Crimson Death

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #25

by Laurell K. Hamilton

In her twenty-fifth adventure, vampire hunter and necromancer Anita Blake learns that evil is in the eye of the beholder...

Anita has never seen Damian, her vampire servant, in such a state. The rising sun doesn't usher in the peaceful death that he desperately needs. Instead, he's being bombarded with violent nightmares and blood sweats.

And now, with Damian at his most vulnerable, Anita needs him the most. The vampire who created him, who subjected him to centuries of torture, might be losing control, allowing rogue vampires to run wild and break one of their kind's few strict taboos.

Some say love is a great motivator, but hatred gets the job done, too. And when Anita joins forces with her friend Edward to stop the carnage, Damian will be at their side, even if it means traveling back to the land where all his nightmares spring from...a place that couldn't be less welcoming to a vampire, an assassin, and a necromancer: Ireland.

From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Vampires, Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal Romance, Fiction

717 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 11, 2016

About the author

Laurell K. Hamilton is one of the leading writers of paranormal fiction. A #1 New York Times bestselling author, Hamilton writes the popular Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels and the Meredith Gentry series. She is also the creator of a bestselling comic book series based on her Anita Blake novels and published by Marvel Comics. Hamilton is a full-time writer and lives in the suburbs of St. Louis with her family.

Reviews

[Skilly Dragonna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Updated and revised review below*******
This review is titled "Haters gonna hate" and may be deleted by Goodreads like my review of Dead Ice was.
The Good: Edward/Ted always brings actual plot to these books (although he isn't in the book as much as he should be)
Nathaniel grew up and finally started showing that he is a were leopard and not a fluffy housecat. It was nice to see him go along for once and not be left home to do all the cooking and cleaning and basically housewife stuff for Anita.
Damien got pulled out of his coffin or wherever he has been for several books and got to see some action and became stronger. He has always been a favorite.
Little problems got resolved the big bad got taken care of police/marshal work got done and there wasn't so much sexy schmexy pages.
The bad: it took more than half the book to actually get to Ireland. And so so So many unnecessary conversations with characters who's sole purpose seemed to be just background filler in this book. Some guards and other were animals who Anita is not doing the schmexy with could have been cut out of the story and it wouldn't have made a bit of difference. Edward: where is Edward of old. See my reading activity for more...

There is always a couple of guards or cop types that can't deal with Anita and all her men so of course pissing contests ensue.
And then there are all the beautiful Adonis men in Anita's life who are so full of angst. I'm hoping some of the "Food" for the ardeur men start getting eliminated. Pages of these gorgeous men whining that Anita doesn't love them like she loves her main squeezes.
The Ugly:
The "rape" of Damien. Did not enjoy seeing him so submissive and letting Nathaniel control his emotions like that. This is not ok!LKH could have tried to strengthen the triumvirate of power some other way.
The "Goodbye" Jean-Claude feed the ardeur schmexy schmex. For the love of all things holy! No woman I know or who I have ever met has screaming orgasms while -to put it bluntly- they're being throat fucked. That is a little TMI into the authors personal life that I want no part of. It happens too often in this whole series of books for me to be comfortable with any more.
Then the end. WTF was that? 708 pages and we barely get 10 devoted to the whole entire reason they went to Ireland in the 1st place? Jesus Christmas! We, as long time readers deserve more. 25 books in and the whole ending is a rushed cop out yet again
Then there was the Ardeur. Can we puh-leeze just do away with Anita's vagina being like Sauron's ring? "Three snatches for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone. Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne.
One Vagina to rule them all. One Vagina to find them. One Vagina to bring them all and in the darkness bind them." Someone just take the thing and throw it into the fires of Mordor already.
And I'm glad Nathaniel's hair got cut off. Ankle length hair doesn't look good on anyone. Hello circa 1970's Crystal Gayle

[Jilly · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know when someone is trying to tell you a story and then they get so fixated on details that don't matter that you forget what the point was? And, you no longer care. You just want out of the conversation so badly that you are willing to set yourself on fire to get away from them.



This book is that person telling the story.

I just want to know where the hell is the editing team? How could they allow such a messy clusterfuck go to print?

It's not just the usual B.S. of having Anita describe what every single character looks like in excruciating detail every single time they are mentioned. And, it's not even the fact that there are conversations about absolutely nothing, and have nothing to do with the overall story, that last for up to 40 freaking pages. It's not even the ridiculously endless descriptions of every place, every body movement, every side-eye, every speculation on motivation ever on the face of the earth. Or, the complete girl-hate that shines through so strongly (either a female is a lover/admirer of Anita or she is evil) (the expression "girl trap" is endlessly used to describe the manipulations of us evil females).



It's the complete mess of the whole. The stuff I mentioned above takes precedence over the actual story to a point where the story is completely lost and a huge disaster. The problems/crimes become secondary to the bullshit, and when they are "solved", it hardly makes sense. Most of the questions are never answered. Most of the solutions are ridiculously half-assed, out-of-nowhere, "that makes no sense", kind of stuff. As a paranormal mystery, it totally fails.

But, I guess the thing is that if someone had taken a red pen to this book before printing, it would have either had to be a very bad short-story about a bad group of vampires getting caught. Or, it would have been a very bad short-story about polygamous relationship therapy. Put together, we got a very bad, very long, mismash of both.

[1-Click Addict Support Group · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't always know why I keep reading this series. For one thing, at this point, I know what everyone looks like. I have them so ingrained into my brain after a million books that I don't need a full reminder of each character in every new installment. I get that there is a complicated poly-relationship. I don't need details of every kiss goodbye. It shouldn't take multiple pages to simply list who she has to say goodbye too. I do like how the author has adapted the sexual aspects of the relationships. It's not as complicated as it used to be. They all accept that they have multiple partners, multiple loves, and they go on with their lives.

I am loving this relationship ideal they've come to agree on. It's sexy, it's practical, and it works for them. I love the way characters grow and evolve. I love watching Anita go all badass and kill the monster. No spoilers there. If you've read the book, you know that's how she rolls. I do get annoyed at how she so often seems surprised at just how powerful she is. It's almost as if she has forgotten since the last big battle just what her powers can do, so she seems to learn a new one in each book and then rarely use it again. Not in this one. In Crimson Death she draws on some of her previously earned powers and rocks them like the Queen she is.

Nathaniel goes from being a pretty boy to being a badass in his own right. He deserved that. He has deserved that for such a long time, and it was wonderful to watch. He has grown so much, yet so slowly that this felt so justified. I adore any chance to read more about Edward. He's just such a deeply layered character, who has also changed so much throughout the series. Damian deserved a little more time in the spotlight. He sort of got shafted, getting brought to the front then neglected in so many of the earlier books.

I think at this point though, this series reminds me more than anything of a soap opera. It's more about the characters relationships than the mystery and murder, and sometimes monotonous dialogue goes on for pages. I can just see some overly made-up, sub-par actors reading the dialogue while over-acting. It's like my frumpy housewife, can't look away, guilty pleasure. I don't want to tell everyone how much I enjoy it, but then if I find out you enjoy it too I feel as if I've found a kindred spirit. I can't look away no matter how bad it gets, and I binge on it nonstop until it's over. It's reliable in its mediocrity, and I kind of love that about it. ~ George, 3.5 stars

[Lorena · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I first started reading this series, the books averaged between 300-350 pages in paperback. This latest entry is 708 pages in hardcover, and it took me FOREVER to get through it, because the page difference is not made up of more plot. Instead, it has never been more clear that LKH is mining her own humdrum life of polyamory, therapy about polyamory, and working out for filler material to surround increasingly meager and thin “plots,” and dressing it up in allegedly-sexy vampire and lycanthrope clothing. If anything could be said in favor of this drab, hodgepodge, train-of-thought masquerading as a novel, it would be that LKH has really done her part to make the polyamorous community seem less threatening and titillating to those in monogamous relationships. Nothing, NOTHING, could sound more boring and tedious and less tempting than polyamory as described by LKH, even if it does involves the most physically perfect specimens ever known on earth.

Here’s the basic plot we start out with:

Anita: Some weird shit is happening to people I know.
Some boytoy: You ate Marmee Noir.
Anita: Yeah.
Boytoy: Marmee Noir had the power to make weird shit happen.
Anita: I’m with you.
Boytoy: Specifically, the exact things that are now happening around you.
Anita: Go on.
Boytoy: Someone who had absorbed Marmee Noir’s powers by, for example, eating her, would then have the power to make this weird shit happen, even if they didn’t realize they were doing it.
Anita: I have no idea what you are saying or why you think it is relevant to mention this now. I really wish someone could figure out what could possibly be causing this weird shit to happen around me.

