Customer Reviews
A big disappointment from the Anita Blake series.
If you read the other reviews criticizing this book, its true. Its definitely higher in sexual content than the last ones. Spill over from the Kiss of Shadows? Most likely. Although it is nice to see Anita Blake become more comfortable in her skin as well as the way she deals with sex. What's horrible is the disjointed interaction with the police, scenes that don't feel complete and are left up in the air. Animator's INC is not mentioned at all. With Bert at the helm, how can she not get paged by him at least once? The worst of all, which is UNFORGIVABLY BAD FORM, is the plagiarization of a previous love/sex scene from one of her OWN books!!! The one where Richard rolls his beast through her, almost word for word VERBATIM made me want to throw the book out the window!!!!
Where were the proofreaders??? Shame on the publisher, and shame on L.H!!! As much as we want the next Anita Blake novel, take the time and put some effort into it. We want to be a part of the Anita Blake world when we read, not run from it due to bad writing.
90% Sex, 10% Crime/Mystery
I started the Anita Blake series during my senior year of high school. I was totally hooked. I am now entering my junior year of college, and I have become very disappointed since I read Narcissus in Chains.
The story is full of mindless sex. I enjoy sex in novels; it's great, but most of these sexual scenes are out of nowhere and not tied to the actual plot.
More and more, I can't stand Nathaniel. He's a whiny little baby who looks to Anita for EVERYTHING. It's like someone suddenly yells FREEZE and the plot suddenly halts because Nathaniel needs something. I'm surprised that he isn't dead yet, really.
The villian in this novel was terrible. LKH pushed aside almost all of the plot's mystery so she could present us with smut. Suddenly, as the book is winding down, she has the gang drive over to the club and the gun fight is on. It's just too random. There was no extreme detective work. And LKH presented the villian as though we were supposed to know who it was all along. What the hell?
The series was wonderful when she was animating, solving crimes, and suffering under the weight of the sexual tension. LKH uses the arduer as a poor excuse for all the sex in her novels now.
This is the worst of all the novels in this series in my opinion. I'm going to read Incubus Dreams because I've already been a long time fan, but I don't have much hope for it.
Soft Porn for the supernatural lover
While I understand the evolution of Anita's life, this book takes her love life well into the porn field. If you like a half dozen scenes of sex, including group and S&M sex (biting), then you'll appreciate the entire book. Otherwise, if you overlook it, you can still enjoy the book by skimming those sections you don't wish to read. I like Laurell Hamilton's writing, but perhaps she should develop other new worlds of fiction to explore.
