Search - Blood Noir (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Bk 16)

I'm one of the rare (it seems) folks who really still like LKH and Anita Blake. I really liked The Harlequin and thought there was a step forward in a return to some bit of balance with that one. This one felt like two steps back to me, but not necessarily in regards to the balance.

I have a couple key things that I found annoying. First, the style/quality of the writing seem to be amateurish. I've always really enjoyed her style of writing in the past, but sometimes even simple writing mechanics seemed painful here. I found myself groaning (and not in a good way) with how some of the stuff was written.

Second, this book was far longer than it needed to be. I can't even believe I just said that. I've always thought her books could be bigger and go on forever, and I would be perfectly happy with that. Not this time. This book should have been like Micah... small paperback, and really cheap. I'm almost annoyed that this was put into a hardback.

While some of the underlying character development was really good, and even the skeleton seemed solid, something just seemed to get lost in execution. Jason is going home to his dying dad with his bed buddy just so he can prove he is truly straight... seriously!?! This just baffled me. I can't even put my finger on why, but it just seemed so whack. Then when you add the whole looking like the local celebrity into the mix, it just felt entirely too contrived.

I still enjoyed it, cuz these are some of my favorite characters, but I felt like I got a glimpse of them on some seriously bad hair days or something.

More Anita. More sex. More people trying to kill Anita, more of Anita killing other people. More pouting and stupidity from Richard. A Jean Claude who is nearing maudlin. Jason begging (again). Nathaniel wanting rougher sex (again). Men and women both bespelled by Anita's cuteness and charm (again...and, yet, what?).

Basically, for followers of the series, you'll read it, because even if someone told you it was made up of only three 20-chapter sex scenes, you'd still read it. But please, do yourself a favor and borrow it from the library. At least that way you can save your money, even as you give up your common sense.

I am not a member of the Laurell K Hamilton bashing commitee. You know the people who buy the books and then blog about how horrible they are and reminisce about the good ol' days, but this book was horrible. It was Micah 2.0 but crappier. I know she says that she has so many ideas that she could write Anita Blake novels forever but there were no new ideas in Blood Noir. Anita has lots of sex, she gains some powers, she has a baby scare, she contemplates her relationships, she "grows", ends up in the hospital and impresses/scares everyone with her awsome powers. I'm sorry if I have given too much away but really, did you think you were going to be surprised? I won't start blogging about it (this is it, I swear) because I'm not going to read another one. Ugh!

I enjoyed this book very much! Laurell Hamilton knows how to write.

This was another great book in the series. Granted, there was a lot of nookie, but there was still some pretty cool intrigue and action going on. It did feel a little short, but the stuff with Marmee Noir and what she may have in store yet for Anita makes you want the author to hurry up and get the next book out already!

Was good.Can't wait for the next one