SPOILER ALERT IT WAS BECAUSE ANITA ATE MARMEE NOIR THAT THE WEIRD SHIT HAPPENED. But that’s not really what matters or what the book spends any time on, so don’t worry about it.

Instead, remember the last book, where Anita cracked the case by literally grabbing a computer and praying into it so God would let her talk to the victim on the other end of a web cam? All of a sudden, in this book, Anita has no idea how to use a computer. Getting access to an email attachment suddenly involves waking up one of her men from a dead sleep to accompany her to the vampire computer lab (yes, that’s really a thing) and enter her login and password, because despite not being your grandmother, this is all too complicated and newfangled for her. Hopefully, Apple is working on an iGod app for the rest of us, so we can just pray fervently into our phones and laptops and get instant access to the exact email attachment and/or cat gifs we are looking for at that particular moment.

On the other hand, Anita’s penguin collection makes a rare appearance! So weird to see any mention of something that has any connection to the beginning of this series! But here, it’s used as evidence, once again, of how superior Anita is to other women in every way. In this particular case, she demonstrates her excellence by not really giving a shit about how her boyfriends decorate their shared bedroom, contributing only the penguins and some negative feedback on stuff she doesn’t think she will like (but ends up liking). Anita is the ultimate “guy’s girl,” who just doesn’t understand those silly other girls or the girl things they like (or her own deeply internalized misogyny). Any “girl” stuff Anita likes, on the other hand (like her penguins) is totally fine and also charming.

Despite her claims to have no sense of interior decorating, Anita sure has a lot of opinions about the decorating style of her vampire servant Damian’s girlfriend Cardinale (got that?). The hideously monogamous Cardinale is an “extreme girl,” as evidenced by the fact that she gets jealous and wants a monogamous relationship. This is obviously the wrong way to be a person. Cardinale’s crimes are demonstrated through such grievous sins as decorating her shared bedroom with Damian with a flowered bedspread. I don’t even know why such a monster is allowed to live in this series. I don’t understand why Anita hasn’t gone right out to get a warrant from the Marshal service and executed her. But I guess she serves as yet another important object to demonstrate (again) that everyone in a monogamous relationship is either (1) evil and selfish, or (2) trapped in that relationship by the person who is evil and selfish.

Just to drive that point home, Ascher, who was trapped in a monogamous relationship with some dude whose name I can’t really be bothered to remember or look up right now, on account of how Ascher was an abusive dick who also kind of tried to murder everyone, is now ready to become less of an abusive and murderous dick and also less monogamous thanks to - and I am not making this up - therapy and antidepressants. How does that even work? Isn’t vampire physiology pretty different from just human? Can he even eat a solid pill and digest it, or does he have to suck the blood of some medicated depressed person to get his dose? And who, exactly, is this therapist everyone is working with? What therapist specializes in the issues of vampires and were-animals who were born in and were tortured throughout different centuries and now are all in a giant polyamorous relationship with each other? Is there a degree certificate you can take in this? What accrediting agency oversees that?

But we don’t have any time to go into that, because instead we need to spend several dozen pages describing what everyone is wearing at the gym. LKH has really gone overboard with her belief that minutely describing every detail about a person’s physical appearance counts as character development or creating atmosphere. Personally, I don’t think I’ve learned everything there is to know about someone by learning whether their gym shorts are long or short, compression or loose, and what color their hair is and how it is styled for working out. There is also a Highly Dramatic Scene where some new guard messes up his job and picks a (verbal) fight with Anita, and she ends up promising him that she will throw down with him physically at the gym, and they go back and forth for several pages about whether or not she is serious, and when exactly they will schedule this fight, and then...they never fight. The book forgets about the whole incident entirely, because everyone has to go to Ireland.

This brings us all the way up to Chapter 33: Weresnakes On A Plane. Not really, but it would have been more interesting, actually, as opposed to the word-by-word playback of 8 hours of idle plane small talk. For example, page 373:

“So, Mephistopheles, why didn’t you rebel and become the perfect little angel?” I asked….
“I went the other way,” he said, in a voice that almost purred. “I decided to be my name.”
“Mephistopheles,” I said.
“Devil,” he said.

OMFG and this is at least the 18th time in the book so far that someone has pointed out that Mephistopheles is one of the names for the Devil, and they usually call Mephistopheles “Devil” as his nickname, and often shorten that to “Dev.” Which is short for “Devil.” Because Mephistopheles means “Devil.” I’m not sure you’re getting this. Should I go through it again? You can bet LKH will. She also keeps using the phrase “girl trap” throughout this book, to indicate the act of asking a question you don’t really want an honest answer to, even though at least half the time, they are addressing the accusation to men. This careless misogyny is grosser and more morally objectionable than any of the consensual-but-supposed-to-shock-you sex acts anyone gets involved in, frankly.

As usual, once they are actually in Ireland and the “investigation” part of the book has (finally...kind of…) started, Anita is exactly as smart or as stupid as the lazy plotting requires her to be. Her intelligence and competence is not a fixed point around which her reactions to any given plot occurrence can be guessed. No, if a stray idea for a plot point would require Anita to be exceedingly stupid and forget all common sense and experience, then that is what she will do.

For example, she has a blind trust that the police in Ireland will be sufficient to protect her and her friends from a super-strong vampire who wants to kidnap and kill one of their group, even though the police in Ireland had no idea that this vampire or any other vampire lived in Ireland, have no experience with vampires, have non-existent vampire-fighting and -containing equipment, and also actively hate Anita and don’t even want her in the country. But no, I’m sure that will all work out just fine. (SPOILER ALERT THIS DID NOT WORK OUT FINE.) It also extends to Anita saying stuff like (p. 387) “In all the years I’d been intimate with vampires, first hunting them and then sleeping with them, I’d never asked about cloud cover. I mean, if your skin fried in the sunlight, was a cloudy day worth the risk?”
…
…
25 books, and this is the FIRST time she’s ever dealt with the question of how cloud cover effects vampires? But then, after that, Anita amazes everyone with her mad vampire-hunter skillz by...revealing that she has read an article of relevance to her job. She explains that (basically) she has an RSS feed that sends her relevant stuff on her computer. So...now she CAN use a computer? Or is this something someone else has to print off and read to her?

Whatever. Anita and her friends get captured by the bad guys, who demonstrate their badness by giving Nathaniel an involuntary haircut. Then they get out and everyone is fine (except the people it is more convenient to kill off) and there is the usual 2 page wrap-up of stuff that should have been fully-fleshed-out plot but couldn’t really be explored because of all the gym clothing.

And there is your super-long review of this super-long stupid book.

[EA Solinas · Rating 1 out of 5]

WARNING: this review discusses aspects of the book "Crimson Death" that may be triggering to survivors of rape and sexual abuse. So proceed with caution... and do not read the book.

Forget pride -- optimism is what goes before a fall. After hearing that Laurell K. Hamilton's latest book was going through the editing wringer, I actually began to hope that we might get at least a passable book. Not a great one, but at least readable.

Alas, my optimism was unwarranted. Not only is "Crimson Death" a truly, brain-meltingly awful Anita Blake book, it may actually be the worst Anita Blake book that Hamilton has written yet. It may not be the most plotless or the slowest, but this long tedious slog combines all the worst aspects of Hamilton's writing like some kind of bad-urban-fantasy Voltron -- as well as the most horrifyingly offensive subplot that I have ever read.

One thing to note is that this book is actually more like two loosely-linked books, with 90% of the tedious relationship stuff dumped in the first half of the book, and 95% of the tedious, slow-moving thriller stuff in the second half. In the first half, Damian is having bloody night sweats and horrible nightmares, and (like everything else) it can only be cured by getting in bed with Anita and Nathaniel. After a particularly bad nightmare, their otherwise-useless little tri suddenly gets a massive power-up. Also, there's other personal drama -- Nathaniel wants a baby, Cynric wants JC to bonk him, and so on.

Meanwhile, Edward gets the Irish Gardai to reluctantly invite Anita to Ireland, because vampires have started attacking there for the first time ever... except not, since Damien's former master Moroven has lived there for centuries. Anita immediately butts heads with the Gardai and Edward's military buddy Nolan (since annoying people is her specialty), and begins investigating the local fairies and selkie populace as she tries to figure out whether Moroven is responsible for all this. Spoiler: she actually never actually accomplishes anything, and only makes life harder for the Gardai.

"Crimson Death" has all the qualities you would expect from LKH's awful books -- it has all the relationship melodrama (in-fighting, neediness, misogyny, whining, trashing Asher and Richard), and then it has the bad thriller elements (misogyny, the token "hater" cop, gun fetishization, Anita horning in on investigations with her thug squad). All of that, and more, are here. But there is one thing that sets this book apart from her other books: the rape.

