Serpentine

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #26

by Laurell K. Hamilton, Kimberly Alexis (Narrator)

Vampire hunter Anita Blake has managed to overcome everything she faces. But this time there's a monster that even she doesn't know how to fight...

A remote Florida island is the perfect wedding destination for the upcoming nuptials of Anita's fellow U.S. Marshal and best friend Edward. For Anita, the vacation is a welcome break, as it's the first trip she gets to take with wereleopards Micah and Nathaniel. But it's not all fun and games and bachelor parties...

In this tropical paradise Micah discovers a horrific new form of lycanthropy, one that has afflicted a single family for generations. Believed to be the result of an ancient Greek curse, it turns human bodies into a mass of snakes.

When long-simmering resentment leads to a big blowout within the wedding party, the last thing Anita needs is more drama. But it finds her anyway when women start disappearing from the hotel, and worse--her own friends and lovers are considered the prime suspects. There's a strange power afoot that Anita has never confronted before, a force that's rendering those around her helpless in its thrall. Unable to face it on her own, Anita is willing to accept help from even the deadliest places. Help that she will most certainly regret--if she survives at all, that is...

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

Audible Audio

First published August 7, 2018

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

[Elsa Crisol · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had been obsessed with this saga for so many years... and since "Shutdown" I'm not excited anymore. I want something like Obsidian Butterfly or Narcissus in Chains... I want action but not "sex action".
This thing with the Ardeur is out of control.

[Trista Wilson · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know this shit is going to suck. This went from being one of the best urban fantasies to the worst porn you could buy. It never gets better, only worse. Why the hell is this woman even still writing this series? She destroyed it. Just end it with a wrap up and make a new series. It could be titled vampire and ware porn for the sexually frustrated. Lawd! I won’t buy this book when it’s released. I’ll buy the last book when it’s over. Maybe Anita’s vagina will break and we can all have a rest from this giant pile of crap she calls literature.

[Cate McCool · Rating 1 out of 5]

How is this series still going on...? I used to be a huge fan before the series belonged on an erotica shelf rather than the original sci-fi/fantasy one. I have nothing wrong this sex scenes, even ones that take over a few pages, but I do have a problem when there’s zero plot except a bunch of angsty teenagers worrying about their ego and who is playing with their toys. LKH needs to stop beating a dead horse already and go back to her books with a kickass female protagonist who gets shit done in an interesting plot.

[Katie R · Rating 2 out of 5]

My predictions:
Anita has long drawn out conversations about who she doesn't love enough. These take up at least 25% of the book.
Despite being engaged to Jean-Claude, we only see him for like 5 pages and they consist of a short sex scene, her wondering why he wants her when he's so super pretty, then her feeling bad for loving other people.
The mystery can only be solved with the power of her vagina. If not that, then only her super special lycanthrope strength. No normal abilities for her!
Edward will be nothing like how he was in the first books he was featured in, instead encouraging Anita to get married and have babies.
Anita complains about how annoying women are. Except her, of course.
Anita spends a long time telling everyone she isn't pretty because her grandma was mean to her once.
The actual plot (and reason I keep reading these things) will be crammed in at the very end and I'll find myself wishing the story was given to someone who cared about it. It will finish in around 20% of the book, and none of what happened in the first 80% will be relevant to it.

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

So. Yeah. I keep wondering why I keep up with this series, but it boils down to just one thing:

Investment. I have a ton of hardcovers. This must be it.

But, let me go over what isn't so bad about this book. NO NEW LOVERS. See? That band-aid has now been torn off. We don't have to go into another long introduction of a new character who has been mind-raped by Anita or is mysteriously overwhelmed by her monstrous sexuality. That was the last book. And many, many others. No.

In this one, we're in firm familiar territory again.

What? You mean we're ass-deep in murder investigations featuring paranormals or we're dealing with one bad-ass necromancy horrorshow again?

Um, no. The OTHER familiar territory. You know, butt-hurt feelings, relationship snafus, Nathaniel crying because Micah won't twiddle his bum, and missed VACATION opportunities. *cry*

But no pride or litter box or the fourteen hundred other lovers? NO! Not this time. This time we get to focus a bit more on Edwards marriage, the fallout of the lies told and bad deeds assumed, and a bunch of jealousy, scene-making, and biting a scratching. In practically any other novel it would be standard near-comedy romance drama.

AH, but then there's missing persons, murders, and YET MORE reactionary cop behavior hating on polysex folks. Is this count up to around 40, now? Maybe higher, depending on how you rate it. Is it by individual or by each offense? If it's the later, then we're probably up to about 4,000.

Alas. But even so, out of all the possible complaints I could levy against this series, I can say with perfect honesty that Hamilton is remaining true to form. She's consistent. The final blowout is interesting as hell, the monsters interesting, the plot is somewhat cool, and the power-ramp up is fascinating. The good and the bad is in perfect balance.

Did I actively not have fun tho? No. I admit I had fun even as I rolled my eyes. Yes, pointless sex, pointless procedural shit, more pointless sex. And yet, less pointless characters even if we have more hurt feelings. The full hate-on everyone seems to have for polyamorous individuals is frankly baffling. But other than that, wooooo. It's another Anita Blake novel!

It's not the worst of the lot. I'm just glad I can spread them out now. :)

[Sierra Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't wait for this book to come out! I am completely obsessed with this series! I know the series gets a lot of hate about all the sex in the books but I think it is perfect for the progression of the story. I mean really, Anita is a succubus. What were people expecting? Anyway this series brings a lot of aspects from many genres that I love reading and I never want to put the books down. There are so many parts in previous books that were left unfinished that I am hoping to see soon. Like Olaf after he became a werelion, and Nicky's old group, and many other characters that I wonder about. I hate that I have to wait to read whatever comes next.

[PamG · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serpentine by Laurell K. Hamilton is a supernatural romantic suspense story with some domestic drama added for spice. It is the twenty-sixth book in Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. This time, the main setting is in the Florida Keys where Anita’s friend and colleague U.S. Marshal Ted Forrester is set to marry his long-time love, Donna. This is supposed to be a vacation for Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel. However things don’t go to plan. Between a new form of lycanthropy, resentment among the wedding party members and missing women, this is anything but a relaxing vacation.

This book focuses on relationships for a large part of the book. Whether it is Anita’s relationships with the many men and women in her life, the relationships among the bridal party members, or friends growing apart over time; there is a lot of domestic drama. The last 25 percent of the book has the more traditional action that many expect from this series. I felt this was a welcome change. It shows how Anita and those in her life are struggling to make enough time in their lives to balance work and personal relationships. This actually made her feel more relatable.

There are some very steamy scenes full of joy, playfulness, and shared humor. But there are also violent, horrible scenes, interspecies disputes, grief, hurt feelings, desperation, revenge, love, magic, abductions, and much more.
Overall, this book was a study of complicated relationships until the last 35 – forty percent or so when it became a lot more suspenseful, action-oriented, and fast-paced.

I have read all of the books in this series up to this point and can’t wait to start the next one. They are best read in order as there is a lot of background and character development that builds over time. She brings great characters, entertaining story lines, action and romance together in her novels.

I own a digital copy of this novel. This is my honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own and are not biased in any way.

[Lukas Anthony · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't even know why I did this to myself again.

[Beth]

I've read every book in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. I have to say I have been a devoted follower and was thrilled that Anita and Edward were paired up again. The stories with both Anita and Edward have always seemed to be one of my favorites.

