"Nothing to fear, folks, just your neighborhood animator."

Guilty Pleasures is book one in Laurell K.Hamilton’s Anita Blake series. There are a total of ten books in this series with an eleventh book coming out in February of 2003.

Background Info

The main character Anita Blake is a necromancer (raises zombies) and vampire executioner (receives warrants to kill certain vampires). She works for Animator’s Inc. Their clients pay to have them raise the dead to solve a crime, a dispute in a will, etc. Along with raising the dead, Anita must deal with Vampires. Vampires are legal residents in the USA only if one breaks the law and found guilty, a vampire executioner must do the deed. Anita works with (note not for) the police to solve certain mysteries of the supernatural and preternatural sense.

Characters

Anita Blake – (Human) 24 years old. Woman with attitude…gotta love it!!

Bert – (Human) Anita’s boss at Animator’s Inc. and loves the almighty dollar.

Rudolph “Dolph” Starr – (Human) Detective Sergeant head of the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team (RPIT)

Catherine Mason-Gillette – (Human) Anita’s lawyer and friend.

Monica Vespucci – (Human) Lawyer and Catherine’s friend.

Jean-Claude – (Vampire) 400 years old. French background. Wants to make Anita his human servant.

Nickolas – (Vampire) Around 1,000 years old. Master Vampire of the city of St. Louis.

Willie McCoy – (Vampire) Only has been a vampire for 1 year. Knew Anita before he became a vampire.

Valentine – (Vampire) over 100 years old. He has scars and a personal vendetta against Anita due to a previous encounter.

Aubry – (Vampire) 500 years old. Entertainer at Jean-Claude’s club Guilty Pleasures.

Phillip – (Human) Stripper at Guilty Pleasures, Vampire Junkie, ultimately sacrifices himself thinking he was protecting Anita.

Winter – (Human) Works for Nickolas.

Clive Perry – (Human) Another detective.
***There are more characters in the book***



Summary

There have been vampire murders in St. Louis and Nickolas wants to know not so much why, but who. She forces Anita to figure out this mystery in a treacherous way…by using Anita’s close friend Catherine as bait. Anita is very loyal to her friends.

In Anita’s first encounter with Nickolas, she has a nasty encounter with Aubry and Jean-Claude gave her the first mark of three to not only save her life but to take the first step in making Anita his human servant. The first meeting with Nickolas didn’t go as well as planned and ended with Jean-Claude giving Anita her second mark during Anita’s escape and Jean-Claude locked in a coffin.

Anita took the case to find out who was killing the vampires to save her friend Catherine. She teamed up with Philip to enter a private circle to look for hints. This ended up making more foes and Philip’s eventual demise.

Anita finally solves the mystery but has more of revenge on her mind as she teams up with Edward and the Wererats to enter Nickolas’ lair during daylight hours. The revenge was going rather well until Anita realized that Nickolas was not in her coffin. This created one heck of a problem. So much for easy in…easy out. Anita revealed to Nickolas who the murderer is in this deadly final encounter.

As far as the ending……well, I am not going to spoil it for you.

My Opinion

Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series is captivating and just plain awesome. I have always loved Anne Rice’s vampire novel, but Laurell’s style of writing is more addictive than Anne Rice. *gasp* Don’t get me wrong, Anne Rice is awesome but Laurell K. Hamilton is fierce competition.

I love how Laurell has portrayed Anita Blake’s personality. It is similar to my own. Sarcastic sense of humor, no nonsense temperament, yet a subtle sentimental side.

The descriptiveness Laurell uses in her books places you right there…as Anita. She does such a wonderful job you cannot only see what she has written, but you can practically touch and smell things as though you are right there.

Conclusion

WARNING: Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series is highly addictive!!!!

I just couldn’t put the books down. I would lie down at night and not realize that I had spent 2 hours reading. Then I found my self with every spare moment reading this series. I would even try to clear some extra free time to read Laurell’s books. Obsessed?? Perhaps, but I prefer to say totally addicted.

Books In The Anita Blake Series
Book One: “Guilty Pleasures”
Book Two: “The Laughing Corpse”
Book Three: “Circus Of The Damned”
Book Four: “The Lunatic Café”
Book Five: “Bloody Bones”
Book Six: “The Killing Dance”
Book Seven: “Burnt Offerings”
Book Eight: “Blue Moon”
Book Nine: “Obsidian Butterfly”
Book Ten: “Narcissus In Chains”
Book Eleven: ????????? Release date is February 2003

~SF BOOK CLUB EDITIONS~

“Club Vampyre” – It has the first three books of the series all in one book. (Poster Included)

“The Midnight Café” – It has the next three books in the series all in one book.

“Black Moon Inn” – It has the following two books. (Poster Included)



Dark Honey © 2002