Simply put, there is a scene early in the book when Nathaniel develops new vampire-like mind-control powers... and promptly date-rapes Anita and Damian. While it's dismissed as accidental, he shows no remorse or horror at what he's done, only smug glee that he forced a straight man to have sex with him despite Damian's unwillingness to do so. To reinforce that he is a raping monster, Nathaniel tries to deliberately rape Anita a few scenes later, using his new powers. The most horrifying aspect of this subplot is that Hamilton never treats it as what it is -- instead she has Jean-Claude congratulate a smug Nathaniel for his power-up, while one of Nathaniel's victims listens.

Furthermore, Hamilton's ghastly justifications for the rape are nothing short of stomach-turning, since many of them are eerily similar to real-life rapists' justifications. Even worse, this is only one of THREE rape-related scenes -- it's also revealed that Damian has raped women, and Nathaniel argues that Edward's sexually-maladjusted, traumatized stepson (who was revealed to have raped girls in a previous book) is expressing perfectly normal sexual attitudes.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Hamilton's entire book is riddled with horrifying attitudes that may make readers goggle in disbelief. For instance, bisexual men are depicted as sexual predators who constantly try to seduce straight men, and Damian is raped into bisexuality after previously being heterosexual.

These would be a reeking, oozing stain even on the best book ever written, and "Crimson Death" is not that book. The book oozes by at the speed of frozen honey, with Anita spending half the book simply sitting around having relationship drama with her dozens of men and women (and occasionally beating someone senseless or threatening to kill them). The plot technically starts at exactly the halfway point -- but unfortunately it's just as slow-moving, and riddled with poorly-written red herrings, plot holes and Anita failing at everything she tries. Most of the story is crammed into the last few chapters, which end abruptly and without much resolution.

Anita is her usual self in this book -- violent, obnoxious, petty, jealous and persistently hypocritical, picking fights with anyone who doesn't immediately change their thoughts to mirror hers. She also spends a lot of time trashing the Gardai for trying to save lives and not having enough guns, and at one point goes off about the evils of antidepressants (which Hamilton claims "[fry] a brain that works just fine until it stops working") like a devout Scientologist.

But the worst character by far is Nathaniel. After about twenty books, Hamilton seems determined to make people see Nathaniel as a force to be reckoned with. Aside from Anita screaming at anyone who doesn't respect him, Hamilton accomplishes by giving him new superpowers, which he uses to rape and bully people. The only good thing about this character is a scene where a vampire "disfigures" him, which is so melodramatic and excessive that it becomes hilarious.

"Crimson Death" is not just a turgidly loathsome book, but a downright offensive one that attempts to defend and justify rape. As a result it's not just boring and horribly-written, but left me feeling dirty and drained as if I had been drowning in a peat bog.

[Lukas Anthony · Rating 1 out of 5]

To anyone like me, who continues to more or less hate-read this series....I think we need to get real and create a support group or something, because we must all have some serious, serious issues.

[Mskychick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Negative 2 stars

My god, I just want Anita Blake to shut up. Talking, talking, talking, whining, talking, complaining, endlessly describing. SHUT UP!

Only 35 pages in and someone is already whining about who is sleeping with who.  God, I'm sick of this. Stop it, already- there's been books and books in this series filled with this drivel.

Also, disdainfully calling something a "girl trap" is rude and demeaning. You're a woman, too, Ms. Hamilton. Should we tar you with the same brush?  Do you hate your own gender that much?

These books feel more and more like the author's attempt to over-justify her own lifestyle and perform her own talk therapy ad nauseum.

Remember when this series used to be good? Those days are long gone.

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've always had a love-hate relationship with this series, and the hateful aspects have come to dominate the way I talk about these books to people. So in this review I'm going to attempt to explain why I've stuck with them for this long despite their many, many flaws. (Very briefly, horrible pacing, overlong didactic conversations and too much tab A-slot B sexual description).

Nostalgia. First and foremost, at one stage this was a fantastic urban fantasy series with some pretty good writing and inventive and rich world-building. Its always taken a serious look at the law-and-order aspects of the modern world with open exposure to werewolves and vampires and it does so from the point-of-view of law enforcement. The series has had it's ups and downs though, with some really rocky books once Anita gained succubus powers that she couldn't control, and another few that ignored the best aspects of the books in favor of introducing far too many unneeded new supernatural aspects (rainbow tigers?).

Preternatural Law Enforcement. I confess something of a fascination with the US approach of para-militarization of the police. Hamilton postulates a world where that process is actually necessary to deal with actual threats. In Anita's world making sure you're armed if you leave your bedroom isn't just insane gun-fondling weirdness; it's actually a rational approach to a clear and present danger. It actually shines an interesting contrast on the people who behave like this in the real world though; I very much doubt that most of them are at risk of insane centuries-old were-assassins breaking into their apartments to kidnap them. Beyond just the changes in law and policing that this world necessitates, there's usually a lot of SWAT and small-unit police action in these books along with crime scenes and back-at-the-precinct action in these which feels well-researched. (I'm not sure if it actually is though).

Politics. Not the vampire/were-animal politics; most of that is more than tedious. I mean the politics of this point-of-view. Anita is religious and probably the biggest gun nut that I can think of in speculative fiction (and that includes the MilSF books that raise gun-porn to incredible new fetishistic levels). In American culture at the moment, most of that would go along with some of the most restrictive attitudes towards women and sexuality that typifies the red states. Instead, we get very positive views of LGBTIQ issues and one of the few positive portrayals of kink and polyamory outside of actual erotica. Anita herself has undergone a change over twenty-odd books from a conservative mindset to being part of a bisexual polyamorous group relationship. There's a huge focus on the communication and negotiation that would be required for that to work. And the author is very therapy-positive as well with a lot of references to the things that Anita and her people have actively worked on, something that's quite realistic given the level of trauma these people suffer on a regular basis. All up we get positive points-of-view of both conservative attitudes towards religion, guns and law enforcement and liberal attitudes towards women, LGBTIQ and sexuality, and you just don't get many positive things to say about all of that in one place these days.

I could talk about characters, but I don't think I've got much positive to say about those. Thirty-page conversations that are meant to take ten minutes while the characters are in a hurry have beaten any love I had for these characters out of me.

Now all that being said, I think I'm just about done with this series. The things I like are being drowned by the things I don't, and the issues are getting worse, not better.

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Personal recommendation: don't go into this expecting much of anything, and then you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Of course, after the last book, where I got so frustrated I actually gave it a single star and a rant, where I told myself I was stopping the series altogether, I fully didn't expect to pick up this 25th book at all.

Especially because we were going to have to deal with whiney-boy Damian as a main character.

But. Haven't I invested so much time and energy loving this series as a whole? But. If I can just ignore the constant insert part A into part B endless sex scenes, wouldn't this be better? But. If I can ignore the fact that so much relationship drama is dragging me around as if I had a noose around my neck and some cowboy was riding away holding the other end of the rope, can't I just focus on the police procedural and the supernatural goodness?

Yeah. I can. I have been for so many books, now, ever since right after Obsidian Butterfly, admittedly my favorite book of the series.

So, yeah, this wasn't so bad.

Damian and Nathaniel and Anita were the first complete triumvirate. They were the weaklings. They were also the first solid power base that Anita had since all the crap between Richard and Jean-Claude. I hoped to see a lot better stuff between them, but then Damian's thread was just marginalized and the author turned him into the ugly red-headed step-child. Literally. For more than a dozen books. And all the while, Anita collected men (and now women) as if they are trading cards and those relatively solid storylines and wealth of opportunities with her supernatural power base just kinda slipped away.

Until now. Hell. I was very worried it'd be just another whiney whiney Damian story, but no, he's actually starting to grow up and take responsibility, which is about time since he *is* a 1000 year-old vampire. I was relieved. It felt like some of the good times I had before Obsidian Butterfly, when Anita was backed into a real corner and she had to dig *really* deep for some hidden juice. And she does, once again. The supernatural stuff in this one was great. It's the main reason I keep on reading the series.

Ireland. The leadership of the Harlequin. What does Mommy Darkness's shards of power mean for Anita's fate? I mean, the American Vampires are just consolidating their power, now, but there *is* another whole world out there. I'm glad that this issue is being addressed, finally. I hope to see even more of that. This book is actually establishing a very solid reason to do so.

Damian's old master, the lady of fear, is an awesome reason for Anita to go on a political duck-hunt across Europe and beyond.

