A Kiss of Shadows - Laurell K. Hamilton

Well, the first book read and reviewed in 2018 is not one I would have expected. I'd have thought the first book might have been either David Weber's The Honor of the Queen or the companion book to The Crown.

A Kiss of Shadows
Laurell K. Hamilton
Ballantine Books
Copyright: 2002
978-0345423405

The amazon.com product description:

Meet Merry Gentry, paranormal P.I., and enter a thrilling, sensual world as dangerous as it is beautiful, full of earthly pleasures and dazzling magic, and ruled by the all-consuming passions of immortal beings once worshipped as gods . . . or demons.

Merry Gentry, princess of the high court of Faerie, is posing as a human in Los Angeles, working as a private investigator specializing in supernatural crime. But now the queen’s assassin has been dispatched to fetch her—whether she likes it or not. Suddenly Merry finds herself a pawn in her dreaded aunt’s plans. The job that awaits her: enjoy the constant company of the most beautiful immortal men in the world. The reward: the crown—and the opportunity to continue to live. The penalty for failure: death. 

I know I read this back when it first came out. I can't say if I ever reread it. It's definitely been a while though - there's no review for a previous read here. It's also been long enough that while I remembered the occasional scene from the book, I couldn't remember any of the story beyond the very broadest of strokes. At any rate, I got the itch to reread and bought the first two books in the series (A Kiss of Shadows and A Caress of Twilight) from Kobo a couple of days ago. I started reading yesterday and finished the last twenty pages or so today. In other words, I couldn't put the book down for long at all.

It's not as important with e-books but I remember the original cover, red and black, and I distinctly prefer it to the new cover shown here. It was a cover less likely to raise eyebrows and garner comments from those around I think (part of the reason I've gone e-book for Laurell K. Hamilton's books this time).

On this read I found myself comparing the world that Laurell K. Hamilton has created with the similar(ish) world created for the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs. Very similar, and yet very different. Both start from a similar mythological base but they take the worlds in such different directions. I do think that if you like the one you'll like the other however.

I'm definitely enjoying the window into a world generally viewed as the "bad guys" and "evil" in a lot of other books (Mercedes Lackey's SERRAted Edge series comes to mind). A world where they're not entirely good, but not all evil, just trying to live as anyone else would be.

The one thing about this series (which is also true of the Anita Blake books by the same author) which might not be to everyone's tastes is that the books are very frank about  sex and relationships. Or maybe it's just me that found that a bit shocking the first time I read the series. On the other hand, at least with the first book there weren't quite as many "vivid/gruesome" scenes as I noted in my review of Guilty Pleasures (from the Anita Blake world).

Either way, I really enjoyed the read this time. Honestly, I can't remember the last time I more or less read a book in one day like that. I think it's been a while though, at least based on the last couple of years worth of reviews I've posted here. More often I've been having trouble finishing books - or if I do finish them, it's been after such long breaks that I've forgotten the first half of the story.

Laurell K. Hamilton has created an interesting world to go along with Meredeth Gentry, one where we've only just scraped the surface and there are depths yet to be discovered, both in the characters and the world they inhabit.

Almost immediately on finishing A Kiss of Shadows I've rolled into A Caress of Twilight, and also bought the third book in the series, Seduced by Moonlight. Definitely enjoying the re-reads.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? - May 29, 2017

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and about to be reading over the week.  It's a great post to organize yourself. It's an opportunity to visit and comment, and er... add to that ever growing TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started with J Kaye's Blog   and then was taken up by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at the Book Date.

After a couple of dead weeks for reading - which explains the overly quiet blog, I've finally gotten back in the swing of things for reading - how long I'll be able to keep it up is another question.

Anyway, I've finished a couple of books in the past week:

The first was Circus of the Damned by Laurell K. Hamilton.

The amazon.com product description:

First time in trade paperback: the third novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series. In Circus of the Damned-now in trade paperback for the first time-a rogue master vampire hits town, and Anita gets caught in the middle of an undead turf war. Jean-Claude, the Master Vamp of the city, wants her for his own-but his enemies have other plans. And to make matters worse, Anita takes a hit to the heart when she meets a stunningly handsome junior high science teacher named Richard Zeeman. They're two humans caught in the crossfire-or so Anita thinks.

I'm not going to write up a separate review for this one - I stopped reading in the middle for long enough that I can't really remember what happened for the earlier parts of the book. The main thing that stuck with me is Anita's sheer stubborn nature. Of course, that's something laid out through the whole series, so it's not all that surprising.


The second book I finished in the last week was 1632 by Eric Flint, which I posted about yesterday.

