Skin Trade
Laurell K. Hamilton
4 Stars
I've been reading the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series since it came out and for the most part I've loved it. There have been one book here and there that hasn't made the cut at least to me and I hate to say it but this is one of those books.
After 17 books in this series, you have to imagine that not all the books are going to appeal to everyone. This one starts out much like the other books in this series do. Anita is The Executioner in this book and is tracking down a serial killer vampire, Vittorio. She is joined in Las Vegas by her friend Edward AKA Ted as well as Bernardo and Otto Aka Olaf.
I was ready for a wonderful book full of mind blowing sex, plenty of action, great dialog, camaraderie, suspense, as well as the great characters Asher, Jean-Claude, Micah and the rest that we are familiar with.
Instead I got some weird interaction between Anita and Olaf, which for the record I did not like. Olaf is a serial killer and makes Anita nervous but she was also strangely attracted to him.
There was very little sex and one time when it did happen Anita goes to sleep next to two men and wakes up after having an orgy in her room with no memory. There was no flashes of memory to tell us what happened during said orgy, so we didn't get a glimpse into it at all. But when she wakes up she finds that she had a 16 year old boy in her bed. That I found quite disgusting.
The book was long, 486 pages long and I'd have to say that less than half was even good. I would love to see Laurell K. Hamilton write the way she did when she first started this series. I miss the hot erotic sex scenes all through the books, I miss the action scenes where Anita is kicking ass and isn't tired of killing the bad guys. I really want her to get back to the main characters and back into her relationship with them. I want to see more Jean-Claude, Asher, Micah and Jason. As well as the other men she is having a relationship with along with them.
Will this short fall with this book keep me from reading her next book? No, I have become a fan of the Anita Blake and Merry Gentry Series and I will keep buying and reading the books probably until the series ends because most of the books are really good.
I have read this book and although I can agree with you about some aspects, I really enjoyed this book. I really liked that it was so long and I liked Otto making Anita feel so strange. I wonder if he will be her next bed mate?
ReplyDeleteOh I really hope that Olaf/otto doesn't become one of Anita's lover's. That would not be good in my opinion. Although he is trying to change for her, he is still a serial killer.
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