As for the tragic death of a main character? Well, what can I say? It's about time. And no, it's not Damian. As far as I'm concerned, he's golden again. It's nice to have the hints of an actual triumvirate that WORKS. You know, rather than just using relationship drama to limit the overpowered monstrosity that is Anita Blake, we might actually get back to core issues like Ethics and Other Overpowered Monstrosities. :)

So yeah, if I ignore those things that annoy the shit out of me, I have to admit that the rest of this book was pretty damn cool. This is the Ultimate Flawed Novel, but I can't help but think that we need to have a cheat-sheet for readers of the series. Something like an Anime Filler List for tv episodes that don't follow the Manga, but in this case it'd be pages we can successfully skim or just plain skip because of relationship drama or tired sex scenes.

Yeah, Um, you can skip pages 23-68, 74-82, 112-150, etc., etc. :) (Not real pages you can do this with, I'm just citing an example.) :) We need this for the whole series, then. Let people enjoy a really awesome UF, sometimes skipping whole Character-Named books entirely, and love it as much as some of us have, but without the angst. :)

[Bubble B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edited review

Edward!!!!!!!!!
Edward, Edward, Edward!!!!! Finally!!!!! Mussed him sooooooooo much! I really hope this book brings it, because the last one, pffft.. didn't even want to read it again, and that's when you know the book didn't do it for me. Obsidian Butterfly is the book I judge all the other books by. Even though a couple of my favorite characters didn't say hello, the fact that there was no Richard drama and we got to find out so much about the most enigmatic character of the series, made it the most awessome.
I hope that with Ted back, we will se great things.


ps.: What b'out the weddin?? Reeeally want to see about that.


This review contain spoilers. Sort of.


It has been two and a half weeks now that i have finished reading the “Crimson Death”, twenty fifth book of this long lived, fine series, and it took me this long to absorb the contents and calm my feelings and be capable of a somewhat impartial review.


I love Anita. I love her world, her friends, her enemies and her lovers. I have loved it all for many years now, and somehow, i still get excited when word is released that some sort of addendum to her vast history is being made. But today, and for some time now, said excitement is bittersweet. I know that Laurell is being very careful about anita’s personality and her wishes, her love for coffee, Nathanael and Sigmund. But for a while back, Anita became a two dimensional character whose only life experiences revolved around sex and some sort of metaphysical emergency. Her likes and dislikes, her wishes, her love, her job, her quirks and what made her tick vanished and became non important, non mentioned. It is better now. The house in Jefferson county is mentioned, Sigmund has his special appearances, coffee is drunk. But we still miss what Anita started up as: a crime fighter, a badass practitioner of necromancy, a girl, with an old, if not a little skeptical, soul. I miss RPIT, the SWAT, Vegas, Dolph, Animators Inc., and even that prissy Larry.


Our girl has been through a LOT. She comes from a three book long Drought, an engagement, an open relationship, a breakup, a seven book long no intercourse on the pages, a metaphysical condition in which sex with (many) different men is not even allowed but encouraged, a hierarchy of sexual favors going like: Boyfriends - lovers - friends-with-benefits - only-in-emergency-food, and finally, a marriage proposal gone haywire. And this is only in the “bedchamber” department.


I know that people grow up. That girls mature into women. That what once was black and white, is now a myriad of grey. But they do not lose their essence. And if an action filled book series become dimmed by long, hard thrusts(on interminable pages), than maybe, it is time to re-read all the books and find what was lost.


In regards to the “Crimson Death”.


I have always hated Damien. And poor thing, it was not ever through his own fault. I have felt he was a spinless prig, with deprecating words and no action. He never allowed Anita to be anything to him, and always resented her for it. What i forget, is that nobody’s perfect. Not even a millennia old vampire. Especially a very old vampire. It takes time to get over one’s traumas and insecurities, but a man such as Damien, who was born so long ago, in a society with such different rules and aspirations from our own, and later locked away in a castle under the rule of a crazy bitch, doing her bidding and being tortured.. It will fuck you up. And he has not taken his time to heal. He’s come from one distorted relationship of a thousand years, bound himself with another woman, who he didn’t know and started dating someone who was as crazy, but in a different way, than his first Moroven. And the fact that he CHOSE to let go of all the bad feelings made me his fan. Made me remember that not everything has to go Anita’s way, although it usually does in the end.


In the synopsis, Laurell painted the fact that things were going to shit in ireland, that Damian was going to have to step up, and (best of all) that Edward was going to be there. That was after the book was scraped of and re written, thank the Gods. Apparently, in the first draft, Damian was kidnapped by Morover, The One Who Must Not be Named (kudos for Ted) further remarking on his spinelessness and necessity to be rescued over and over and over...


With some added bonuses of very important people in danger, a few deaths, some unexpected allies and of course the mention of one Van Cleef, it went all according to plan. What disappointed me during this book, was the fact that it took less than 30% of the book for the facts of the synopsis to unfold. The other 70% of the book was spent on over explanation, wedding bullshit, misbehaving Harlequin, over explanation, more relationship bulshit from Damian and Cardinale, over explanation and sex.


The thing is, it could have been the other way around. Everything on the first 70% of the book would be well placed and very comfortable in 30%, and the very awesome part of crime fighting, ass kicking, a few sex scenes to feed the ardeur, a little bit of tragedy, because.. Anita, and investigation, could be placed in the final 70% of the very awesome Crimson Death 2.0.


Regardless, the memory of better times, respect for what once were, and Laurell’s resistance and determination to bring back an era of grandioseness, is the thread that ties my relationship with Anita and this series. I think Laurell could do no wrong. Weird and faulty, yes, but no wrong. I would continue to read anita underwater. It has been for many years comfort reading for me. Although i have reread the whole series a couple of times now, there are a few books (Guilty Pleasures, Burnt Offerings, Danse Macabre, The harlequin, Skin Trade, Kiss the dead, Affliction and of course, the holy grail of it all, Obsidian Butterfly) that stay on my nightstand for cold lonely days, and hot arduous ones too.


Thank you Laurel. I needed this book. This series actually.

[Morgan · Rating 1 out of 5]

This whole series is a mess now. I just want to go back to the Anita Blake from the first 6 books. When she was an amazing character, not this mess of drama filled nonsense. I want to like this series again, but I just can't....

You can find more of my reviews here:
Chapter One

[Terri ♥ (aka Mrs. Christian Grey) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, well first I thought I might DNF. It had been so long, I wasn't sure I could survive Anita's head. Her obsessive need to have an hour long conversation during a thirty second walk to the bathroom annoyed me and about broke me. I dislike Anita very much and have from the beginning of the series. It's the cast of side/minor/major characters and my fantasy to walk in her shoes that keeps me going. I love we had a taste of all my favorites. Micah, JC, Nicky, Dev and Sin, oh and Edward made the book worth the read. And while Nathaniel was never my favorite, I did find myself liking him a lot more in this book including Damion. The only favorite of mine I missed in this story was Jason. And apparently not reading the novella about him has left me in the dark about somethings mentioned in the book. My heart hurts for that or those persons who didn't survive. (Cryptic so no spoilers) Anywho, I hope we don't have to wait years for the next book. Otherwise, I will have to go through that horrible adjustment of Anita's need to control and discuss obsessively about everything around her.

Ah yes, after all the unnecessary conversations, the ending was rushed. They won too easily. It felt like the author ran out of gas. I didn't like Asher's fate in the epilogue either.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anita gets a call from Edward asking for her help with an Irish paranormal problem. They don't know what is causing it but Ireland, a supposed vampire free zone, has had a rash of vampire killings.

For the first 50% of Crimson Death they are discussing Anita going to Ireland, their relationships and feelings, their relationships and feelings, their relationship and feelings.

There are a few issues with Anita heading to Ireland. The vampire known as “the one who made him”, aka Damian’s creator and the ruling vampire in Ireland (an evil, sadistic, “bitch”) has lost control of the vampires. They are also consider that the fae magic may or may not be fading and that more vampires (the undead) are able to rise in Ireland with the lack of fae power on the land. Finally, there is the issue of Ireland having a peace keeper force and doesn’t believe in violence or executions for any reason, which includes vampires and paranormal creatures.

The idea of turning the Executioner and Death loose on Ireland just made me squeal with what ifs.

Once Anita hits Irish soil, they must figure out all the above. While Anita once again must wrangle her personal life, professional life and when those times when those lines absolute get crossed.

I’m going to preface my review by saying I have read every book in this series and have been a fan for years. Then I’m going to say, I wish I had just skipped the first 50% of this book and just read the second half. I almost gave up on a series that I have loved and that is a first for me.