From 65% percent on this was the Hamilton storytelling that I enjoy reading. And here comes the BUT... But before the 65% point there was a lot of feelings, mono-logging, feelings, psychoanalyzing, and more discussions about... you guessed it, feelings... I remember Edward even said something about enough bonding for one day (somewhere around 75%) and I wanted to say, YES PLEASE, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! With just shy of 500 pages that is way too much emotional talk and not enough storytelling substance for me. I sure as heck don't want to spend 6+ hours of my reading time reading about fictional characters discovering their feelings. If you can't get enough of Anita's, her poly-group's, brides's and guard's feelings and dynamics then this is the book for you. I'm sad to say, it just didn't working for me.

I received this ARC copy of Seperntine from Berkley Publishing Group. This is my honest and voluntary review. Seperntine is set for publication Aug. 7, 2018.

Written by: Laurell K. Hamilton
Series: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter
Sequence in Series: Book 26
Hardcover: 496 pages
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: August 7, 2018
ISBN-10: 0425255689
ISBN-13: 978-0425255681
Genre: Paranormal Romance | Urban Fantasy

[BWT · Rating 3 out of 5]

Told from Anita's single, first-person, POV Serpentine doesn't offer much new content in the way of how the story is developed from the way Laurell K. Hamilton has approached the series in the last dozen or so installments.

Anita, Micah and Nathaniel, along with Nicky and a few other bodyguards journey to a small island off the Florida Keys to attend Edward, sorry Ted's, wedding to Donna. There's plenty of relationship angst from Nathaniel being pissed that Anita and Micah are always working, Micah dealing with not feeling like he can provide everything Nathaniel needs in their relationship, Anita's juggling of work and men, and the big drama of Donna dealing with fallout from believing Anita and Ted were having an affair.

There's a lot of hand wringing about the poly groups Anita and the men in her life are trying to juggle, with lots of conversations about how much therapy they're all in to deal with the relationships and their jobs, and how their jobs are affecting their relationships.

When even more drama and a couple of missing women points the police at one of Anita's fiancés, she gets involved and comes up against multiple things she's never seen before. Help comes from an unlikely source, and it's this point, at about 60% into the story, when it stopped being relationship drama and kicked into the mystery and action that Serpentine started getting good. Really, really good.

Frankly, I'm tired of the polyamory relationship troubles in this series. Anita's polyamory has become so front and center it's completely eclipsing all the other far more entertaining aspects of this series like her necromancy, the action, and the mysteries. I'm becoming more convinced with each new book the moment Anita got the ardeur is when this series started to lose its way.

However, once Serpentine reaches the 60% mark - the story kicks into high gear, and actually takes off and becomes very interesting, and while the last 40% was definitely riveting, absolutely intense, and held most of what I've loved about this series from the beginning, the first third of the story being mired in relationship drama was, frankly, tiresome and off putting.

With each new book most of the relationships feel more forced - like trying to fit square pegs in round holes, but when Hamilton focuses on a smaller relationship group or focuses on the executioner/necromancer parts, and the mysteries, the stories shine and remind readers why we keep coming back for more.

All series, particularly ones that are as long-running as the Anita Blake series, have some stories that aren't as good as others, but lovers of the series will continue to return, up to a point, because we keep hoping for a former glory. The last 40% of Serpentine shows Hamilton still has the writing chops - now if she could just chop some characters out I think the series could be absolutely return to being great again.

3.5 Stars

Advanced Review Galley copy of Serpentine provided by Berkley via NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.

[Lorena · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a free ARC of this book from NetGalley.

This is a banner day, my friends. Not only did I get to read this book early and for free, I am giving it TWO STARS. That is 100% more stars than any book in the Anita Blake series since book 17. Truly, an accomplishment to be celebrated. What makes this book 100% better than any of the previous 9 books in the series (although still not "good")? A couple of things. One, there is sort of a plot that is more-or-less focused on throughout the book. This plot is Edward/Ted's wedding at a resort in the Florida Keys. Yes, America's favorite Marshall-living-a-confusingly-unneccessary-double-life is finally marrying his semi-innocent sweetheart, Donna. But there is trouble in paradise...one of Donna's bridesmaids is here to fill the role of "person in Anita Blake book who is jealous/disapproving of Anita Blake's sex life to the point of literal hysteria and insanity." Dixie (the bridesmaid) still thinks Anita and Edward were once a romantic duo (which isn't all that unreasonable, when you think about it, since Anita and Edward actually confessed to once being a romantic duo to Donna back when she was, for some reason, unable to comprehend that men and women could be good work partners without also having sex, but they apparently straightened this all out in therapy and now Donna is on board with the truth, but her buddy thinks she's just brainwashed). Dixie is therefore determined to break up the wedding any way she can. For some reason, this does not cause Donna to just kick her out of the wedding altogether.

Oh, and also, there's a whole group of weird-ass Medusa people who just happen to be also living on this island in the Keys, whom Micah and Anita just happen to be going to investigate/help as part of Micah's wereanimal coalition job. Then, a bunch of hotel/wedding guests go missing and get murdered, and Anita and her merry band are suspected of all the crimes by the local authorities although, frankly, it's pretty obviously connected to the weird-ass Medusa people. (Spoiler alert: one of the local authorities is actually one of the weird-ass Medusa family, and also has Siren powers, which is how he is steering this whole investigation against Anita and pals, but the whole thing presents for a long time as a typical "you people must have done it because your sex lives are not strictly monogamous and heterosexual" thing that tends to be the tedious default position of local law enforcement in every Anita Blake book since she and Jean-Claude and Richard first became a thing back in ye olden dayes of this series. ) So, you have a bunch of wedding/relationship drama playing out, along with a lot of supernatural kidnapping/murdering on the side, which understandably throws a bit of a crimp into the wedding planning/having.

The other slightly-improved aspect of this book is that the author (and hence, her characters) seems to have reached a point in her/their therapy journey where some of the therapy is actually starting to sink in and people are using the tools they have learned to actually resolve or deal with some of their ongoing issues. For example, Nathaniel is kinda upset through this whole book because he thought he was going to have a fun and romantic vacation with Micah (to whom he is officially, eventually getting married) and Anita (to whom he is engaged but not marrying for legal reasons). Instead, Micah and Anita are spending a lot of time on the whole Medusa Family crime spree going on, and Nathaniel's feelings are hurt. There's some anger and unproductive behavior on all sides, but they mostly recognize pretty quickly what is going on, talk about it, name the issues, and resolve to work on solutions. It's almost...adult.

But don't worry, there's still enough bat-shit crazy behavior going on all around this that you won't suddenly worry you have fallen into a conventionally "good" book. Such as? Such as:

1. There are still plenty of long, painstakingly drawn-out conversations that go on for pages and pages and end up having exactly nothing to do with anything important. For instance, there's a scene early in the book where Anita and friends walk down the stairs. And they keep walking down these stairs. And talking about how there are so many stairs. And then they get to the bottom of the stairs, and there are new guards at the bottom of the stairs and they have a long discussion about the new guards and the new guard protocols and decide they might change up the guard protocols. This has zero bearing on anything else that happens in the book. Except, perhaps, that we learn that Jean-Claude is becoming so much sexier since Anita defeated that vampire in Ireland in the last book that some of the guards are afraid to be alone with him, because they fear they might spontaneously explode (or something like that) from how sexy he is.

