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I'm not saying that I wanted it to be all full of Michael Bay-esque explosions, but come on. What killed this book is that everyone seems to want to talk each other to death. The premise for the book had a lot of promise. No, that I think I could have dealt with.
Jean Claude, her vampire master & lover informs her that it is the calling card of the Harlequin- a band of vampires that monitors anyone who is suspected of being too powerful or too abusive of their power. Now can we move on." (I'm not even going to go over some of the more squicky parts of the book, such as the scene where Anita says a girl had "buyer's remorse").This book could have easily been shortened by a hundred pages & been the better for it. The Anita Blake series is in DESPERATE need of an editor to take care of not only the grammatical & spelling errors, but to also improve the pacing of the novels. The series has been spiraling into a slow decline & this book shows this. Ever since the action in the Anita Blake shifted from action in the streets to action between the sheets, the series has taken a turn for the boring. This book seems to show the signs of this more than the others do. He tells her that the white mask means that they are only watching & that they cannot make any moves until they have given a color appropriate mask. And they're trying to mess with Anita's head & the heads of her loved ones.
In other words, the Harlequin is the freaking vamp police. You have scenes that take 30 pages to say something that could have and SHOULD have been said in three. I gave the book 1 star because while the idea of it was interesting, the talkity talk of the book just killed it. After a while I just wanted to scream at the book "OK- I FREAKING GET IT. Unfortunately the Harlequin agents appear to have their own agenda in mind, as Anita & her group find themselves being attacked both spiritually & physically. It got incredibly old after a while & I found my eyes glazing over as I kept reading the same idea spouted over & over again, but through the mouths of different characters.
What would have been an otherwise interesting premise for a novel has been killed- not by Hamilton's penchant for mind numbingly repetitive sex. But in the end, this awesome idea is trampled flat by repetitive sex scenes & long dragged out episodes where Anita & her men talk everything to death. I mean, an elite squad of vampires that answer to no one except the vampire high council & even then, have the power to exterminate one of the council if they were to step too far out of bounds. This entry in the Anita Blake series has Anita enjoying a rare night out with one of her boyfriends when she receives a mysterious white mask. Seriously, what part of the above doesn't sound awesome.
Yes, I'll keep going. That horse has been beaten, dead, and should've been buried wayyyyy down several couple books ago. The story/plot would be running along smoothly and suddenly everything would stop so she could get on her soapbox (with Richard usually as the instigator). For now. And speaking of Richard - enough is enough. I liked this one better than the last.
What I did notice a lot more of, however, was that the author got on her "moral highground" soapbox too much. Unfortunately, I bet we'll read all about it again in the next book. The plot wasn't as thin, and there was a better balance between action/character development and the sex scenes. He's never going to accept Anita for who she is, and she's never going to understand why he's so bothered by her lifestyle. :) Due to the soapbox and Richard-dead-horse issues, I'd really rate this as a 3.5, but can't, so I rounded up this time around. I also noticed fewer typos, and fewer repeated phrases.
It was very jarring, and seemed like the author is working through something in her own life in this book.
and all the others to I love this book i will recomended to any one that want to read one it good.
But if you've been reading the series all along, and have been considering stopping as the last few books haven't satisfied you, I'd suggest reading this one before giving up on the series. When this series began, I rated the violence content "R", and the sexual content "PG"; the violence has remained more or less constant throughout the series, but the sexual content has gradually increased until it got to the point, three or four books ago, that I would have to rate it "X"; if you enjoy a fast-moving, well-written pornographic novel, as I do, then you'll continue to enjoy this series; if that's not what you're looking for but want to read books like the early ones in this series -- hard-bitten detective novels with a fantasy background and a bit of light eroticism -- you'll want to stop somewhere around book eight in the series.That being said, this book is closer in tone to the older books than any book has been in a while, since "Obsidian Butterfly" at least; there are still some pretty graphic sexual scenes, but they don't dominate the book the way they have for the past few books. Still, I wouldn't start with this book, as it would be hard to keep track of what's happening and who the players are if one hadn't been following along from the beginning, nor would I advise skipping from the earlier, less sexually graphic novels to this one, for the same reason.
I believe this "way too complex" story line has outlived its ability to generate new and interesting material. At about mid way through the book, I just said enough. This is also my first time reviewing a book of this nature.
The Harlequin was supposed to be a rather evil character.but ended up being rarely mentioned. I rarely stop midway in a book and discard it. The sex scenes are continuous and downright ridiculous in terms of their premises.
I am a prolific reader (4-5 books per week) and love all the paranormal / vamp series books I can get my hands on. but no go. This was one of them.
For the life of me, I can't figure out what the author is trying to do with this storyline. Although I haven't read each one of the prior Anita Blake books, I should have been able to get through the book without becoming exasperated.
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