What I didn’t like:
The dialogue was mind numbing and monotonous and went on and on for pages. Everyone had to discuss how they felt. It was like watching a B movie with actors that were over the top.

Brother husbands??? Jean Claude??? I can’t even process that one.

What I liked:
I liked both Damian and Nathaniel have come into their own.
I liked that Edward got some page time.

In the end, Crimson Death went back to the story telling that the fans have come to expect.

I received this ARC copy of Crimson Death from Berkley Publishing Group in exchange for a honest review. This book is set for publication October 11, 2016.

My Rating: 3 stars

[Jeanny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Re-read 01/21/17 DNF I was reminded why I hate Nathaniel & how boring the story line was during the reread. 1 star.
-----------------
Read 10/10/16
2.5/3 generous stars. I can honestly say 25 books in I'm ready for an end to this series. It's passed it's expiration date imo it has perhaps 2 books left in the overall arc. I need to see an end near or I may jump ship soon bc it's getting ridiculously repetitive. This was an extremely tiring story. Also I now hate Nathaniel.

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've come to the conclusion that my relationship with Anita is like the literary equivalent of a battered housewife: "Why do you stay?" "Well, he used to be so GOOD, and he doesn't mean to hurt me, so I'm sure if just give him another chance..."
So when I say that this one's not that bad, understand that what I really mean is, "Hey, I only have a black eye and a sprained wrist! No broken bones this time! It's been a good day!" (and no, I assure you, I am not making light of domestic abuse, but it's still a sadly accurate analogy)

The good news: We have a real case, and for the most part we stay focused on it. Anita even FLIES ON A PLANE, not just provides a "consult" over the phone and calls it "a case".

The better news: It involves Damian, my long time winner for "Most Unfairly Neglected Vampire in the History of Ever." And thanks to a case of the screaming daytime meemies, Anita is finally forced to reacknowledge that he exists, that she has a freakin' triumverate with him that she's ignored completely for no good reason whatsoever, and that perhaps she should get her head out of her @$$ and do something about it.

The not even remotely surprising news: All that is nearly crushed under the weight of SO MUCH POINTLESS TALKING ABOUT NOTHING. This book is 700 pages, which includes about 300 pages of stupid, boring dialogue that enhances the story not the teeniest, tiniest bit. There's the usual ridiculously long descriptions of every single characters' hair, eyes, complexion, and build (using judgements on how well they may or may not bulk up if they were to work out, which maybe they already do, and maybe they don't, but if they did...) There's the obligatory hostile questioning of Anita's qualifications to consult on a case by other law enforcement officers (Shots: 2, if you're keeping up with the AB drinking game). There's the recapping of every nuance of Anita's relationship with each man in some stupid conversation by people who already know everything they're saying, so why would they possibly be discussing it again? (And I still say if you choose to start reading a series at the 25th book, then you deserve to be missing some details.) And of course, EVERY TIME that Anita is in a hurry to get somewhere (a "date" with Jean-Claude that did not appear to involve actually going anywhere, a triviality like a plane to catch...), then some whiner is going to choose that moment to urgently address whatever stupid rehashed grievance they have. (Hey, y'all, Asher's sorry he's been a dick. He swears he's changed. You'll take him back now, right? Pretty please? With whips on top?) Oh, and let's definitely not forget that Edward's called "Death" by the vamps and Anita's called "War" ('cause a Horseman's scarier than the "Executioner"? Still doesn't sound as cool). (Shots: at least 4, possibly 5)

But if you can push your way past all the bulk, there's still a decent story under there. And Edward, though his coolness factor has been seriously diminished by all the girly relationship conversations he and Anita keep having. And a big bad that's mostly worth fighting. There's a lot of stupid stuff that doesn't make much logical sense (like the number of vampires that seem to have popped up in a span of days in Ireland--was every vamp there makin' multiple babies every night? The math just doesn't add up), but we've been beaten into submission enough to mostly try to ignore silly things like logic. And did I mention Damian? Though we got shafted on their "reconnection experience". (Can you believe I'm actually complaining that a sex scene was NOT written in excruciating detail?) Super bonus: one of the random extraneous guys FINALLY gets killed off. Maybe if we could just eliminate one per book, we'd eventually get down to a reasonable number??

p.s. Did you know Nicky's a sociopath? Just checking. (Shots: 6? Honestly, I stopped counting...) Oh, and Nathaniel's got purple eyes. You already knew that, too? K. (Shots: 469 --heh, see what I did there??)

[Suz · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

I am saddened to have to round up to a three but this one was only barely OK. My rounding up to 3 is from loyalty to the series. It's nice to revisit beloved characters and there were a couple of places that made me smile, but mostly I had to force myself through this installment. I am worried that my hard-core fan-dom of this series is waning, and hoping that it was just this installment to the series.

First let me say this:

I didn't mind the erotic turn the series took. Admittedly not all the books are equally good, but I thought Hamilton did a good job of writing justification for the erotics into the story and even did a fair job of using it as a reason to force the MC to face her baggage and grow personally. But I didn't stop loving this series after Obsidian Butterfly, in fact Narcissus in Chains remains my favorite book in the series, and that's pretty much where everyone who now hates the series because SEX! seems to mark as the decline of the series. I do think she has flogged a dead horse with it and has continued to do so, but what I am really over is her wish to try to keep each book in a 25 book series self contained. I'm thinking that it has become her excuse for keeping her books long by just restating the same points in every book in the name of self containment. I begin to wonder if she has a clips file of descriptions that she just cut & pastes for her characters and for the recurring issues on Anita's "jobs."

I thought this book was entirely too descriptive particularly with the bits that could be put in a character list and then not need to be restated in every flipping book. Also, explaining the "brain doesn't want to see bad stuff" thing is old, too, not just the characters eye and hair color descriptions. Much of the garbage of her "police procedural" stuff is becoming cut & paste, too, although admittedly it was never my favorite part of the series. There's always at least one person in the police who will abuse her because they are really scared of her, there is always her talking about the brain not wanting to see the atrocities. These things have frustrated me more with this entry than ever they have before.

Even the "mystery" after they hit Ireland (which didn't happen until past the 50% mark) was entirely too bogged down in the same old shit, there was really no mystery at all, the resolution was pretty much handed up on a silver platter, and even Hamilton's traditional info-dump-epilogue felt like a weak wish to just get it to the printer and done with already.

I don't mind the relationship focuses, I don't mind the sex, I don't mind descriptions of how hard poly is to make work and why, but the rehashes have gone from being frustrating to my considering them to be the reason I may abandon the series. Ms. Hamilton, it's really long past time to create a character list and just append it to the back of the books and get on with the stories because 700 pages to tell a 150 page story is intolerable and too expensive to justify. Much of those pages could have been devoted to exploring the Fey and the differences in the magics in Ireland, to the differences regarding how Ireland was approaching their new vampires, and would have been infinitely more interesting than eye and hair color descriptions, and rehashing how people came to be in Anita's circle and why.

This book died a victim of the books that came before it.

ETA: I also agree with my friends who found rolling Damien to be rape and are frustrated with it happening and everyone pretty much just readily accepting it because it made Damien's character easier to deal with. It just felt like lazy writing to me. That was a good point to angst over, not Nathaniel's hair.

[Jessica Elkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to preface this review by saying that I have always loved the Anita Blake series, and I probably WILL always love the Anita Blake series. I have read every single one, and I will continue to read until the bitter end. However, there are a couple of things that have become very common throughout the last 10 or so books that do bug me.
#1 - Anita still constantly questions EVERYTHING around her. Especially when it comes to her relationships, her men/women, anything involved with that. It gets a little old when you have to read a two page explanation or dialogue discussing why she does or does not kiss one man or another, or why or why not she used to kiss this person, and why she feels guilty because she doesn't anymore. Or something along those lines.
#2 - Every time Anita goes somewhere to do actual police work, there is always at least one person who offends her because they judge her for sleeping with the "monsters" or looks down on her because she's a woman. We get it! This always happens to her, everywhere she goes. I'm just kind of getting tired of reading about it in every single book.
#3 - So much of the good part of the story gets bogged down by Anita's personal relationship drama. If you're new to this series, then for god's sake don't start at book #25 - go back to the beginning so the rest of us don't have to repeatedly get a refresher course! And Hamilton needs to give us all credit. We know who Anita's lovers are, we know how they became lovers, we know how they all fit together. We don't need yet another detailed explanation of a person's history just because they walk into the scene.
#4 - The ending was rushed, as usual. So. much. build. up. and then the finale is over in a dozen pages. I didn't get the satisfaction out of it that I wanted. There needed to be be MORE to the ending. The final battle was literally a couple of paragraphs. So disappointing! Probably a good quarter of the first part of the book could have been cut out so that we could have gotten the payoff at the end. Ugh!
Overall, I liked it, but only because I love this series, and I love these characters. I'm invested enough that it would take something awful to drive me away from reading these books. But, I can agree with a lot of reviewers that over time the story has lost something as more and more of the polygamy/polyamory angle is incorporated. I wish it would go back to being about the crimes, the police work, the magic, and while I do love the romance/relationship aspect of it, it needs to be done differently in a way that doesn't bog down the story so much.
If you are a fan of Hamilton or this series, you will definitely want to add this to your TBR list. There's still way more good than bad in these stories that 100% make them worth the read. I'm still a fan, and will be anxiously awaiting the next Anita Blake book!