2. Although Anita 'n' friends are becoming more adult over their relationship issues, everyone else in the book is, as per usual, over-the-top freaked out over anything to do with sex and relationship dynamics. The Dixie storyline drags on and on, with her becoming more and more violent and hysterical over stopping the wedding and hating both Anita and Edward/Ted, to the point where she nearly kills Edward/Ted's teenaged stepson (who, it turns out, Dixie is secretly in love with, of course). It's part of the ongoing theme in this series where everyone in the world is violently interested in and hostile to Anita's sex life. Certainly, I am aware that people in relationships that are not straight, monogamous, or otherwise "traditional" (according to certain, narrow, religious schools of thought) face prejudice all the time in our world. However, there is no nuance or realism in Hamilton's writing about this aspect of Anita's life. People in the world are either (1) someone Anita is having sex with already, and who think she is the most special sexy goddess badass ever, or (2) people who totally hate Anita because they are secretly jealous of her and embittered by their own sad, unfulfilling, traditional, monogamous, straight relationships. There is no in-between. It's an almost cult-like view of the world, and it's a tired nail that gets hammered in every book.

3. There's a lot more Edward/Ted name confusion, with even Edward/Ted seeming to forget which one he is supposed to be at any given moment for no reason that is ever explained in the book (I mean, I'm guessing the wedding/relationship/suspected of murder pressures, but it seems odd for an Anita Blake book not to spell that out in excruciating detail). It is still also utterly unclear why calling Edward by the common nickname Ted (or vice versa) in front of the wrong people would cause his whole sort-of double-life of being a cold-blooded monster executioner/warm-hearted good-ol'-boy police consultant on monster executing to implode around him, or why it would be so disastrous for people to realize that Edward the monster executioner and Ted the monster execution consultant are the same guy.

4. Also, Olaf is back. Fucking Olaf. And he and Anita are doing this gross Sherlock Holmes/Irene Adler role-playing the whole time, and Anita's internal were-lioness wants to bond with his were-lion even though Nicky is still right-freakin-there, and Anita is all "I am so morally opposed to Olaf and I shall resist his sociopathic advances on every front but OK I will call him 'Holmes' and he can call me 'Adler' and talk about how I am The Woman but this definitely won't go anywhere more disturbing" and just...barf forever.

5. The whole Medusa family thing is handled really oddly. (Stop reading here if you don't want any spoilers.) There's this whole group of people whose arms start turning into snakes when they hit puberty. First just one snake, and then into multiple snakes, like some kind of arm-hydra. And they never turn fully into snakes like a regular were-animals, but they do seem to go kind of insane as more and more of them turns randomly into snakes whenever they're upset or whatever. Also, some of them have "snake locks" in their hair, like Medusa. All of this is known to Micah and Anita going in, because the family thinks this is a curse and they want Micah and Anita to help them figure out a cure or how to stop it. So Micah and Anita's first stop is Melanie, the lamia who was kind of a villain from one of the early books in the series, who is now, conveniently, working for Jean-Claude as one of his side-show acts at one of his clubs. They go talk to her about whether she, as a semi-transforming snake person, knows anything about any other semi-transforming snake people out there in the world, and she (a) gets all huffy and accuses them of being were-racist for thinking she might have any knowledge or anything to do with it just because she's kinda snakey, and (b) displays an apparent long-standing crush on Nathaniel, not that anything comes out of this extensive bit of her scene.

In the end, Anita sits by while Olaf TORTURES a member of the Medusa family to get information about their involvement in the kidnapping/murders (which a particularly old/insane/hydra-like member of the family has convinced them are necessary to lift the curse), they all go kill off the old/insane/hydra thing, and then...nothing else happens. Like, to this whole family who went along with kidnapping and murder. And Anita just dismisses the whole thing (in one of those typical 5-page end-of-book wrap-ups of most of the loose ends that we didn't have time to expand upon, even though we spent ages talking about the number of stairs and stair guards) with a kind of shrugged-off "well, we did torture that one woman, so they didn't bring any charges against anyone," and the revelation that, after they got back, Melanie confessed that, actually, these people are probably her descendants, and she will help out after all, apparently by...biting them and injecting MORE of her venom into their diluted bloodline, which will somehow make them maybe more lamia-like and maybe more in control of their snakey abilities, but who knows. So that's where we leave things...Anita and her buds violated all kinds of civil rights and tortured people and everyone is fine with this, a whole bunch of people who weren't directly tortured were involved in a kidnap and murder spree but will face no punishment, except, of course, for the fact that an ancient lamia is going to come down to their island and bite them and this may or may not make them more snakey.

So that's what a 2-star Anita Blake book looks like. Does this mark the beginning of a return to sanity for the series? Do I even want it to? Stay tuned...

[John]

A brief note: I submitted this to Amazon literally at 3:12 AM this morning and it just went through 10 minutes ago- obviously to give all the Verified Purchase reviews exposure first. So, if you're of a mind, I'd appreciate a little voting help to push it up the list. Thanks.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...

I hadn’t read the last two books… actually I stopped reading the last two books about 20% in because I completely lost interest in them that fast- so when the chance arose at an early copy of this one I figured: what the hell, maybe there’s been some changes and improvement. Maybe there’s been some actual developments, revelations and repercussions from these character choices and events.

Let’s put it this way: No.

Remember all the buildup for the plot of Bullet? That assassins were gunning for Anita and the crew, and even Belle Morte was high-tailing it as fast as she could, only for the book to be about everything else but assassins? How a story featuring cold blooded killers only dedicated about 19 PAGES right smack in the middle to said murderers? How the synopsis ended up getting revised because turns out there were virtually no assassins in the book, and would’ve been false advertising to keep saying it was all about them? Well, if that was your gold standard for storytelling, if that muck thrilled you to the stars and back- boy, has Laurell got a story for you now!

I’ll give her credit; it took some serious gall to write this. She had a lotta nerve pulling this again. In a 500 page book about cursed snake people, they get mentioned in the beginning, referred to in the middle-ish and never brought up again until the finale. Take one guess what’s on the rest of the dead trees sacrificed for this drek. You got it: relationships and all the baggage they come with!

*** Mini-Spoilers Ahead***

There ain’t a K-Drama in the world that can hold a candle to this! It’s everything all the other Anita Blake books have given you the past fifteen years, yet somehow less. The paint by numbers scenes of gratuitous boob/crotch flashing, jellus haterz who deep down want to be just like Anita, hawt zexxy zex with the sweeties, fifty pages to leave town, forty pages to get to the hotel from the airport, recycled & rehashed pissing contests with cops, identifying friends from enemies by their boob size and curves, bad guys who suddenly can’t function without literally giving themselves away, rushed & compressed ending with tons of exposition in order to get back to the real story- troo wuv with the boyz. It’s all there, y’all! Knock yourselves out… or at least get a friend to do it. Not so messy that way.

The one real surprise is the return of a character we hadn’t seen in a while- Olaf. And despite being as boring and repetitive as everyone else, still manages to be creepy and somehow able to sneak a bit into Anita’s good graces. In hindsight, an appearance from him is overdue but under the circumstances you wouldn’t expect him to be there, which makes the reason for his being there utterly contrived. But given the implausibility of everything else, why the heck not? Toss in Bernardo Spotted-Horse and it makes for a reunion of the Four Horsemen, which could’ve been a tour de force, but instead plays like an investigation by Scooby-Doo & the gang. Because, yeah- the baddie would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling U.S. Marshals and their were-buddies.

