Blood Noir
By Laurell K. Hamilton

I bought this book Tuesday afternoon and finished it Wednesday. This in between working, being a mum and an evening meeting and dinner. Yes, I enjoyed it.

Anita travels with Jason - her best friend and a werewolf - to visit his dying father in Asheville. They get caught up in a case of mistaken identify - as has happened all his life, Jason is mistaken for his cousin Keith Summerland, bad apple of the Summerland clan, and mixed up in things that make it dangerous for Anita and Jason to be in town. Not too much sex, not too many vampire politics, not too much paranormal weirdness. The positives are a meaningful storyline that is interesting, a father-son story that is handled pretty well, and the potential for some good books to come.

This book reminded me of the early Anita Blake books. Anita is actually doing things rather than worrying about her multiple-partner sex life. There are humans in the story, with very human feelings, and all the silliness that wraps itself around a wedding. Jean-Claude is barely in the story at all, and although I really like Jean-Claude, it was refreshing to just deal with Jason and some weretigers, strange magic with Marmee Noir, the Mother of All Darkness, and Richard, who tries to bespell Anita.

Worth a read. Especially if you enjoyed the rest of the Anita Blake novels.

Harlequin
By Laurell K. Hamilton

At the start of bestseller Hamilton's solid 15th adventure to star vampire hunter Anita Blake, Malcolm, the priggish head of the Church of the Eternal Life (the vampire church), is so desperate for help in dealing with the Harlequin, a troop of vampire enforcers and spies so feared vampires are forbidden to speak its name, he turns to those he considers sinful and corrupt - Anita and her sweetie, Jean-Claude, St. Louis's Master of the City. The Harlequin may have targeted Anita and the powerful triumvirate she has forged with Jean-Claude and Richard Zeeman (aka Ulfric of the werewolves). According to the rules, the Harlequin must make contact through delivery of a mask - white to indicate they are watching, red for pain, black for death. Anita receives a white mask, but the members of the Harlequin aren't playing by the rules.

Shorter and more tightly structured than the previous entry in the series, Danse Macabre, This book is satisfying with its straightforward supernatural politics and steamy (but not extreme) sex. Anita is beginning to understand her powers better and I loved seeing Edward back. The plot lines involving Edward's family versus his job struggle, the were politics and their tenuous relationship with the vampires, the fight between Richard and Jean-Claude, and the whole threat of the Harlequin itself is pretty thrilling. I devoured this book in a weekend.

Danse Macabre
by Laurell K. Hamilton

The uniquely complicated life of Anita Blake, the St. Louis–based necromancer, gets even more complicated when Anita discovers she may be pregnant in the 14th novel in bestseller Hamilton's vampire hunter series. Her sexual magic powers require multiple lovers, so there are six potential fathers. One possible dad, werewolf Richard, has trouble understanding that, baby or not, Anita's still a federal marshal who raises the dead and executes vampires. In addition, terrifying, life-threatening obstetrical challenges are involved, since the maybe-mommy has to deal with vampirism and several strains of lycanthropy coursing through her veins. That Anita has no detecting to do is disappointing, but playing hostess to a gathering of North American vampire Masters of the City, ostensibly in town for a performance by a vampiric ballet troupe, keeps her plenty busy. When the vampire ballet takes the stage toward the end, several new plot elements emerge. The very lack of a finale suggests that there's no end in sight for this fabulously imagined series.

I am hooked on this series. If you enjoy horror, sex and metaphysical powers, then try it. If graphic sex offends you, then don't pick it up.

Micah
by Laurell K. Hamilton

Vampire hunter extraordinaire Anita Blake arrives in Philadelphia to raise a witness from the dead so that his testimony can be taken with the help of Micah, the king of the wereleopards, but she is more fearful of spending time alone with Micah, her former lover, than dealing with a zombie.

While really a short story, it's a great filler in between the books in the Anita Blake series. Provides some good background on Micah, Anita's nim-raj. I would like to see her return to more vampire slaying and action - hopefully Danse Macabre returns to more action and concentrates more on Anita's skills and her job, rather than the sex (but don't lose it altogether). I will keep reading Laurell's novels - I enjoy the worlds that she creates and the lust as well.