[Handcrafted Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad addition to Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. It does continue where the last book left us, but at this point in the series there are so many characters that there's almost no real expectation of remembering exactly who any of the new people are. Ms. Hamilton enjoys throwing people into big orgy piles and they are entertaining to read but not easy to follow along. I miss some of the older really good characters such as Wicked and Truth and am no longer that interested every time she throws new people at you.

At least in televisions shows or some other series if you have this many character in this many life threatening situations you expect people to die and this is the first book that I can remember in a long time where someone actually died, and it was a character you could actually remember their plot line too.

I also have almost no concept of how time passes in Anita's world. Not much progress has been made in her main relationships with the engagement and marriage is concerned but all of a sudden Cynric is heading to college and not the 16 year old boy anymore. It's all very weird. I have been a fan of Laurell K. Hamilton a long time but I miss when her intricate and detailed plots were the point of her books and not the sex.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book had so many problems, and not just the normal "Shut up about the poly-relationship crap and get to the story" problem. I mean LKH was all over the map with the plot, the story did not flow, new characters were introduced like they had been there all along. Anita did not stay true to her character. She actually gets bespelled and then just forgives the use of powers on her in less than a page?! And it never gets mentioned again.
It took 354 pages to get to Ireland!!! and then we only get maybe 100 pages of murder mystery, and even here it is not a cohesive plot line. It is a mess! Then just boom and it is all over and a epilogue that wraps up everything in a paragraph... Yes LKH is fond of doing that but it has been getting out of hand for several books and this was the worst example to date.

This book was so just out of sorts we have a major character die and it is unable to even leave a lasting impact. And what is worse is that Anita with her abilities could have totally prevented this from happening. It was a cop out and lazy writing.

[BibliofiendLM · Rating 3 out of 5]

If this one is bad, then I'm giving up. I probably should have ages ago.

[Fangs for the Fantasy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dear gods. I’m almost stunned. This is gonna be a long one.

This was, quite frankly, the worst Anita Blake book of the entire series. Yes, I’m aware of the very rocky road of this series. I have followed it from its early moments of awesome as it careened every downwards, occasionally showing sparkles of hope but ultimately plunging deeper into the abys and hitting rock bottom and then positively wallowing there

Well, this book went deeper. At rock bottom it pulled out mining equipment and made a spirited effort to reach the centre of the earth. And may have achieved it. If I was not already 25 books into this series I would have DNFed this book so hard, formatted my tablet, exorcised said tablet, burned it and then scattered the ashes over at least 3 different bodies of water. I honestly don’t even know where to begin because there’s just so. Much. Awful.

Ok, let’s start with the rapetastic, misogynist, homophobic shitstorm that is Damian, his partner Cardinale and this utter trainwreck of awful

Firstly, we have to remember that all women in this series are terrible if they are not Anita. Oh, since the very very very straight Anita who is still straight decided to start having sex with women in the straightest way possible there are some female names following Anita around pretending to be full characters while fawning and serving but not exactly existence (And, hey, I’m generous about calling Anita Blake characters, characters-I’ve even accepted Micah as a character rather than a walking penis). Fortune, Echo, Magda – they’re just names that drift around behind her without actually doing anything – which is lucky for them

Because when we actually have a woman? They become a parody of awfulness – Cardinale is presented as utterly irredeemable, unreasonable, incapable of being professional or mature or sensible. Her every attitude is treated as utterly unacceptable – the idea the she actually wants a monogamous relationship with Damian is considered not to be love but “obsessive jealousy” (this applies to anyone who wants monogamy in this series because Laurell K Hamilton has decided this is a sign of deep emotional damage and evil); she is violent, emotional, uncontrollable – and literally says she would rather Damian be dead than with anyone else. She commits the unforgiveable sin of decorating their shared room with flower prints (how dare she be so female!). She also literally loses her shit because Damian has the temerity to LOOK at other women and feed on them (he is a vampire, she is a vampire). She is incapable of doing her job properly because she can’t stop stalking Damian.

Oh and she’s thin because she’s starving – just in case you thought for a second Anita was saying something almost complementary about her. And in case we weren’t clear we have this:

Cardinale is like the ultimate drama queen, an extreme girl. Let’s not be subtle about the misogyny, let’s just lay it out there.

Of course Anita, we’re reminded repeatedly, is “one of the guys” and Damian, a man who is literally a thousand years old, says “You don’t think like any woman I’ve ever met”. She’s not like those other terribad awful women, guys! Don’t worry!

She also coins the phrase “girl trap”. This is when terrible, manipulative, awful, emotional, unstable woman asks mean unfair questions of her long suffering man who cannot possibly give a good answer so is being set up for an argument. She uses this phrase a lot.

So having established that Damian’s long term monogamous girlfriend is the absolute worst, we throw in some woo-woo reason why Damian absolutely has to have lots of sex with other people (monogamy is evil!) and we run into the next great trainwreck of this book – rape.

Damian agrees to sleep with (non sexually) Anita and Nathaniel because of their woo-woo bonds which means if he doesn’t he gets terrible nightmares (remember, this is the series where if you don’t consent to all the sexy times, the magic will force it on you and absolutely no-one is allowed to ever say no to sex). Nathaniel is bisexual (this book, it tends to alternate depending on the author’s mood) and wants to have sex with Damian – Damian is described as “very heterosexual” and “homophobic” because he doesn’t want to have sex with men (yes, as we’ve seen repeatedly before, while Laurel K Hamilton is happy to include the shit storm of homophobia we’ve seen repeatedly, and continually degrade and demean gay men and lesbians, she also thinks homophobia means “not wanting to have sex with your own gender”. Which is, y’know, what “heterosexual” actually means.) So to get past that hurdle Damian borrows Anita’s magic to mind control Damien to having sex with him.

Let’s repeat that – Nathaniel uses magic to rape Damian. Not only rape him but he uses this magic to change Damian’s sexual orientation so he’s bisexual (for Nathaniel only – of course – because these books never deal with LGBTQ orientation, only as a fetish – which I’ll come to).

Anita’s concern about all this? Is how hot she finds two men together – and concern about the lack of using condoms. They don’t have the slightest concern that Damian has just been raped and his sexual orientation magically converted (which is revolting and terrifying).

What’s almost ironic is through this Anita has finally acknowledged that the Mother of All Darkness raped her and several weretigers by mind controlling them with mystical woo-woo and into an orgy they don’t remember. Excellent that this is finally acknowledged as rape and Anita has issues form that, especially about having sex with the men who were involved – except we go from that to her cozying up with Micah who raped her on first meeting and no-one even coming close to acknowledging that Nathaniel did the same thing in this very book to Damian and Anita, including forcing Damian to completely discard his sexual orientation – and there’s not even a second of acknowledgement of this even while labelling the previous rape. How can someone not draw the comparisons?

Of course Damian isn’t mad or upset or even slightly perturbed by this because why would he be about a rape that Anita is getting off on? He even recriminates himself for daring to have issues about having sex with another man (how dare he not wanting to have sex with someone he’s not attracted to!)

We end up with Nathaniel being sad that Damien may be angry with him so Damien gives his rapist a hug – and then keeps on hugging and comforting him. He even strips off in front of Nathaniel, his rapist, to turn him on. And he says this:

“I love that you both want me”

This. Is. His. Rapist. Not one day after the rape and he’s stripping off in front of him and saying how much he loves that his rapist is turned on by his naked body.

Anita notes “I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him so relaxed and happy before”.

Hahaha, yes isn’t it wonderful how rape and mind control totally help with centuries of abuse! Dear gods I need a drink with this… Damian has been RAPED INTO HAPPINESS aaarglebaaargleeeaaaaar

We also continue the theme of no-one having a right to say no to sex. See, Jean-Claude is concerned about sexual contact with Cynric because when he joined them he was under 17 and he’s still under 20 – Jean-Claude sees him as a child an even calls him “nephew” because that’s how he envisages that relationship (which I prefer to Anita’s “I’m having sex with this boy and also going to parent’s evenings as his guardian at school” approach. Because uckies uckies uckies). Well clearly Jean-Claude has to get over that because how dare he have sexual reservations about anyone?! Nope that is now allowed in the Anitaverse so we have an awful scene of them bringing Cynric into a foursome with Jean-Claude, Anita and Nicky – because Jean-Claude cannot have any boundaries, no-one can.