By the time Hamilton returns to the supposed mystery/curse to solve, you flat out won’t give a flip because it hasn’t mattered in so long you forgot all about it. Far more important are the sudden appearance of Donna’s jellusy about Anita’s special bond with Edward, Donna’s BFF Dixie’s seething jellusy about the wedding, the cadre of bimbos jellus about Anita’s men, Olaf’s jellusy about Anita boitois… you might be sensing a theme here. Jellusy even has a place in the motives of the bad guy- go figure!

Another theme is Hamilton’s ridiculous fixation with superhero metaphors. Man, did she just love comparing Edward/Ted to Batman/Bruce Wayne; even Superman/Clark Kent a few times just to mix things up a bit.

No LKH novel would be complete without the sheer idiocy that’s Anita & Co- in both the classic and contemporary sense of the word. Early on they ask a particular character if they know anything about the snake curse; they deny it, only to discover in the end just how much they did know. Why such pertinent info was withheld is neither explained nor explored- just tossed in to avoid thinking something else up.

In the midst of an investigation into some missing women, Anita & co. come in contact with someone who’s obviously tied to the disappearances, but just plain fail to alert anyone about this in time to prevent other problems. Why? Why ask why.

There’s really not a lot to say about Serpentine-all the endless inanity, vapidity, vulgarity, insanity, mendacity, fragility… It’s just plain bad, lazy, dull, self-indulgent, writing. The usual, but somehow worse.

Sorry for the lack of snark. But I got nothing for this thing.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like so many other readers, if I hadn’t been committed to this series, I wouldn’t have made it through the first 100 pages. These stories used to be about hunting monsters, killing the bad guys, and saving the rest of the world. With just enough humor tossed in to remind you of our hero Anita’s practically ordinary life.

These books have changed so drastically! We spend at least 75% of the time either reminding the reader that we have lots, LOTS of complicated relationships or talking about how all those people feel about the relationship. Geez!

The 25% of the book that is action is still done well. I enjoyed Edward/Ted as one of the focus characters in this book. Even Olaf/Otto was a nice surprise. So if you are a reader that’s committed to the Anita Blake series, you should probably read this just to keep up with the storyline. But don’t expect fireworks and you won’t be too disappointed.

[marlene · Rating 1 out of 5]

The real question is if LKH will be able to tone down her rampant narcissism just enough to let an editor actually do their job? The last book was about 90 pages of incoherent plot and 400 pages of filler. The atrocious writing aside the continuity errors were horrific to the point where the majority of the book didn't even make sense.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think this may be the second time, ever, that I will return a book for a refund. I know, I hear you gasping. It’s not cool. But I really don’t want to give this author anymore of my money. Are we really on the 26th installment? Wow. I said last couple books I was done, yet I am some kind of masochist because either myself or my husband preordered this book so I thought I would give it a chance. It’s a pile of steaming horse shit.

First off, I think the author’s editor and agent need to be fired. Whoever is nodding and fluffing her ego, rather than being honest with her is doing her a disservice. Laurell, they are the opposite of a friend. This was such a wonderful series. And then it went off the rails. And then it became more of some kind of narcissistic autobiographical thing.

I’m over the poly. The only one who seems to have issues with this type of relationship is the author. Because she just never shuts the fuck up about it. Second, I get it. You’re such a badass. Like you’re THE badass. Even though you try to play it down, you still manage to come out sounding like a narcissist with this, too. And I really want to kick someone’s butt after wasting my time on this thing. So Anita, maybe suit up. Third, the author’s descriptions about her men are stupid. We get it, they’re beautiful. Not masculine. We get it, some have natural muscles and others seem to love the gym. None of this has anything to do with the plot line and none of it is essential to the character. It’s all Anita, read Laurell Hamilton’s, vanity. It’s like she was never picked in PE or something and is trying to now be the cool kid she never was...it’s not working FYI. Let it go.

The descriptions and backpedaling on gym routines and the guys physical appearances take up 3/4 of this god foresaken disaster. Just like it has the last several books. Regurgitated nonsense. Look at me, I’m cool. Look at me, I’m poly. Look at me, I have all the guys. She’s like that annoying friend who is a Vegan or is gluten free and wants you to know all about it, when you never asked.

I have discovered the root of the Anita character’s necessity for being in a polyamorous lifestyle. No single person could listen to her crap all the time. This way, there’s buffers. Anyway, I leave you with this...it’s crap. It’s not new, it’s not imaginative, it’s not creative, it’s not even remotely interesting. It’s crap.

[Carole (Carole's Random Life) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

I enjoyed this book. You may not know this, but I really like Laurell K. Hamilton's writing and have read most of her work. I did take a bit of a break from the Anita Blake series but I knew that it would be something that I would get back to at some point. I have read the first 22 books in the series so I did skip a few books before starting this one but it worked out well but I don't think that this would be a great starting point for readers new to the series. I am really glad that I decided to pick this series up again.

I have often heard complaints from others about this series. People complain that the series is different than it used to be. That's true. It has evolved and Anita's life in book 26 looks nothing like it did in book 1. People complain that it is nothing but sex anymore. Yes, there is a lot of sex in these books even though there wasn't at the start of the series. Like I said, the series has evolved and sex is now a big part of the story. I can understand why the series may not work for everyone but it still does work for a lot of readers.

One of the reasons I decided to pick up this book was that it is what I refer to as an Edward book. Edward is a character that has been in the series from the very beginning even though he doesn't make an appearance in every book. Edward is pretty much a badass that has always had Anita's back. I love it when Edward and Anita work together to solve cases and Edward's personal life has been more than a little interesting. In this book, Edward's wedding is the backdrop for the story.

This book had everything that I was looking for. It had a really interesting case to solve with a paranormal being that was different than any I have seen before. I was able to catch up with many of the characters that I feel like I know from the previous books in the series. There were some scenes that really moved Anita's relationships forward a bit and a few scenes that let me chuckle. I thought it was a pretty balanced book in the end.

I decided to listen to this book and thought that Kimberly Alexis did a great job with the narration. This is the first book in the series that I have listened to but I wouldn't hesitate to go that route in the future. The narrator did a great job of handling a rather large cast of characters and adding a bit of excitement to the story. I think that I liked this book just a little bit more because of her narration.

I would recommend this book to fans of the series. I think that readers of the series will enjoy watching Anita and the gang navigate a wedding while trying to figure out what is happening to a family nearby. I do plan to read more from Laurell K. Hamilton in the future.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Berkley Publishing Group via NetGalley and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from my local library.

Initial Thoughts
This one falls somewhere between 3 and 4 stars for me. I am rounding up for now. I rather enjoyed stopping in with Anita Blake for a bit. I have read the majority of the series but have skipped over the past several books but I had no problem keeping up with this one since I was familiar with nearly all of the characters. Edward/Ted plays a big role in this book and I have found that I usually like books that he is in the best in this series. The story did get bogged down with relationship drama at times and was somewhat repetitive in others. I really liked the narrator and felt like her reading of the story increased my overall enjoyment.

[Princess J. Antoinette · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG! I'm excited about this next installment of this series... I love the action and the sex... Best of both worlds if you ask me! Yey

[Rambling Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

Before Serpentine came out, I was really excited about this story. Hamilton had set us up with two interesting premises: Edward's wedding and the discovery of this snake-like monster, something that we hadn't seen too much of in the Blake-verse. I find myself feeling like she just bit off way more than she could chew. Despite the book's length, neither plot is done the justice it deserved.