The amazon.com product description:

FREEDOM AND JUSTICE -- AMERICAN STYLE

1632 And in northern Germany things couldn't get much worse. Famine. Disease. Religous war laying waste the cities. Only the aristocrats remained relatively unscathed; for the peasants, death was a mercy.
2000 Things are going OK in Grantville, West Virginia, and everybody attending the wedding of Mike Stearn's sister (including the entire local chapter of the United Mine Workers of America, which Mike leads) is having a good time.
THEN, EVERYTHING CHANGED....
When the dust settles, Mike leads a group of armed miners to find out what happened and finds the road into town is cut, as with a sword. On the other side, a scene out of Hell: a man nailed to a farmhouse door, his wife and daughter attacked by men in steel vests. Faced with this, Mike and his friends don't have to ask who to shoot. At that moment Freedom and Justice, American style, are introduced to the middle of the Thirty Years' War.

This one I quite enjoyed, though I'm a bit hesitant about the rest of the series - based on the sheer quantity of books set in the world of the Ring of Fire.

My currently reading pile is pretty big:

There's The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
Amazon.com product description:

In Marion Zimmer Bradley's masterpiece, we see the tumult and adventures of Camelot's court through the eyes of the women who bolstered the king's rise and schemed for his fall. From their childhoods through the ultimate fulfillment of their destinies, we follow these women and the diverse cast of characters that surrounds them as the great Arthurian epic unfolds stunningly before us. As Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar struggle for control over the fate of Arthur's kingdom, as the Knights of the Round Table take on their infamous quest, as Merlin and Viviane wield their magics for the future of Old Britain, the Isle of Avalon slips further into the impenetrable mists of memory, until the fissure between old and new worlds' and old and new religions' claims its most famous victim.

It's been quite a few years since I read this book, but I'm enjoying as much now as I did the last time. If my memory serves as well, the Mists of Avalon may well have been my first real introduction to the various Arthurian stories.

Second on the list is The Lunatic Cafe by Laurell K. Hamilton

The amazon.com product description:

Vampire hunter and zombie animator Anita Blake is an expert at sniffing out the bad from the good. But in The Lunatic Cafe-now in trade paperback for the first time-she's about to learn that nothing is ever as it seems, especially in matters of the not-so-human heart.

Dating a werewolf with self-esteem issues is stressing Anita out. Especially when something-or someone-starts taking out the city's shapeshifters.

Here's where we start seeing more of the characters who are going to shape the next several books: Raina, Gabriel, Marcus... We've already been introduced to Richard and Larry in the previous book, so the stage is being set for future plotlines.

I'm only a couple of chapters in, so I can't say much more than that yet.

And finally, 1633 by David Weber and Eric Flint

The amazon.com product description:

AMERICAN FREEDOM AND JUSTICE
VS. THE TYRANNIES OF
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

The new government in central Europe, called the Confederated Principalities of Europe, was formed by an alliance between Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, and the West Virginians led by Mike Stearns who were transplanted into 17th-century Germany by a mysterious cosmic accident. The new regime is shaky. Outside its borders, the Thirty Years War continues to rage. Within, it is beset by financial crisis as well as the political and social tensions between the democratic ideals of the 20th-century Americans and the aristocracy which continues to rule the roost in the CPE as everywhere in Europe.

Worst of all, the CPE has aroused the implacable hostility of Cardinal Richelieu, the effective ruler of France. Richelieu has created the League of Ostend in order to strike at the weakest link in the CPE's armor—its dependence on the Baltic as the lifeline between Gustav Adolf's Sweden and the rest of his realm.

The greatest naval war in European history is about to erupt. Like it or not, Gustavus Adolphus will have to rely on Mike Stearns and the technical wizardry of his obstreperous Americans to save the King of Sweden from ruin.

Caught in the conflagration are two American diplomatic missions abroad: Rebecca Stearns' mission to France and Holland, and the embassy which Mike Stearns sent to King Charles of England headed by his sister Rita and Melissa Mailey. Rebecca finds herself trapped in war-torn Amsterdam; Rita and Melissa, imprisoned in the Tower of London.

And much as Mike wants to transport 20th-century values into war-torn 17th-century Europe by Sweet Reason, still he finds comfort in the fact that Julie, who once trained to be an Olympic marksman, still has her rifle . . .

At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (DRM Rights Management).

It's the second book in the Ring of Fire series, I believe. However, I'm only a chapter or two in.