Read Most

[Hayat · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars because of Edward and the new Irish characters

Nothing makes sense and everything hurts.


Nothing happened for the whole 720 ebook pages (24 hours and 12 min of the audiobook) until the last few pages, and even then it was rushed and pointless!



I kept reading this series out of nostalgia and hope ( i.e. Obsidian Butterfly) but everything I used to like about it is now completely overtaken by issues. This is the 25th book in the Anita Blake series and I see that nothing is going to improve. I'm done. Goodbye Anita Blake!



I'm going to find a new pnr/uf series to replace you.

[Anna's Herding Cats]

Woohoo! After Dead Ice and getting a little taste of the old Anita feel I can't wait to see what'll happen with Crimson Death.

[Krissys Bookshelf Reviews · Rating 2 out of 5]

In her twenty-fifth adventure, vampire hunter and necromancer Anita Blake learns that evil is in the eye of the beholder...

Anita has never seen Damian, her vampire servant, in such a state. The rising sun doesn’t usher in the peaceful death that he desperately needs. Instead, he’s being bombarded with violent nightmares and blood sweats.

And now, with Damian at his most vulnerable, Anita needs him the most. The vampire who created him, who subjected him to centuries of torture, might be losing control, allowing rogue vampires to run wild and break one of their kind’s few strict taboos.

Some say love is a great motivator, but hatred gets the job done, too. And when Anita joins forces with her friend Edward to stop the carnage, Damian will be at their side, even if it means traveling back to the land where all his nightmares spring from...a place that couldn’t be less welcoming to a vampire, an assassin, and a necromancer.





Brother husbands, sister wives, constant repetition, oh my!

Almost the entire book were conversations that were repeated and echoed by every character which tended to be between five and ten men all needing to screw Anita and her repeating the same thing to each one of the guys she was with over and over again.

Anita was in conflict with her relationships for about a couple chapters where stuff actually happened then the ending came with a sum up in a nutshell in less than a couple chapters which resulted with me feeling like the entire book was a constant conversation constantly repeated a hundred times over just to get Anita open to being a mother which by the end felt a little too instant - 'ding dong I'm ready'.

I didn't really care for all the 'Anita should be my toy' debates because after 50 pages of defending the same stance by multiple people you just started with just to repeat it with someone else it just got old. It was like okay, I get it already, everyone wants to screw Anita, everyone hates Anita, everyone is jealous of Anita, screw me, screw him, screw them, no fair no fair whaa whaa whaa. Men leaving their girlfriends to be with Anita, men having to juggle their relationship with Anita to make room for more men so they can screw her too.

Anita is the one doll in the toy box all the children on the playground want to play with. She loves all the attention being focused on her but only with its convenient for her, even though she wants everyone to be happy she's very defensive of her poly relationships but she spends all her times dissing any and everyone who isn't a part of their poly world, she spends the rest of her time wanting to focus on her main poly group but she still has tantrums about her orgies and gang bangs not being laid out for her, she says how shes conflicted about having to be a leader and yet all she does is bark orders at people and take control of situations she's in.

Almost the entire book had person after person fighting over who wants, who should or shouldn't have Anita so much that you forget that there's even a plot going on in the book because you only get maybe 5-10 pages of actual story. The rest is the repeated conversations between Anita and her lovers. It distracts from the fact that there's a mystery to solve because there are so many arguments about Anita's poly relationships and her defending it, there are so many conversations between her lovers and her negotiating who gets what and when and how many times and who is allowed to do what when and how it changes the dynamic of their sexual encounters by adding more men to her already endless list of partners.

The other half is spent talking about how others feel about her lovers or how people who want to be her lover feel about her not being their lover too or letting them in on being her lover or how she doesn't care about how anyone feels about the fact that she has all these lovers or that she cuts other people out of the power triangle by not letting them sleep with her.

The people is a couple pages here and there with actual plot the rest of poly- defense with some emotional debate and non - poly member bashing.

Between the whining and the blaming and incessant rambling it was hard to care about the emotional scenes because I was exhausted after all the monotonous poly drama constantly being dictated over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

There were however several mentions of the power shift going on and it was a big deal but I didn't really feel like Hamilton really tapped into it very much.

I would have liked to have gotten more development on that but when the scene came between them and their enemies it just felt silly and not that worth mentioning to begin with.

By the time we get story at the end the book is over and I forgot what the point in it all was. Crimson Death didn't give me that excitement buzz I was hoping for.

There is a lot going on character wise though, the cast involved is massive which was interesting and complicated and often very confusing because there were points I literally had to write down who was who and who was arguing what because there were so many of them talking and the multiple identities, lovers, friends, foes, secondary characters all speaking in one conversation that I had to re-read several sections and keep notes just to remember who was saying what.

Ireland also added another dynamic to the whole journey Anita and her lovers were on as well which felt a little off to me. Anita is starting to feel more like a man and the men are starting to feel more like women to me. Hard to explain the personality shift that's going on but that's just the vibe that I got off it.

The journey also allows Anita to defend her power position and her poly relationships again to a whole new base of characters after it kind of felt like okay we've said this five hundred times lets move on its echoed all over again.

Anita gains both new allies and new enemies - or should I say OLD enemies in this book which opens new avenue for more arguments and battles for them to face as well as new lovers and pets to add to the already growing number she has to balance in her life.

As a whole I really don't know how I feel about Crimson Death. If Hamilton cut out all the poly arguments the book could have been a 20 page novella with actual story in it and it would have been really great but as it is it just felt like too much of the same to me.

















Booklikes

Goodreads

Twitter

Google Plus

Blogger

Pinterest

Amazon

Facebook

Wordpress

RSS

BlogLovin




Krissy's Bookshelf Reviews received a print copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts, comments and ratings are my own.




Krissy's Bookshelf Reviews received a print copy in exchange for an honest review from Berkley/Penguin Publishing



If any of Krissy's Bookshelf Reviews has been helpful please stop by to like or let me know what you think! I love hearing from followers! Thank you!

[آرزو مقدس]

و رهاش می‌کنیم. زنده باد ون هلسینگ، پیروز باد بوته‌ی سیر و آفتاب و صلیب چوبی.
نه برای اینکه بی‌هوا رفتم جلد ۲۵ و نمیفهمم، اتفاقا میفهمیدم بلکه چون آخر فصل پنجم، قریب به یک ساعت از ادیوبوک صرف این شده که یه‌مشت موجود نامیرای بعضا هزار یا هزاران‌ساله دارن سر اینکه میخوان شش‌نفری با هم تو یه تخت بخوابن یکی‌به‌دو می‌کنن. این میگه اون فقط شورت پاشه من معذبم، اون‌یکی منت این معذبه رو می‌کشه، این‌یکی بهش برمی‌خوره که من با لباسی بیشتر از زیرپوش و شلوارک خوابم نمیبره بعد منت اینو می‌کشن و سعی میکنن ادایی معذب اول از ناراحت شدن بقیه ناراحت نشه و در تمام این جدل‌ها پادشاه که لخت می‌خوابه هی تعارف میزنه که داداشا و آبجیای گلم اگه ناراحتن ما بریم لباس بپوشیم، باز همه منت پادشاه رو میکشن که نه بابا، اصلا گور بابای اون معذب اولیه.
خلاصه بعد ۲۰ دقیقه از ادیوبوک به توافق رسیدن به چه ترتیبی بخوابن (کپه‌ی مرگشونو بذارن در واقع چون دیگه اینجا میخوای چنگال فرو کنی تو چشم تک‌تکشون) بعدش حدود چهل دقییییقه شست پای این میره تو چشم اون، یکی دیگه می‌گه به من پتو نرسید، اون یکی می‌گه شماها پتو رو اینجوری کشیدین دست من می‌مونه بیرون سردم می‌شه و عادت دارم دستام زیر پتو باشه، اون می‌گه من نصفم از لب تخت آویزون موند و...
از ۷۲۰ صفحه اگه ۴۰۰ صفحه‌شو بزنن اصل داستان خوبه، همین سیستم نیاز به گروهی خوابیدن اصلا جالبه ولی این اضافاتش واقعا زیاد و اعصاب‌خردکنه.
خوبه از سوی چشمونم هزینه نمیکنم حالا واسه اینا.