The saga of Edward's marriage feels rushed and repeated. The central roadblock to the wedding is one that we've read about many times: a woman has a conflict with Anita because she's both good at her job and a beautiful woman. How many times can we read the same conflict???? Evidently, many. There's an ongoing issue between Donna, one of her bridesmaids, and Anita, and it just becomes too much to want to keep reading. I admit; by the third time that I was reading an almost identical argument, I started skimming.

With such an emphasis on an old issue, there are other moments within Edward's wedding trip that are under-served: the reappearance of Otto/Olaf, Peter's growing up and a few "gifts" of his, Micah/Nathaniel/Anita's first trip away from home together. I would have rather read about all three of those, but they felt like side-notes to a main attraction I don't want a ticket for anymore.

The actual serpentine plot is almost haphazardly thrown into the novel. At first you feel like it's going to be a big focus, that it might get well-developed, but then it takes a backseat to Edward's wedding. The connection between the wedding and Micah's snake-shifter case felt so FORCED, like Hamilton got to page 400 and thought, "oh SH*T, I had another story going on here." Everything fell together in a messy way that, to me, felt like lazy story-telling.

Even the relationship drama is unresolved. We get some tiny snippets that there's some important issues coming up with Micah, Nathaniel, Anita, and Jean-Claude, but that's all they are- snippets. Instead of getting real resolution, instead of seeing them work together to figure something out, it's just implied that they'll go to therapy. I want to see the characters grow "on page", not see big changes with just the tagline- "therapy was helping." We've invested years of readership & feelings in these characters; I want to actually see their story unfold.

Finally, I don't know about the rest of you, but it's become an eye-rolling question of not IF, but WHEN there will be an insensitive/prejudiced/conservative member of law enforcement who asks invasive questions, makes rude comments, and/or needs to be educated on the poly life. If you've gotten to Serpentine (not just by happenstance or accident), you've experienced the lecture/explanation of poly life more than a dozen times. Sometimes I wish Hamilton would just use a single sentence to just let us know that Anita's just finished explaining/exploring. There's so much reflection about poly, which wouldn't bother me if it was new/a progression of understanding, but once again- we're getting the same lecture again in Anita's conversations and thoughts.

I just wanted a good story, to cuddle up with my book and get to read about Anita and my favorite others (Micah & Nathaniel), but I'm just not sure if I can keep going on like this.

[Suz · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5ish

I can't figure out if I'm bored with the relationship therapy stories or if it's all just so stale. Anita hasn't really made me squee in a while.

And I wasn't best pleased with Anita and co. quite naturally falling into conspiring with local law enforcement to cover up an entire career's worth of police coercion. They rationalized that away very easily. I call bullshit.

Meh.

*****************
Apparently one can no longer comment on a book unless they have rated it. I haven't read it yet. I just wanted to grouse about having to wade through single star reviews by people who haven't read the book before finding reviews by people who have read it (thanks for those, btw). Since I am required to rate to get the commenting functionality I thought I would offset ignorant single star ratings with an ignorant five star rating. They are of equal value, I think.

I havent even read the last short yet. I'm not sure when I will make time for this.

[Rebecca Blake · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hope for more jean-Claude in this book. He and Richard are my favorite characters. I'm so excited, can't wait to read. ☺️

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm addicted and I need help!
I know this will be one of the worst books I will ever read in 2018, and yet I can't wait to be published, go figure it out...
edit:
10.08.2018:
YES, I finally got it!




edit:
12.08.2018
It was a slow weekend for my reading, and I only managed to read the first 15 chapters, but the story seems really promising so far. I'm excited about this new lycanthropy case in which Anita gets involved and I look forward to see how this will go. I also enjoy all the small references to Circus of the Damned, one of my favorite books in this series. I was very pleased to see again Melanie, a lamia capable of turning her legs into a serpent's tail, one of the most interesting creatures that Anita had faced.


edit
14.08.2018:
Well, for her long career as a fighter against the monsters, Anita had handled some really scary creatures, but I never expected her to have to deal with a crazy bridesmaid. Is that suppose to be some new kind of a villain in the modern urban fantasy genre!? Even though this whole wedding drama is coming to me a little bit too much, I'm glad that this book focuses more on Edward and exploits his character more as a human being and less like the cold-blooded killer we all know well. But I'm really starting to worry about the relationship between Olaf and Anita, and I hope it doesn't end between the sheets because that would be a really big failure for her.

edit
15.08.2018:
I finally finished reading this book and I can say I liked it more than I expected. I was skeptical at first, and I had less expectations, but at the end it turned out to be pretty good. Yes, I admit, there were many filler pages that give us a repetitive information of the previous books, which make the story feels a little bit too slow. Also, there's a lot of unnecessary love drama and that could be pretty annoying sometimes. Overall, I begin to notice a slight improvement in the last few books of the series and I hope that the future books will be even better, like they used to be years ago.
I'll always respect Laurell K. Hamilton as author. You can learn a lot of her books about the relationships and the action is always a plus, of course. ;)

[keikii Eats Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

30 points/100 (1.75 stars/5)

Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel go down to Florida for Edward and Donna's wedding. Micah has been going down there for months to help an incredibly interesting were family figure out their curse so they can cure it.

Despite being 100% unnecessary to the series, this is somehow actually better than Crimson Death.

A lot of things from earlier in the series are in this one, though not all of them have an impact on the plot.

Lots of the relationship drama has been cut out of this book. The first half of Crimson Death is all relationship drama because they took forever to leave. That entire "let us spend 100k words leaving St. Louis" is cut out of this book. There are also minimal amounts of people that have gone with them, so it is a very tight core book.

Still a lot of relationship drama though.

Laurell K. Hamilton still has a set list of phrases she HAS to say in each book, otherwise her desire to push her agendas on everyone isn't met. (Examples: 1) anita is small so she must not be as powerful as they say 2) anita sleeps with the monsters so she must be compromised 3) anita is sleeping with a lot of people so she must be a slut 4) nathaniel and micah being together is some big thing everyone just has to get over 5) she really, really likes watching her men kiss 6) ted and anita must be fucking because they're partners 7) every police force where they go have to hate her 8) how every conversation has to somehow lead to someone getting angry at someone else or turn to sex (or both...mostly both)...I could go on but I have never actually created a list of all the things that annoy me yet have to be added into every book).

The "monster" in this book is actually really, really interesting. If Hamilton would have cut out all of the phrases from her fucking crusades against everyone who has wronged her in her life, this would have been rated even higher. If she would have cut out all the rest of the relationship dramas (there were so goddamn many in this book oh my god), it would have been rated even higher. I was actually really interested in this new bit of what the fuck going on. I liked how it tied into characters we haven't seen in over 20 years.

This actually isn't even as poorly written. Crimson Death had chapters and chapters of pretty much nothing but conversations. It would get confusing at times who was even speaking. This was much better written and edited.

Honestly and truly, if Hamilton could work through her issues and keep them out of Anita, this could once again become a good series. If she could actually grow this series again, It would become good again. We have stagnated for 10 books now. We have had minor character growths, but it always comes back to the same arguments we have had for a decade now. It is time to grow, already. Not in small increments, but we have to get past this. We have to end this series

See more reviews at Keikii Eats Books.