The Laughing Corpse - Laurell K. Hamilton

The Laughing Corpse
Laurell K. Hamilton
Berkley Books
Copyright: 1994
978-0425204665

The amazon.com product description:

The early Anita Blake novels find new life in trade paperback-as perfect collectibles for long-time fans or as great ways for new readers to sink their teeth into the series.
In The Laughing Corpse, a creature from beyond the grave is tearing a swath of murder through St. Louis. And Anita will learn that there are some secrets better left buried-and some people better off dead...

The Laughing Corpse is the sequel to Guilty Pleasures, and picks up right where that one left off.

I'm enjoying the re-read, although it's been long enough that I can't even really call it a re-read any more. To be honest, it's as though I've never read the early Anita Blake books as I certainly don't remember much of anything about the plot or the characters at this point.

Anita Blake is quite the character though. Stubborn, sure of herself, and determined to do the right thing. She's not about to wait around for someone else to take on the tough tasks. Or for someone else to do the unpleasant jobs - and there are a few of those in this book. Instead, if that's what she's got to deal with, she's going to do so - and do it to the best of her ability - even if that scares her.

One amusing thing about this series as far as I recall - at least up to Narcissus In Chains and maybe a book or so after that is that the title for each book is that of a business within the story. For the first book, it was Guilty Pleasures, a vampire strip club. In this one, the Laughing Corpse is a comedy club. One where the comedians are part of the supernatural. Within the story we see a vampire comedian and a comedian who uses zombies as part of his act. Which all play into the minor plot point of rumors of increasing regulations surrounding the use of zombies.

There are quite a few things going on in the story at this point, some of which are evolving from the previous book, and some which are specific to this one. Evolving relationships are one thing, especially when you're not sure about what they are or should be. Adding in some evolving self-discovery too... well, that makes for a completely different story. All of which is on top of a series of very gruesome murders...

Well, all of it together adds up to a book I had a hard time putting down. Over fifteen years and this is a series that's still going strong. Very strong. There's nothing particularly dated about it I'm finding, and I'm most definitely looking forward to starting the next book: Circus of the Damned.

Pride And Predjudice And Zombies: The Dawn Of The Dreadfuls - Steve Hockensmith

Pride And Predjudice And Zombies: The Dawn Of The Dreadfuls
Steve Hockensmith
Quirk Books
Copyright: 2010
978-1594744549

The amazon.com product description:

Journey Back to Regency England—Land of the Undead!

Readers will witness the birth of a heroine in Dawn of the Dreadfuls a thrilling prequel set four years before the horrific events of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. As our story opens, the Bennet sisters are enjoying a peaceful life in the English country side. They idle away the days reading, gardening, and daydreaming about future husbands until a funeral at the local parish goes strangely and horribly awry.

Suddenly corpses are springing from the soft earth and only one family can stop them. As the bodies pile up, we watch Elizabeth Bennet evolve from a naive young teenager into a savage slayer of the undead. Along the way, two men vie for her affections: Master Hawksworth is a powerful warrior who trains her to kill, while thoughtful Dr. Keckilpenny seeks to conquer the walking dead using science instead of strength. Will either man win the prize of Elizabeth's heart? Or will their hearts be feasted upon by hordes of marauding zombies? Complete with romance, action, comedy, and an army of shambling corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls will have Jane Austen rolling in her grave and just might inspire her to crawl out of it! 

I never really expected to find myself really enjoying Dawn of the Dreadfuls, and I still don't fully understand the draw this whole type of book has these days. I know I posted on the topic once before last year: Zombies Vampires and Classics.

Anyway, I got a copy of this book at a book-fair opportunity I got through a work opportunity. So, I figured I'd give it a try. Pride And Predjudice And Zombies: The Dawn of the Dreadfuls was actually a pretty funny read. My copy was an ARC, so not all of the illustrations were there - in fact, they were represented by place-holders of the first image.

Yes, it's classed as horror, but the book wasn't too gruesome at all. As I said, I found it more funny than anything else. On the other hand, I've never read the original Pride and Predjudice by Jane Austen, so I can't say anything about some of the reviews I've seen on how these books have destroyed the characters. On the other hand, I went in with no preconceptions or expectations and as a result, I found myself pleasantly surprised.

The book is called "Dawn of the Dreadfuls" suggesting it might explain where the zombies might have come from, but it didn't do that at all. Instead, it sets up a resurgence of the zombie menace, hinting that there might be something even earlier that could be told.

A funny read that might even lead to my reading the mayhem that started the whole thing off in the future. Maybe. Still, this was a book I enjoyed reading.

