I can't wait to see more Edward! I especially loved him in this book! Definitely one of the better books I found. ( )

Man, I love this series. I should probably be embarrassed to admit that, but I'm not; not one bit. Anita is tough, bold, and the epitome of a kick-ass heroine. Jean-Claude is one of the best romantic heroes I've ever read (vampire or otherwise), and even Richard is starting to grow on me. The writing, as always, is exceptional.

Picking up the sixth book in this series made me absurdly happy, and I went into it with high expectations. Luckily, Hamilton didn't disappoint. I can't wait to sink my teeth (pun totally intended!) into the next one! ( )

This is where I stop reading lol it’s just going in a direction that’s not for me, so I say good day. ( )

Someone has hired an assassin to kill Anita Blake. She barely dodged a bullet when an assassin waited for her in her apartment. She killed him but the assassins will keep coming until she finds out who hired them. Her friend Edward is helping her find out and guarding her in the meantime.

I’m amazed this is the first time someone has hired a hit-man to kill Anita Blake. She is hostile to everyone she meets and threatens to kill anyone that doesn’t agree with her way of thinking. She kills people, vampires and lyncanthropes left and right without ever feeling bad.

In this book, she is still dating Richard, the werewolf and Jean-Claude, the master vampire of the city. Jean-Claude made a deal with her that if she gives him an equal chance with him as she did with Richard that he would not kill Richard and if she chooses Richard in the end, he would leave her alone. She has been dating both of them for seven months. She should have chosen but since she is a selfish twit, she has not chosen. I think she enjoys the attention. She says she loves them both differently but wants to marry Richard. She hasn’t slept with either man though. In prior books, she claimed she wanted to wait for marriage because of her high morals but now she wants to sleep with Richard. I guess her morals are wishy-washy. Richard wants to turn into his beast before they make that final commitment because he isn’t sure she can handle it.

Anita has forced her way into Richard’s werewolf pack politics. She can never keep her big mouth shut and goes around threatening everyone without thinking or knowing the rules of the pack. Richard has been working hard to change how the pack operates. He believes in the sanctity of life and refuses to kill anyone. Currently, in order to become pack master, the challenger has to fight the leader. It’s a fight to the death. The current pack master is Marcus who uses his power and position to bully the pack members. His mate, Raina, is a cruel woman who is making porn movies where she forces pack members to have sex and turn into their beast while having sex. Some of the movies are snuff movies where she and Gabriel, a panther lycanthrope, kill humans or weaker pack members while having sex with them in front of the camera. A lot of pack members want change and are backing Richard to become the new pack master.

Richard has fought Marcus and won but refused to kill him so he did not become pack master. Anita keeps trying to change Richard. She thinks he should just kill him and get it over with. Anita’s answer to everything is to kill. Richard thinks that if he kills Marcus, because of his beast, he will enjoy it and lose a part of himself. Anita doesn’t understand his way of thinking. It’s funny how Anita thinks she is so much better than vampires and lycanthropes because she thinks they are monsters but she is the real monster.

Not only does Anita have to deal with an assassin and the werewolf politics, she has a vampire client, who is falling apart. He is literally rotting and turning to mush. Anita is looking into ways to save him. She also was called to help the police investigate a vampire murder. His heart was ripped out in some kind of ritual using magic. Anita, once again, has a lot going on and has to find a way to deal with it all.

There is a lot of sexual tension in this book. In the previous books, there was hardly any sex…at least involving Anita. Now all of the sudden, she agrees to something that is similar to a ménage à trois but doesn’t involve actual sex but has her letting Richard and Jean-Claude make-out with her at the same time in order to draw power from each other so they can defeat Marcus. It’s called a triumvirate, where a vampire, a lycanthrope and a necromancer join forces to become a powerful force.

Their first attempt at the triumvirate causes a bit of a problem. Anita raised zombies that were buried under the tunnels or castle or whatever it is where Jean-Claude lives under the Circus of the Damned. She also raises three of the lesser vampires at the same time. This all happens during the day. There is a long drawn-out conversation about how to put the zombies back in the grave but not kill the vampires. It was so annoying that I just flipped through page after page until it was over. There was a lot of talk about power and the feeling of power being drawn through Anita’s body throughout the book. It bored the heck out of me.



In the end, Anita freaks out when she sees Richard turn into his beast and runs away from him. She runs to Jean-Claude and has sex with him. Of course, she has second thoughts and regrets sleeping with him in the morning. Richard shows up in the morning and catches her naked in Jean-Claude’s bed but tells her he will always love her. Oh gag!

The author makes it seem as though every man is hot for Anita Blake yet there are not any good qualities about the woman.

She is arrogant and rude to everyone and has to have the last word no matter what.

She has super pale skin and has curly black hair that was described in one book as short around her face and long in back (isn’t that a mullet?)

She wears hideous clothes like polo shirts, black jeans and white Nikes together and wears a fanny pack. She even wears pantyhose under lingerie.

She has huge scars all over her upper body.

She’s judgmental, prejudice and a hypocrite.

She threatens to kill everyone and has told Richard and Jean-Claude she’d have no problem killing them even if she loved them.

She kills people without feeling bad.

Her only redeeming quality is that she feels sorry for the underdog sometimes.

I just don’t get it. I used to think that the author, Laurell K. Hamilton, was purposely making the readers dislike Anita in order to slowly transform her character into something likeable but now I just think the author is clueless and really thinks that Anita Blake is cool. I keep reading the books and hoping I will come to like Anita but I still don’t like her. I think I like her even less. I may have to give up on this series. I will read a few more books but somehow, I think I will be disappointed.

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Synopsis: 'Anita is faced with a new challenge- a professional hitman. For vast sum of money, someone is paying professionals to kill her – and kill her quickly. In many ways this is far more terrifying than anything she has faced before – she has faced witches and werewolves, vampires and even faeries all with murderous intent, but never a coldly professional human killing her for business. And never one willing to use modern technology to do it.
She and Edward have to find a way to keep her alive and, for preference draw out both the hitmen and the person paying for them so they can be put out of business. Permanently.
Alas, she can’t focus on anything so simple as a death threat – not with werewolf politics playing such a large role. Tensions between Richard and his pack leader, Marcus are getting ever higher, with the pack splitting in half between the two contenders. Richard could defeat Marcus – but the only way to be the new king is to kill the old one – something Richard refuses to do. Marcus and Raina have no such compunctions and are doing their best to use his morality – and his vulnerable people – against him.
There’s also a visitor in town. Sabin is a vampire who has given up blood and has suffered from a virulent disease because of it, rotting alive. It’s hoped that Anita’s powers as a Necromancer may be able to cure him. But to do that involves Anita exploring her powers with both Richard and Jean-Claude and discovering how their magic can work together – which could also be useful in making Marcus and Raina back down.
And of course, there is the big relationship conflict. Anita and Richard go ever closer but Jean-Claude is still there, demanding equal time. Anita has to make her choice – and deal with the fallout of it when she does. To say nothing of the standard dramas of vampire politics, new arrivals and the drama they can bring.'

Review: I saw that coming...I knew who had hired the hitman. In any case, the plot hung together well and was interesting. I do wish Anita would dump Richard and get rid of the angst. ( )