[Erica Chilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audible Series Listen October 25 - December 28, 2024

(Rating & Review from initial read thru)

I received a copy of this title to read & review for Wicked Reads


4 Stars.


Disclosure: I had not read past Hit List, reading the previous books in the series dozens of times each. However, being so far behind didn’t offer much confusion. I easily caught up to speed, without spoiling much that may have happened in those books I own yet have yet to read.


At the start, I found the relationship issues to get rather tedious, reminding me of parents (the characters) bickering in front of their children (the reader). Wading through this manufactured strife/angst, during the beginning 25-30%, I was close to DNFing multiple times. They fought over everything big or small, taking offense to everything, where the plot stopped for the reader to sit through their conversational therapy. Everything was tedious, difficult to get through, with the entertainment value of watching loved ones fight.


Things readers will want to know: This simmers down. There is little to no sex, what is there is fade-to-black-esque. The bickering is classic LKH, so I rolled with it. No fangy fun. No hungry Anita, needing a harem to feast. Shifters, not vamps. Police procedural.


Finally, once the cast gets to the Florida Keys, the novel flows into a mystery to solve, which had me reading quickly, wishing to know what happened next. This was classic Anita Blake.


What I loved: the feeling of homecoming as my favorite characters made an appearance. Edward ‘Ted' has always been one who most intrigued me, & I’m thankful and applaud LKH for maintaining Anita and Edward’s best-friendship by keeping it platonic yet emotionally connected. Olaf ‘Otto' Jeffreys. If Olaf is in a book, I’ll read every word, & Anita and Olaf's interactions were fascinating & had amazing payoff for the reader. Peter. Peter. Peter. I need more Edward, Peter, & Olaf monster hunting with Anita. Peter needs to join the Four Horsemen, make it 5 somehow, because Bernardo is awesome too. The Four Horsemen was pure perfection.


What I didn’t love: the parents bickering in front of the children (characters vs reader). The polyamory discussions that went past educational. I am a firm believer in polyamory, but this went beyond organically unveiled. These two issues roll into one, and felt like beating a dead horse (the reader's patience). The swimming pool scenes were beyond irrational, with women written that give the female gender a bad name, while emasculating men for their inability NOT to flirt or tell women NO.


Overall, I struggled at the start but eventually fell into the storyline. I do believe Serpentine was a worthy installment & recommend to fans, as I never pass up the chance to push Guilty Pleasures at new readers. I plan on reading those books I’ve missed before the next installment, which I cannot wait to get my hands on.

[Melliane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mon avis en Français

My English review

I know that many people have abandoned Anita Blake in the face of the growing number of relationships and the overly polyamorous theme. I know it. I understand it too, but I have a weakness for this series. This is one of the first that I started and although many things tire me, I can not let it go. I sometimes take a long time to read them after their releases, but I do it anyway. I’m not going to tell you that things are changing because it would be lying, it’s in the continuity of previous novels. I concede that I was a little irritated at the beginning of the novel because of the incessant stories in all the novel about Anita’s personal concerns, jealousy, incessant demands for more attention. Yes, it’s still tiring, but we know what to expect when we dive into an Anita Blake novel. At least this time the scenes of sex are limited to the three principal characters Micah, Nathaniel and Jean-Claude and I did not have to think about who were her other numerous partners whose names I easily mix.

Apart from that, how can we resist reading a story about Edward’s wedding? Yes, Edward is here and I did not remember how irritating Donna was. But that’s not all because we also find Bernado and Olaf! Yes, Olaf! Oh I really like that one! It was the icing on the cake and that’s what really enhanced the novel for me. It is a character full of complexity and completely psychopathic but I love it! His interactions with Anita are always a treat to follow!

In addition to all this, our heroes will be confronted with two problems: a population that seems to turn into serpents little by little without a possible return and the disappearance of a woman at the wedding hotel. So of course, and even if it’s complicated, our Marshals will have to get back on duty even on vacation!

[Callon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I came incredibly close to not finishing Serpentine, and I'm not necessarily glad that I actually persevered.

It took a third of the book to actually get to the island, and halfway before anything significant actually happened. I think at least 70% of the book was essentially relationship fluff, and no one was free from it. What is wrong with the characters in this book that their relationships are so seriously flawed? Flawed enough that they develop multiple new problems in every single recent installment of the series. Just make them happy and leave it at that.

I would like to see an Anita Blake book where they focus is actually on something important, a new case or a new enemy, just something that can be fleshed out into a full book without needing to fill it up with relationship fluff. Stop adding new characters that we won't remember and won't actually be relevant when they are suddenly no included in the story, only to randomly be added in to function as a deus ex machina.

In my view Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter stopped somewhere after the first dozen books. I would recommend those to friends, but nothing past that. I don't want Anita Blake, Succubus Queen. While I would 100% read more books of the style of those first dozen, I genuinely don't know if I will be able to muster up the motivation to try again with the inevitable next installment.

Honest review provided in exchange of an advance copy from the publisher

[Adam Duclos · Rating 1 out of 5]

This must be a sweet gig for Hamilton by this point! She's just got to pick a word, come up with a few ideas, write enough plot to cover the first and last chapters, shove all the other ideas into the epilogue to die, then fill the three or four hundred pages in the middle of the book with BS arguments and a page or two of bad sex, and she's done! That's how she's written the last dozen or so novels, and by now she can probably bang these things out in a week.

I keep checking these books out out because the first ten or so novels were so good, and set up such an interesting world, that even as awful as these later books are, I often find myself daydreaming of being in the world. Although, these days, the daydreams are mostly of me popping into their world to scold people for forgetting all of their various super powers - which, I might add, is even worse in this book than previous ones. Poor Nathaniel cooks his tootsies on hot pavement - while in his super tough nearly indestructible giant leopard form!

Also, it's pretty clear that the author just took a vacation to the Florida Keys.

Here's how the story shakes out.

When we last left Anita, she was agreeing to be the best man in Edward's wedding, and being extra jazzed to be able to wear a tux, not a dress. Now, however, the bride, Donna, has changed her mind, and forced Anita to fly from St. Louis Missouri to Arizona somewhere just so that she can try on a series of terrible dresses. Micah calls her up and tells Anita that he's been in touch with a clan of people under a snake curse... it turns them into snakes! But not in a regular werecritter way, because the snakes have their own brains, they replace body parts like fingers, arms, or hair like medusa, but more and more over time. What happens at the end of the progression? They won't say!

We're reminded that at one point Donna thought Edward, who she knows as Ted, thought he and Anita were cheating on her, so much so that she was going to break up with Ted if he didn't admit to it, and since Edward is a raging sociopathic assassin with no morals, he just told her she was right, then got Anita to lie about it too. They eventually convinced Donna of the truth, but by then she had told Deirdre. Spoiler alert: Deirdre is a raging bitch who wants to scuttle the wedding because her own husband has been openly cheating on her for decades.

They all fly home, and Anita has to deal with Micah and Nathaniel being lonely... even Jean Claude was throwing a snit! And not only towards her, Nathaniel is also throwing a snit about Micah not being willing to do enough sex stuff with him. This would be reasonable, except that Nathaniel's into torture, and Micah is only gay because he's had his life rewritten by Anita's Ardeur power. Nathaniel is also pissed that they don't have sex twice a day anymore. I'd have to agree with him on that one... Everyone should either be immortal or hyped up on lycanthropic animal urges or both, plus there's both Anita's Ardeur and the original Ardeur from Jean Claude, and there's like 10 or 20 people in their sex group. Now, Anita isn't immortal, because the author has basically forgotten all about Anita not getting the fourth and final vampire mark, but she does have her aging slowed down. Anyway, get over it dude! You may be a leopard, but you're in love with a Cougar, as it were!