Bullet - Laurell K. Hamilton

Bullet
Laurell K. Hamilton
Berkley Hardcover
Copyright: June 1, 2010
978-0425234334

The amazon.com product description:

The all-new novel in the #1 bestselling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series.

The triumvirate created by master vampire Jean-Claude, necromancer Anita Blake, and werewolf Richard Zeeman has made Jean-Claude one of the most powerful vampires in the U.S. He's consolidating power in himself and those loyal to him, doing in America what Belle Morte did in Europe when she was at her height of power. She almost owned Europe, and there was those who are determined that Jean-Claude won't do the same in America. Jean-Claude's motives may be kinder, but as any lawyer will tell you: motives matter, but you're just as dead.

Assassins are coming to St. Louis to kill them all. Anita knows they're coming, but even being forewarned doesn't mean you can win.

To be honest, I'm actually not sure what I think of the story in the latest Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novel. I know this much though, it was a captivating read. I couldn't put the book down until I'd finished it last night, and at times, I was even reading as I walked. And yet, it didn't strike me as "the new favorite" of the series the way some of the other books did the first time I read them.

Perhaps it's just that when the story ended, it was clear that things were still building up for the next book, not that things were resolved. This was definitely a book of changes, both political and personal. Asher plays a big role, as does Richard. Given their roles in earlier books, it's kind of nice seeing them back, and, in Richard's case, not just to fight.

There's plenty of excitement to the story too though: the Vampire Council, assasains, the Harlequin and some major interpersonal conflicts are all major elements of the story and worked together with some very gruesome crimes to keep me riveted to the book.

At the same time, we learn quite a bit about some of the characters from earlier books and their backgrounds. Valentina was one of those, as was Asher. There's also some interesting snippets of facts about vampires and the various weres of Anita's world.

On the other hand, I found myself slightly lost on some of the aspects of the book. I just couldn't remember who certain characters were/where they came from. Guess I need to re-read some of the earlier books in the series.

Overall, Bullet was a book that I quite enjoyed reading.

Flirt - Laurell K. Hamilton

Flirt
Laurell K. Hamilton
Berkley Hardcover
Copyright: 2010
978-0425235676

Amazon.com product description:

 When Anita Blake meets with prospective client Tony Bennington, who is desperate to have her reanimate his recently deceased wife, she is full of sympathy for his loss. Anita knows something about love, and she knows everything there is to know about loss. But what she also knows, though Tony Bennington seems unwilling to be convinced, is that the thing she can do as a necromancer isn't the miracle he thinks he needs. The creature that Anita could coerce to step out of the late Mrs. Bennington's grave would not be the lovely Mrs. Bennington. Not really. And not for long.

 I really wish I could rave about this latest installment in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. I love the books (and have bought every one of them the day they came out in hardcover since Cerulean Sins). However, the novellas have been just irritating to me. They're just far too short for your money. Micah was bad enough, and it was a paperback. Flirt? Well, they want $30.00 for a book that is under two hundred pages, double spaced. As good as the story is (and it is a good one), that's far too much money.

Overall, the story was a good one, with plenty of tension and several surprises. In the process, Anita (and us) learns more about the were-lions as well. I don't want to give anything away and ruin the story, which is making this review a lot harder to write. I will say there's a lot more Anita and a lot less of the others in the group in this story. The other thing is, I've seen a lot of reviews of the other books in the series recently that complain about the sex, but I have to say in this book it doesn't seem excessive.

One thing that I thought was really neat about Flirt is the little article about how Laurell K. Hamilton wrote the book, how the idea came about. It's a neat insight into how she thinks and writes, a lot of which comes out in her blog, but this one had more to it than that.

But, for thirty dollars, I think I'm going to wait for the paperback. Either way, it's not going to be too long before the next Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter book. Bullet is supposed to be coming out later this year.

Zombies, Vampires and Classics

Can someone explain how come this is so popular now? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!(Amazon.com link), Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters (Amazon.com link). Not to mention the two I saw the other day at work: Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter (Amazon.com link) and Jane Bites Back: A Novel (Amazon.com link). There's a whole bunch more I'm finding as I searched these ones out too. All of them have come out this year.

What's with the zombies? Zombie graphic novels, zombie christmas carols and more. I'm just completely confused. Of course, I'll admit that I haven't read any of these books as of yet, although I'm somewhat curious about Pride And Prejudice and Zombies. The good reviews have been absolutely great, but there've been a fair number of bad ones as well. On the other hand, not having read the original Pride And Prejudice, I wonder if I'd get the jokes.

I'd half-way blame it on the Twilight phenomenon, but as far as I can tell, these books are reverting to a completely different type of monster from the romance/paranormal genres. Pride And Prejudice And Zombies is most definitely classed as a horror novel.