[All Things Urban Fantasy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Process nerds will find much to love and hate in the latest Anita Blake installment. While readers may tune in to solve a crime spree, that promised police procedure never materializes. Rather, CRIMSON DEATH offers an unexpected love song to therapy, to the rewards of the hard work required to maintain relationships both romantic and otherwise. For the first time in a long, long time, it is the relationship side of Anita's story that offers progress and hope.

As with many of the later Anita Blake books, CRIMSON DEATH proves that it is possible to have too much of a good thing. All the care once lavished on which color Nike swoosh graced the side of Anita's shoes now makes every chance conversation a social lesson, each walk down the hallway a roll call of body guards, lovers, and bystanders, each lavishly described regardless of their importance. By this point in the series, I'm used to tuning out when someone becomes the "voice of intolerance", or when a soliloquy on relationship hygiene is on the horizon. Anita and her honeys have grown a lot, however, which means their interactions have become less needlessly fraught. The Circus and police stations are always filled with someone who has issues, though, so don't expect to escape without a half dozen jealous outbursts or sexist confrontations.

Damian and Nathaniel's interactions were legitimately interesting, but the central police plot of CRIMSON DEATH never resolved to a meaningful payoff. Much of this book is sifting through chaff, but the core character interactions leave me with hope. Anita and her significant others have happily ever afters on the horizon, hard won and well deserved. I like peeking in to the series to see how my favorite characters have grown and changed, but I wish I didn't have to tune out so much noise to get to the meaningful heart of the story.

Sexual Content: Sex scenes, references to rape.

[BookAddict ✒ La Crimson Femme · Rating 3 out of 5]

I told myself I'd record my reaction as I read it... and I didn't. Basically, within 100 pages, nothing has happened other than the usual explaining why Anita isn't a slut. Why Anita is hated by males and females a like in the law enforcement. Why Anita has so many sexual partners and Cookie the Bride... is a psychopath but oh so tasty in bed.

This book didn't leave much of an impression other than hinted sex.
What is the same

✔ Magic shit is going on. - Nathaniel is getting stronger.
✔ Anita gets rolled and has issues with it.
✔ Edward shows up and we spend several times repeating the difference between Ted and Edwards.
✔ Super covert groups now have Anita and her sex toys on their radar and bad things could happen in the future. Foreboding music
✔ Men still are incredulous that Anita doesn't realize how bloody damn beautiful she is... how sexy she is and yet, OMG!!! She's so oblivious to it!
✔ And once again, we have issues with Sin being under age and the "older ones" feel they are going into pedophilia and kind of incest. Dude, I'd do Sin. He's young, hot and malleable.
✔ Another CRAZY female vampire who wants to take over the world. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
✔ Richard has hang ups
✔ Asher is back and he's sorry AGAIN.

What is new!
Anita is doing women now and kind of okay with it.

So, there was a little sleuthing going on, but not much. A lot of working through couples counseling. A little bit of plot, mostly relationship issues.



So why did I rate this as 3? Honestly, because of the f/f sexually stuff as acceptable now. What did I get out of this book? Polyamourous is getting easier and easier to slip into...

[Jennifer (Bad Bird Reads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

At A Glance
Better than previous books but still a long way to go.
The Good
So it's been some time since I gave Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter another chance. This series got too sexual. I know, that's crazy coming from me. This series use to be my favorite but when you take a badass character and change the focus from action to sex midway into the series, it's just not right. So I missed quite a few books, but I easily fell back into the series.

This series still has it's positives. Anita Blake is still a badass. And now that she has gained paranormal powers from all her vampire/wereanimal connections she can take a lot more damage and fight people with her mind, sorta. It's pretty cool because she is capable of almost anything and we are still learning what 'anything' is.

I was excited to see Edward was in this one because he is my favorite neighborhood sociopath. Shit goes down when he is around. I was so excited for Anita to go to Ireland and join up with Edward to kill some badies. If only it didn't take half the effing book, but that's beside the point. Seriously, when Death (Edward) and the Executioner/War (Anita) get together things get so much more interesting. These two work like chocolate and peanut butter as they try to stop all the new crazy vampires running amok in Ireland, a supposed supernatural creature free place. Woops!

I was really excited to see Damien finally get his place at Anita and Nathaniel's side. I always felt bad for him. I love their power triangle and all it's new oddities.

I don't know if I will continue the series or not because I have been burned so much, but I will say Crimson Death is making me tempted.
The Bad
OMG, half this book, and I mean literally half, consisted of talking about sex, feelings, relationships. Anita's many, many relationships are just coming too much to handle, for Anita and me. Get this, there was dialogue during the sex. And I don't mean, "Ooh, that feels good." or "Harder." I mean full on conversations that took you out of the mood, "So will you love me after we finish because I have been feeling left out lately, and you give all your attention to Nathanial, and blah, blah, blah." Shoot me now. It's effing exhausting! The dialogue in general became monotonous and boring at times. It just went on forever, and ever, and ever.

I really disliked the rushed ending. I felt like the action just started and everything was going to revealed at 96% into the book. I was freaking out because I didn't think that was enough time to wrap everything up. No worries, we get a 2 page narrated epilogue that does it for us Pffffftt!!! Two effing pages?? Are you kidding me? So annoying.
The Snuggly
Obviously there is sex because, well, it's Hamilton. I do feel like it was less than previous books I read, which was nice. The sex was good but the talking beforehand was tedious as frick.
Final Thoughts
If you love this series, you will love Crimson Death. If you are like me and stopped reading it because of all the orgies, you may still like this book. If it wasn't for the first half I would have given this book 4 stars.  Kinda recommended.
Giveaway
Win a paperback copy of any previous book in the series (winner's choice) for one U.S. winner, thanks to the publisher

a Rafflecopter giveaway
This review was originally posted on Bad Bird Reads

[Danielle's · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Anita Blake books are one of my favourite series. I would recommend you start with book one. In 25 books we have come a long way.

Anita's best friend and partner in the hunt (Monster) has called for her help. Edward is in Ireland trying to solve a new disturbing case.

Apparently, vampire's don't exist in Ireland, but humans are getting bitten with no memory of what has happened. This part of the world holds its own magic, and an upset in the balance could be behind the new found problems.

Damian Anita's vampire servant is having his own melt down.
Vampires die at dawn but Damian's nightmares are keeping him awake. He has ties to Ireland, and Anita wants his help but only if he's willing.

This is a lengthy novel, and there is a lot going on. Like I said we are 25 books in now, and that means we have a lot of background characters to cover as well as the main ones.

Anita is back and ready to fly into action. This has everything you would expect from this series. Love, mystery, hot steamy scenes and a disturbing case with some kick ass supernatural scenes.

The pace of this one was a little slow but as always an enjoyable story with lots of action. It has an adventure to Ireland. The author try's to give a feel for the country, however, I wouldn't say it worked too well. Yes, they have meetings in the pub and church but that is pretty much as far as it goes.

4 stars out of 5.

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crimson Death is the twenty-fifth book in the Anita Blake series and it is a step up from the previous novel, Dead Ice. The author, Laurell K. Hamilton, continues to spend a significant amount of the book dealing with the various romantic and supernatural relationships which make up the private life of her heroine but this time (unlike in many of the previous novels) most of those relationships directly impact the primary plot of the novel which is quite an interesting one.

Ireland is the last nation on the earth in which the fey maintain a significant presence. It is also a nation in which popular knowledge insists that zombies and vampires do not rise. This is not the case with vampires as a particularly old and cruel vampire has abided for millennia. Now Dublin is being overrun by vampire attacks and Anita and Edward get pulled into helping the Irish solve the problem.

There are a number of related subplots that are particularly interesting. The Irish government, which is opposed to capital punishment and is proud of its open attitude toward psychic abilities, is not psychologically prepared to deal with an intensely evil vampire spawning new vampires throughout the city. They want to treat the vampires as if they are humans. At the same time, they have been developing a special response team which is run by an old friend and fighting comrade of Edward’s and the baggage from their past complicates their present. Dealing with these two situations causes significant and interesting difficulties for Blake.

The biggest weakness in the novel is that I figured out why there was a sudden new vampire rampage in Ireland almost immediately and I think that it was particularly obtuse of Blake and her companions never to consider the very obvious reason. Still, the development of the mystery and the solution to the problem were both satisfying. 3 stars.

P.S. I’m considering going back and rereading Guilty Pleasures as there has been enough average or worse books in this series now that I’m wondering if the original novels were really as good as I remember them.

P.P. S. I have reread the entire series to this point over the past several years. The first eight or nine were truly great. Since then, it's uncommon to have a truly good Anita Blake novel.