After several chapters of arguing, it turns out that there's a naga type snake lady on staff at their home base of Guilty Pleasures (a leftover from a much earlier, much better book) and they ask her if she knows anything about the snake people, since the clan was cursed in ancient Greece, and the naga lady (Melanie?) was from that time and place (she's immortal, and quite open about being once worshiped as a god). She tells them she doesn't know anything about it (spoiler alert: she's lying).

That's the first few chapters.

After that, they have to go to the Florida Keys to celebrate a beach wedding for Edward in his guise of Ted Forester, good ol boy cop... and the Keys are where all those snake clan folks live! Unfortunately, women get abducted and murdered, and a bad cop tries to frame the good guys. Turns out the bad cop was one of the serpent clan, and a siren who can mind rape people who are at all attracted to him. When they finally track him down, he spills the beans, reveals himself to be a pedophile, then commits suicide by cop when Anita shoots him. That triggers the final battle, where it turns out that a whole bunch of snake clan people got together to do a pointless sacrificial ritual, and that their final form is just a head with lots of snakes coming out of it, and they can voltron themselves together into one big snake ball. They shoot it for a while, and hit it with a flamethrower, and it dies.

That's the rest of the story!

Stuck in the middle of the book doldrums there are a few additional aborted plot points.

We establish that Olaf the rape-murdering US Marshal, fourth horseman, and recent lion lycanthrope wasn't invited by Ted/Edward, because of the whole rape-murdering thing and his murder boner he has for Anita. However, dumbass Donna invited him anyway. There's some mentions that Anita's inner magical lioness is jonesing for a lion man, and they hint that Olaf might be that lion man, but it doesn't go anywhere, just a mention that Anita doesn't want Olaf that way in the epilogue, while hinting throughout the book that she's increasingly okay with Olaf, even instinctually trusting him to hold onto her in a car accident, with their auras merging and all that, then going with their new pet names for each other fluidly during an interrogation.

Speaking of which, that whole car accident scene was hamfistedly crammed into the book just so Anita could hug Olaf! The local chief of police had said that he and the local psychic cop had super important intel for Anita and the other marshals and that they could only share by all cramming into a car that was too small to fit them all and drive away because that's the only way they could get privacy. Okay, so first of all he could have just ordered his cops to move away, no one said any reporters were there! Next, if that was the case, why did he then speed recklessly down the highway while also not checking for oncoming traffic? Wouldn't you think he'd drive more slowly since everyone was beating around the bush with the intel? Why, if Anita is super strong and also afraid of car accidents and phobic of not wearing seat belts because of personal tragedy, didn't she just have one of the dudes sit on her lap? Why not the psychic cop? And the intel ended up just being a confirmation of what they already knew.

Speaking of what they already knew, that Detective mind whammied the lot of them, and they were unsure of what kind of magical critter he was. But really, no connection was made about the snake clan? The clan with hundreds of members in that exact area? Plus, ancient Greece, but no sirens? Even if she didn't figure it out, maybe if that was supposed to be a secret from us, the readers, the author shouldn't have named the book 'Serpentine'.

We never find out how Bettina gets murdered and her insides hollowed out, except for 'maybe with teeth'. I have to assume one of the snake people did it... maybe with snakes? This is a pretty egregious oversight, especially considering that Anita's whole deal from the very first book is that she can bring the dead back to life to talk to them. There's an entire industry based around it, and she's the best! The hell, author!

There are a number of times when Anita is confronted with people who are irrationally angry with her. There's Dierdre the wedding wrecker, one of the cops, and the detective who turns out to be the bad guy, but they already knew he was a bad cop before that. Thing is... Anita can eat people's anger! It's an aspect of her Ardeur that has been around for quite a few books now, and has already been used on angry cops.

Again, I didn't like that they keep depowering the lycanthropes. Nathaniel burning his feet on hot pavement was quite the let down. Not only that, but he was dumber than normal in his animal form! Also, Anita had trouble with the scent information she was getting from him, but Nathaniel himself shouldn't have! Basically, Nathaniel didn't do anything here better than a regular bloodhound could have, worse even, because they could have just put booties on the dog if they really needed to.

But not only were the lycanthropes depowered, but their drawbacks were also dropped! There was no mention about the phases of the moon, for example, or how tired they might be because of the shifts. Even worse, the author had a room full of people watch Nathaniel shift to leopard form, and the description was 'there was a flash of bones'. No. No! The whole point is that a lycanthrope's shift is super painful, with writhing around as bones snap into pieces only to be put back together in a new, wrong, way, It's bloody, and finally there's some kind of weird fluid that sprays out everywhere that starts out as a lubricant but quickly dries into cement, leaving only the lycanthrope itself unaffected. Everyone in that room should have been immediately covered in bloody goo!

There was no reason to torture the snake haired lady at the end... they could have just told her that they knew about the snake people, and knew the ritual wouldn't work. If that didn't work, they could have mind whammied her anyway. It was also weird that they didn't kill her later.

Also weird... shouldn't they have spent the rest of the book covered in blood from the cut off snake's spurting?

Edward is just here for laughs now. Before, he was interesting because he was a human whose inhumanity - and special access to powerful weaponry - made him dangerous. Now there's half a side plot about how he keeps slipping in and out of his Ted persona, and at the end he's just like, 'Where can I borrow a flamethrower?' Nowhere, that's where. You should have brought your own. So at the end, they kill the monster, mainly by shooting it, but also with the flame thrower, which, again, burns the house down too. You know what the cops would have though? Grenades. Whoops!

We never get to see Donna coming to grips with Ted's Edward persona, even though we're told that she knows, but doesn't accept, some or all of the truth. Does she still not know he's also an assassin then?

We don't get to see if the second abductee gets better, or feels better, once saved. Does Bernardo hook up with her in an asexual way like she wants, now that he's all traumatized?

The snake naga lady from Guilty Pleasures (Melanie?)... her lie at the beginning of the book ends up putting everyone in danger. This is glossed over by just mentioning that she admits to being 'Echidna, the Mother of All Monsters' from Greek Mythology, and that these serpent people are probably people she cursed and mutated with her venom, and that she's willing to help them out now. She didn't want to talk before, because she was afraid Anita would kill her. But shouldn't Jean Claude be pissed off at her and take some kind of punitive measures against her for putting all of his future brides in danger?

What happened to the Ardeur? Suddenly Anita doesn't have to feed it except for every few weeks or something? I mean, it already only had to be fed at the speed of plot, but that was where most of the sexiness was brought in. Especially because most of the on purpose sex was mostly argument. Also, the aspect that it changes people to suit Anita was dropped... For example, Olaf is only worried about being with Anita because he's afraid of being coopted as one of her Brides, like Nicky or the two new ones, but he should really be worried about his entire self changing!

Speaking of the two new brides, at no point are we reminded what the heck animals they are. It ends up not mattering because they're only there to provide additional arguments and awkward moments, and that was it. Anita bit one and got all loopy, but that didn't go anywhere.