If anyone has a clue why these have become so popular, I'd love to know.

Divine Misdemeanors - Laurell K. Hamilton

Divine Misdemeanors
Laurell K. Hamilton
Ballantine Books
2009
ISBN: 978-0345495969

The amazon.com blurb:

You may know me best as Meredith Nic Essus, princess of faerie. Or perhaps as Merry Gentry, Los Angeles private eye. In the fey and mortal realms alike, my life is the stuff of royal intrigue and celebrity drama. Among my own, I have confronted horrendous enemies, endured my noble kin’s treachery and malevolence, and honored my duty to conceive a royal heir—all for the right to claim the throne. But I turned my back on court and crown, choosing exile in the human world—and in the arms of my beloved Frost and Darkness.

While I may have rejected the monarchy, I cannot abandon my people. Someone is killing the fey, which has left the LAPD baffled and my guardsmen and me deeply disturbed. My kind are not easily captured or killed. At least not by mortals. I must get to the bottom of these horrendous murders, even if that means going up against Gilda, the Fairy Godmother, my rival for fey loyalties in Los Angeles.

But even stranger things are happening. Mortals I once healed with magic are suddenly performing miracles, a shocking phenomenon wreaking havoc on human/faerie relations. Though I am innocent, dark suspicions of banned magical activities swirl around me.

I thought I’d left the blood and politics behind in my own turbulent realm. I had dreamed of an idyllic life in sunny L.A. with my beloved ones beside me. But it becomes time to wake up and realize that evil knows no borders, and that nobody lives forever—even if they’re magical.

 This is the latest book set in the world of Merry Gentry, by Laurell K. Hamilton, following on Swallowing Darkness. Divine Misdemeanors was a quick read: I started it the day before yesterday and finished it last night, but that was at least in part because I couldn't put the book down.

This series is different from the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series - magic and the various creatures of Faerie have always been known about and live in the open. In the other series, there's still a sense that they're still coming out of hiding. I like both sets of books equally, though they're very different.

I said this about Torch of Freedom yesterday, that I felt like I had to reread the series to figure out what was going on. I felt the same way about Divine Misdemeanors when I was reading it. Not so much "who is this?" but "when did this happen?" or "what was it that involved this?", especially for some of the side-plots such as the military group.

Divine Misdemeanors does tie up some loose ends from the first books very nicely, loose ends I'd completely forgotten about. It's all set in the human world with very little of the politics of faerie - either court involved. Definitely interesting to see what Merry's life is like under more 'normal' circumstances. Her life certainly deserves those quotes around 'normal'.

I haven't seen anything in Laurell K. Hamilton's blog about the next Merry Gentry book this time, but I'd definitely have to guess that she's got more story to tell after this one, just by all of the things that have been hinted at but not resolved by the end of the book. I do hope so as I've found that I like the story quite a bit.

Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton

Incubus Dreams
Laurell K. Hamilton
Berkley Publishing Group
Copyright Date: 2004
0425098243

According to the cover of Incubus Dreams:

As consultant to the Regional Preternatural Crime Investigation Unit, Anita's called in on what appears to be a case involving a serial killer - a vampire serial killer, who may be preying on strippers.

She's sure that none of the local vamps are responsible - but her judgement may be clouded by a conflict of interest. For she is, after all, the consort of Jean-Claude, the ever-intoxicating Master Vampire of the City - something that both her human friends and her ex, the alpha werewolf Richard, are quick to point out.

Surrounded by suspicion, overwhelmed by her attempts to control the primal lusts that continue to wrack her as result of her passionate contacts with vampire, werewolf, and the shapeshifter Micah, Anita is pushed to her limits - and beyond...

Although I first bought and read Incubus Dreams when the book was first released, I hadn't re-read it since, so reading it this time was almost like reading the book for the first time again. I'd chosen to re-read this one now because of Vittorio, the criminal of the book, because of the role he plays in the latest of the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, Skin Trade. When reading Skin Trade, I'd found that I couldn't remember a thing about his previous appearance.

However, I also found quite quickly, that compared to Skin Trade I could really understand the complaints I've seen in other reviews of the recent books in the series. The crime factor was almost pushed to the background in comparison to the metaphysics and sex, especially the sex. Add to that the loose end of the family that wanted their son raised...

On the other hand, Incubus Dreams sets up some of the situations in later books with Malcolm and his vampires, including The Harlequin, so the lack of resolution in that case is key.

