoughts, there were a lot of loose ends left in the book. What happened to Nicky Baco's creation? What happened to the werewolves who were a part of that creation? I'm pretty sure that if a good editor caught these lapses, Laurell could have tightened up her book a lot more and the end product would have been of higher quality. Those editors messed up big time - I hope they get fired for the mess they made (or at the very least, don't work on the next book).
Rating:
Summary: Edward has a little problem....
Review: Edward calls in his favor on behalf of Ted Forester -- that's right, his alter ego. Ted is a bounty hunter living in New Mexico and something is killing people in a seriously grusome way. But that's old stuff for Edward (and Ted): what really disturbs him is the survivors. So he calls in Anita. Good Points: As usual Hamilton packs in interesting and frightening characters -- In this one as in several others, some of the "good" guys are actually more frightening than the bad guys. Hamilton may be the best spellbinding storytellers of our time. I honestly couldn't put it down. BUT (the bad things) As with a few of her other books, this one suffered from the rapid pace (not enough rewrites?) and a lot of loose threads were thrown by the wayside(What about the creature thingy that Nicky made...). Some things were not explained well enough, the last scene especially seemed to lack detail. The final villain who'd been given such a powerful build up, came up second in toughness/scariness to (among others) a human friend of Edward, another vampire in the story, and both of the vampires' human servants (not to mention Anita herself). In short, this was a very good read, but it had a lot of the weaknesses of some of Hamilton's previous books (like the one in which the vamps demolish Anita's car -- which she then drives through the rest of the book). With these problems, Hamilton's strength as a storyteller is such that it was still a great read.
Rating: 
Summary: Anita's back - better buckle up!
Review: Some readers noted that Laurell Hamilton sacrificed character development for rocket-ride pacing in her previous entry in the series, Blue Moon. No so this time, and the pace is as white-knuckle as ever. Any book that begins "I was covered with blood, but it wasn't mine, so it was OK" is probably not going to have a problem with pace! So here we get a hint of Edward's antecedents and probable future. The Man of Ice has fallen for a little girl and her brooding brother, and for their mother as well. I believe that the first two are the only characters in the whole novel that Anita doesn't, at some point, threaten to kill, but I may be exaggerating...a bit. She hasn't changed much, in short. But it is in the ancillary characters that Hamilton displays growth as an author. We have Itzpapalotl, a 500-year-old vampire who thinks herself an Aztec goddess, and who's going to tell her different? There's a detective who seems human, for once, with the usual hostile, arrogant boss. But best of all there's Olaf, a 6'8" bodybuilding psycopathic serial killer, who would have made a wonderful villain but for the minor detail that he's Anita's partner. And she's his, ah, type. Two minor things, neither under of the direct control of the author, detracted somewhat from the novel. One is the font used, which will swim before you eyes the second hour into the book (and who doesn't read Anita books in one sitting?) - the other is an occasional annoying mistake in usage ("chaffing" for "chafing" for example) which no spell checker would catch but which an attentive editor should. Hamilton excels in disturbing imagery, and a ghoul loose in a nursery...brrr, let's say no more, but it was quite a scene. I could have done with a little less graphic detail when it came to what happens to Edward's new kids, though, and I'm sure many readers will agree. All together this was, in this reviewer's opinion, the best - yep, the best - of the series to date, and I'm hoping to see some of these remarkable characters again. Which ones? That would be telling, because not everybody gets out of Anita's way alive...
Rating:
Summary: Lacks pizzazz and continuity
Review: I'm a big fan of this author but I just couldn't get interested in this book. Perhaps I'm the only Anita Blake fan who is not particularly interested in the character of "Edward." In any event, the entire time I was reading this book, I felt like I was marking time waiting for the "real" story to continue. My interests lie with the continuing dynamics between Anita, Jean-Claude, and Richard. I would be more interested in reading about how things are progressing in the pard, the movement to federalize vampire executioners, Anita's role as lupa, and her studies with Marianne. I think the author went too far afield with this one, leaving old friends hanging high and dry. This story line would have been a nice secondary story - but I missed the colorful characters that have made up the tapestry of the previous books. I also that at the end of the day, the ultimate Aztec bad guy lacked believability. Just didn't wash.
Rating:
Summary: I Love Edward--4ever
Review: I think Laurell K. Hamilton is absolutely the greatest. I love this latest installment of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series. I pick up my first Anita book one year ago and have read every book since. The action in Obsidian Butterfly is like the old Anita again. I very much enjoyed finding out about Edward. I for one am truly glad to know there is a human side to him. The Anita books have always kept me on the edge of my seat. They always leave me wanting more and this book is no exception. I can't wait for the next! Laurell keep em coming!
Rating: 
Summary: Save your money
Review: Save your money and wait until this book is released in paperback. Obsidian Butterfly is poorly written, poorly edited and a major disappointment. Anita is getting more and more violent yet moans that she is a monster, get real, sweetie, change some of your ways or quit complaining.. I am hoping that Book 10 of this series is better than Book 9...Anita doesn't need a vacation, she needs help.
Rating:
Summary: Superbly Written
Review: I haven't been a big fan of Edward, but this book impressed me. I couldn't put it down, yet I didn't want to finish it and be stuck waiting for the next one to come out. This is such a different story from the other Anita Blake novels. It is so nice to have a different change of pace. This is definitely a must read. I wish I could find more books like this one, more heroines like Anita, and more authors like Miss Hamilton.
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