Finally... not only did Anita not use her necromancy to help the case by talking to that girl's corpse, but there wasn't any in the entire book! On top of that, there were barely any vampires! There were, for example, no vampire bodyguards, even at Guilty Pleasures! Even though some of them can fly! There was one brief mention of Obsidian Butterfly at the beginning, which was dropped like a hot potato, some bad sex with Jean Claude at the beginning, and Jean Claude helped mentally once using their long distance connection while Anita was being rolled by the siren. But even that last bit was problematic, because Jean Claude's message was that Anita had blocked herself off from her mystically bonded support structure, and there was no mention at all of Damien! Damien, her vampire to call, the one who suffers and nearly dies whenever Anita cuts him off! The hell!

As for Anita's retinue, I get that Anita kept it small because she was going to a small wedding, but you know what? That doesn't make any sense. First of all, because she could have brought more people who just wouldn't take part in the wedding, and second, because no one new showed up later when they started having trouble. How cool would it have been to fly some of their people out by plane at night, then have Wicked and Truth hop out and fly the rest of the way under their own power?

Basically, this entire book seemed like an afterthought, only showing us a couple of days crammed in to take up room because the author is putting off writing about Anita and Jean Claude's impending wedding. Perhaps the author's not sure what would happen after the wedding... does she think that constitutes an end to the series? There's no reason for that to be the case. She does seem to be walking back a lot of her plot points (such as killing the Mother of All Darkness, then saying 'Oh, she's not dead, she split up her essence between several vampires!) instead of coming up with new ones. Plus, her Merideth Gentry series has languished for a while now too, so maybe the author is just burnt out?

[BookAddict ✒ La Crimson Femme · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anita Blake returns front and center of everyone's attention, even if it isn't her wedding. It is Edward's, aka Ted's wedding. All is not right with the couple as strange things happen with conflicts that cause everyone, including the groom to question if this wedding should go through.

I'm mixed on this story. Anita is the center again as the women in Donna's party are torn up...over Anita's fake sexual relationship with Edward. Not sure why this is coming up but apparently one of Donna's bridemaid just loses it. She is dead set against ruining the wedding and splitting Donna and Ted apart. It's befuddling for all, especially for Anita as she isn't sure why she is being pulled into it. This does all tie into a case that Micah is trying to help fix through his coalition. For this tie in, I liked and see how Ms. Hamilton is fleshing out her stories again.

This book is a step towards the Ms. Hamilton I enjoyed reading and then the wedding drama drags it into a train wreck. The focus is on a case fizzles out and Anita's love life becomes open for every Tom, Dick and Harry to question. Surprisingly, this lengthy story only covered a few of days. Ms. Hamilton is still writing 24 Hours TV series style. Every scene is written out and it feels as if we are witnessing this story in real time. The nice thing about this style is getting to see every little detail that is going on. The down side of this writing style is feeling as if nothing as been accomplished and the series is going nowhere fast.

The drama in this story is confusing for me. I guess it is because I'm more like Anita. The women do not make any logical sense to me and I just want to slap them out of their hysteria. Donna's insecurities are annoying and off putting. I never understood why Edward would want her. And this story finally reveals why he wants her. Basically he wants a family and she comes with the kids. Donna's kids are fabulous. They are amazing ones who are much more mature compared to their mom. I guess Edward just needs to put up with Donna's psychotic behaviour just so he can be a dad to two great kids. I'd rather just take the kids and run. Donna is totally not worth it.

For an urban fantasy about a female character who is supposed to be straightforward and drama free, it is odd to see how the past 10+ books revolve around feelings. Revolve around emotional issues that require a shrink and trying not to "hurt" someone's feelings". I was hoping this latest story would focus back on her work life and move the supernatural plot forward. I can say this book did have a bit more of the supernatural plot than the last few. There is also a bit of a disturbing factor with Olaf and the way he relates to Anita. Speaking of Olaf showing up to the wedding on an invite neither groom nor Anita approved... It never surprises me how badly Donna messes up and represents the stereotypical nagging clueless housewife that drive husbands into another woman's arms. With all that happens in this book, I'm not sure what will happen in the next. It is anyone's guess if Edward does get married and if Anita will be able to have a stable love life.

This erotic romance is recommended to die hard fans who want to see Edward back in the series.

*provided by NetGalley

[Soo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mini-Review:

I am a fan of LKH and I really do like this series a lot. I'm enough of a fan (and hopeful) to buy the books on or near the release date. The book was okay but the books have become clogged with rehashed relationship junk. It's not new. It's not a new development. If I edited out all of the overdone backstory and repetitive mental add-ons, the actual story would take up about 125 pages. Not even close to 200 pages.

Usually, the case or "red glaring threat" scenario made up for some of the inflated drama but that balance has been going out of wack for a while now.

I actually wanted to read about the wedding itself. I found myself more interested in the growing pains for the kids than in any of the adults. I'm sure cool & disturbing stuff with happen with Peter & Otto in the future. The glacier rate of almost zero movement in development in character and plot in this book was a huge disappointment.

Does stuff happen in this book. Yup. How long does it take to happen? Too long. It's like what made me love Anita Blake has been overcome by a weird haze that distorts everything into an obscure mess that has to do with extreme insecurity and lack of trust. That's not what the story is about but that's the message that's getting thrown around with gusto. It's the opposite of how I would have described the series or the main character.

I am still hopeful that the core idea of the characters and plot will come back into the series. I just hope it doesn't take 5-6 years and 2-4 books for it to happen.

Decent action, some mild plot momentum and a few large hints at what may come. Important enough to read the book but not one you need to get right away.

[Terri ♥ (aka Mrs. Christian Grey) · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was good and bad getting back to Anita’s world. Edward was in the story which is good, but when he’s in the story there is always less sexy times.

For me, the biggest draw back to this series is how a walk down the hall can take two chapters as conversations take place that can happen once they reach their destination. It’s annoying. Also information is often repeated with different characters without giving any additional insight. For those reasons, the story can drag.

The sex scenes were few and stilted. So overall, I was happy to be back but disappointed too.

Then add that it could take two years plus to the next one... I don’t know. This one didn’t end in a way that left me clamoring for the next book. I’ll read the next Anita book for sure, but I think the book world has changed. Six months to a year has become the longest most are willing to wait.

So this installment was okay mystery wise. The bad guy almost obvious not including his backstory. Why no one really thought he was the one with one exception made all seem dumb.

I think almost the entire story in the middle was useless. The mystery doesn’t come together as the main element in the plot until late. I don’t know how to rate this one.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book to read and review for Wicked Reads

well, i'm not sure where to go with this review. Start by saying that I've been a fan for many years of the Anita Blake series and i've read them all. But, did not read book 23 or 24. After Jason's book (book 22) I pretty much gave up. When this came up for review I decided I'd give one of my favorite authors another chance. I have to say, I'm pretty indifferent. I dont think things have gotten any better for my long time favorite. I was over 40% into the book and not a single thing was happening in the plot. You're in for total over descriptiveness (which was always present but exacerbated in the past few book) of clothing, scenery, hair color, facial expressions. There's bickering about who gets to have Anita's attention and even Nathaniel became a bit whiny! Micah's character is usually my rock when things get crazy but he was sort of never really present, always on the phone or out of town. There's hardly any Jean Claude in this one except a brief scene in the beginning. Not even really good steamy scenes. The story FINALLY kicks in around the 80% mark with a murder scene & abduction and then does this "scooby do" ending where it all wraps up with one bad guy giving all the plot points & "who done it's". I was determined to finish this and it took quite a bit of skimming. I love these characters, they're like old friends to me after 22 books. I'd love to see something better come out of this!