I'm almost certain that the first chapters of the book though were used as a short story in another anthology, although I can't remember the title. I just know that I'd read them before, even when I first read the book.

Incubus Dreams is long - over six hundred pages, and there's plenty going on in the story, and plenty of changes in character interaction. This was the book in which the triumvirate between Anita, Damian and Nathaniel was set up, and quite a bit of the book is the three of them learning to balance out the effects that had. As a result we do see more of Nathaniel and the others. Jason was also absolutely perfect. I guess that stuck in my head because of his role in Blood Noir, another of the books I read recently.

Overall, I'd have to say this wasn't my favorite book in the series, but it was still a good read.

Skin Trade - Laurell K. Hamilton

Skin Trade
Laurell K. Hamilton
Berkley Books
Copyright Date: 2009
978-0425227725

According to the cover of Skin Trade:

When a vampire serial killer sends Anita Blake a grisly souvenir from Las Vegas, she has to warn Sin City’s local authorities what they’re dealing with. Only it’s worse than she thought. Ten officers and one executioner have been slain—paranormal style.

Anita heads to Vegas, where’s she’s joined by three other federal marshals, including the ruthless Edward. It’s a good thing he always has her back, because when she gets close to the bodies, Anita senses “tiger” too strongly to ignore it. The weretigers are very powerful in Las Vegas, which means the odds of her rubbing someone important the wrong way just got a lot higher.

My first reaction on finishing Skin Trade, the latest book in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series was WOW!. Admittedly, this was at somewhere around two this morning. Which should say something. For the last three/four days, this book has kept me up far past my bedtime, because I just had to know what happened next.

In Skin Trade Hamilton has gone back, at least somewhat to the early days of the series, when most of the story was centered around the crime Anita was solving. It worked. Up until the end of the book, there's very little sex, which makes for a nice change.

There's very little from most of the main/secondary cast of characters in St. Louis, as the majority of the action takes place in Los Vegas (as anyone who follows Laurell's blog, probably knows already). At the same time, we get a lot more from Edward, Olaf and Bernardo, which is sure to please a lot of people.

The role of the were-tigers is growing as the books progress. I can't help but wonder what's going to happen in the next book, but that's how the Anita Blake books usually leave me. This one sure had a few twists, which I really don't want to spoil.

What I found though, as the book progressed, is that I'm really going to have to reread Incubus Dreams, as apparently, the villain of this book played a role in that one. Also, the events of Blood Noir come back to haunt Anita here. All of this series are interconnected now. Although I started out reading the Anita Blake books out of order as I could borrow them from the library, I wouldn't want to do that since about Narcissus In Chains. Now, I think I'd be completely lost.

There are times when I've doubted the wisdom of buying these books the day they first come out (namely with Cerulean Sins and Blood Noir, one of which I haven't read since the first time, and the second, which I didn't read until a few days ago), but not this one. I loved it, and I'm probably going to keep buying them right away. Something about this series has captured my imagination.

Unlike Blood Noir, which was quite thin, at least compared to Skin Trade and some of the other recent books, you really get your money's worth in the latest installment of the series. It is just a few pages short of five hundred pages, and packed with action.

Still, both of the two most recent books have been set outside of St. Louis, and I'm missing the interactions that go on there (although not Richard. Since Cerulean Sins I've found that I'm not that fond of him) and I hope the next book will return to the rest of the characters.

Skin Trade, although it seems to have resolved a few of the issues of recent books, has left plenty for the next books, especially if the return to solving crimes. If only the issue's that Anita's been having with the police she has to work with. Not to mention the everlasting personal issues she has.

Overall, I found that I really liked this book, and I'm inclined to think it will make both camps of Hamilton's fans happy. There's plenty there for those who like the new, relationship-centric aspects of the story, but she's returned to the crime-solving that attracted readers to the early books as well.

The Strain - Guillermo Del Torro and Chuck Hogan - Preliminary Review

The Strain
Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
William Morrow
Copyright Date: 2009
978-0061558238

According to Amazon.com's description:

The visionary creator of the Academy Award-winning Pan's Labyrinth and a Hammett Award-winning author bring their imaginations to this bold, epic novel about a horrifying battle between man and vampire that threatens all humanity. It is the first installment in a thrilling trilogy and an extraordinary international publishing event.

The Strain

They have always been here. Vampires. In secret and in darkness. Waiting. Now their time has come.

In one week, Manhattan will be gone. In one month, the country.

In two months--the world.

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing . . .

This is my preliminary review of The Strain, although it may also be my only one. Currently, I'm just under half way through the book. It's weird, I'm not exactly enjoying the read, but I still can't put the book down for once and for all. I have to know what happens next. I just can't stand to read more than a little bit at a time.

Not because the writing is bad or anything like that, but because the book is a horror novel. And, boy, is horror the right term. From the very first pages, The Strain had me creeped out. Nearly every scene ends with increased tension, before changing to another viewpoint and starting all over again.

The biggest problem I have with the book is that I don't normally read horror (aside from the Laurell K. Hamilton books, which I still dispute being horror).

On the other hand, I was curious about Del Toro's style, given that he's the director in charge of the upcoming Hobbit movies. If horror is his forte, I hope he'll limit himself aside from any scenes in Mirkwood. There, he can have free reign. His background as a movie director shows through in the styling of The Strain: there is scene after scene that I could see being on the theater screen just from the way it was described. I would be very surprised if this book and it's upcoming sequels were not going to be made into movies in the next few years. On the other hand, while it will make a very good movie, I don't think I'd want to see it. The book is creeping me out enough. Having the (vivd) descriptions portrayed visually would be even worse. If you like horror, this book will probably suit you very well. Certainly most of the reviews I've seen on the chapters/indigo site have been very positive, as have the ones on the Amazon.com page.

Some of the people I've talked to have described The Strain as being very Steven King-like, particularly comparing it to his earlier works. Not having read any of those, I can't say for sure either way, but given some of the things I've heard about his books I'd probably agree just on the basis of descriptions.

I'm rather comparing it to what I remember reading of Richard Preston's The Hot Zone, which I read years ago, and have more or less forgotten. Still, some things have stuck.

One neat thing is the book itself under the jacket. The cover isn't plain or cloth-covered like so many books are. Instead, the cover is decorated with a foggy red picture. Yet another, minor, layer of creepiness.

Also, given the current trend towards vampires as not evil, especially in teen books and urban fantasy, Del Toro has gone back to the very earliest vampire stories, making the vampires, or at least Mr. Leech, out to be complete evil. I'm still not sure about the rest, but it certainly makes for a very different story.

I have to know what happens, so I'm going to keep reading for a while, but it'll probably be slow going, simply because I also need to be able to sleep at night.

Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton

Blood Noir
Laurell K. Hamilton
Berkley Books
Copyright Date: 2008
978-0425222195

According to the jacket of Blood Noir:

Now the old bastard's dying and I wont have time to forgive him before he goes...

Jason Schuyler is a werewolf. He's also one of Anita Blake's best friends, and sometimes her lover. And right now he needs her - not to be a vampire hunter, or a federal marshal, or a necromancer, or even for her rank in the werewolf pack, but because his father is dying. He needs Anita because she's a pretty woman who loves him, who can make him look like an everyday guy, who agrees to go home with him and help him say good-bye to the abusive father he never loved. The fact that Jason is about as much an everyday guy as Anita is a pretty woman is something they figure they can keep under wraps for a couple of days in a small town. How hard can that be?

Really by now, Anita Blake should know better.

Marmee Noir, ancient mother of all vampires, picks this weekend to make a move. Somehow she has cut the connection that binds Anita and Jean-Claude, leaving Jean-Claude unable to sense what is happening. Dangerous even as she sleeps, buried in darkness for a thousand years somewhere beneath the old country of Europe, Marmee Noir reaches out towards power. She has attacked Anita before, but never like this. In Anita she senses what she needs to make her enemies tremble...

Blood Noir ended up being one of the books for the TBR challenge lite, although when I bought it the day it came out last year, I'd fully intended to read it right then. In fact, I got half way through before I put it down. I don't exactly remember why though now. I think it was due to the fact that I kept buying new books I didn't want to wait to read (still a problem).

Anyway, it took the release of the new book Skin Trade, a couple of days ago to get me to pick Blood Noir up again. I'm really glad I did now that I've finished it. I can't wait to read Skin Trade now, either, but I've committed to reading The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan first.

Blood Noir, the sixteenth book in the Anita Blake series is really Jason's story. A recurring character through the series, he really comes into his own here as he takes Anita to visit his family because his father is dying of cancer. Of course, nothing goes smoothly for them. It ranges from being mistaken for somebody else, to the return of Marmee Noir.

This book is shorter than some of Hamilton's books, but the pacing was fast, so the story didn't seem to suffer any. I will definitely agree with some of the reviews I've read that there is a bit too much sex, but that's been the case in all of the books since Narcissus In Chains. It's just become part of the book style now for me.

I think for readers from the Romance section of the bookstore that the sex isn't going to be a problem either. Perhaps that's one reason I noticed it less this time: because I've been reading more of the paranormal romances where sexual activity is more or less expected. I'm not all that familiar with the expectations of readers of the horror section of the bookstore where the Laurell K. Hamilton books are shelved these days, so I can't really say.

Either way, I did enjoy reading Blood Noir and I found that I couldn't put the book down as it raced towards the climax this afternoon/evening. Still, I don't think it's my new favorite of the series, a position held jointly by Danse Macabre and The Harlequin.

My other reviews of Laurell K. Hamilton's novels:
Swallowing Darkness (Merry Gentry)
A Lick Of Frost (Merry Gentry)
Skin Trade (Anita Blake)

Other vampire-themed novels/series I've reviewed:
Bone Crossed - Patricia Briggs
Dark Lover - J.R. Ward

Other reviews:
Books And Other Thoughts: A Trip Out Of Town Gone Bad

Book Rambling: Urban Fantasy Categorization

When it comes to the urban fantasy/paranormal type of novel, how do the publishers come up with the classification?

This is something I'm wondering about as I can think of a number of authors/series/books that are all paranormal in theme, yet they're shelved in different areas of the bookstore (at least at Indigo). The examples I'm coming up with off the top of my head are the Laurell K. Hamilton books (both series), Patricia Briggs Alpha and Omega and the Mercy Thompson series', Tanya Huff's Blood series and the Sherrilyn Kenyon Dark Hunter books.

In recent years the Anita Blake and Merry Gentry books have been moved from General Fiction to Horror. Personally, I'm inclined to think that if they were going to be changed to any category it should have been Romance with the way the books after Obsidian Butterfly have changed. However, the Horror section of the bookstore is well represented in the Paranormal books category: There's also the Anne Rice books, Kim Harrison's series and the Kelley Armstrong books. I'm sure there are others as well. These are just the ones I know about.

Both Tanya Huff and Patricia Briggs are located in Fantasy. I can see a double reason for Briggs: aside from the fantastic elements of these two series, she's got some other fantasy series as well, so it makes sense to keep all the books by the one author together. Which explains why Nightseer by Laurell K. Hamilton can usually be found in Horror, even though in my mind it is out and out fantasy. Tanya Huff, however is slightly less understandable. If the Blood series is in fantasy, why aren't the Kim Harrison (although I believe the most recent book, White Witch, Dark Curse, is in fantasy) books or the Laurell K. Hamilton ones? Both the Anita Blake and the Blood series have vampires, werewolves, demons etc in them. Admittedly, the Blood books are somewhat funnier, with some running jokes and the like. On the other hand, the final book in the Smoke spin-off is downright scary. It set me to using a nightlight for the next couple of nights after I finished it.

Kenyon's Dark Hunter books are all located in Romance, but otherwise they are very similar to the first authors listed. This one I can see, as they are all the 'guaranteed happy ending' type which I believe is typical of the romance novel (Kenyon is the only author I've read from this section so far). I've seen the same formula in the Five Hundred Kingdoms series by Mercedes Lackey, which has at some points in the past been located in Romance.

Does anyone have any answers to this question?

Laurell K. Hamilton's next book title

According to this blog entry, the next book by Laurell K. Hamilton will be titled 'Divine Misdemeanors'. It's to be the next Merry Gentry book and it's going to be a somewhat different story from the other books in the series. Which makes sense, as the goal of those first books was for Merry to get pregnant. Now that's been achieved so Laurell is going to have to come up with something new. According to Indigo Books, Divine Misdemeanors is to be released at the end of October.

I know I'm looking forward to it (along with the other book she's working on, currently titled 'Skin Trade', which is to be released at the beginning of June).

A Lick Of Frost

A Lick Of Frost
Laurell K. Hamilton
Ballantine Books
Copyright 2007
ISBN: 9780345495907

The latest book in the Merry Gentry series.

A Lick of Frost was a good read, although I found myself lost at the beginning. Either I hadn't read the last book or there was a jump in time between the two books, as the charges against Merry's guards made no sense to me.

Events certainly move things forward in this book too, I found that I couldn't put it down until the last page was turned. However, I'm glad I got the book from the library as it was far too quick a read. I finished A Lick of Frost in just over two hours. I'm waiting to see what happens in the next book now.

One thing which is quite tantalizing about this series is the way that new little tidbits about the world she's created keep coming to light in each book, such as the various aspects of the treaties signed with the U.S.A.

I'm trying not to give things away, so all I'll say is that Laurell has wound up a couple of the threads of the story, while starting off a whole bunch more for the next book.

As is usual with Laurel K. Hamilton's books, this one is not for the little kids.