Ames’ review of Kiss the Dead by Laurell K. Hamilton.
When a fifteen-year-old girl is abducted by vampires, it’s up to U.S. Marshal Anita Blake to find her. And when she does, she’s faced with something she’s never seen before: a terrifyingly ordinary group of people—kids, grandparents, soccer moms—all recently turned and willing to die to avoid serving a master. And where there’s one martyr, there will be more…
But even vampires have monsters that they’re afraid of. And Anita is one of them…
Reading other reviews on Goodreads, this seems to be the book that breaks the camel’s back, and that’s exactly how I felt reading it.
It was nice to see Anita acting as a Marshall back in St. Louis…but then it went on forever. I was getting tired of it and just when I was about to throw in the towel, Anita went back to the Circus where some shenanigans went down…and I didn’t like those shenanigans. What the heck is going on with Asher? That felt like it came out of left field.
I did like that Anita was questioning her lifestyle…if she could even continue to be a Marshall and needing to weed some of her harem out.
I hated the angst she felt over Cynric. She compared it sooooo much to what she went through with Nathaniel. Like hitting us over the head with it already.
Also, since when were JC and Richard sleeping with a weretiger together? I have a vague recollection of it being talked about…but didn’t realize that it had begun. And the way it was handled, thrown into Anita’s face? I mean, her reaction to it was very mature, but way to remind us!
As for the summary, 3/5 of the book is Marshall stuff and the other 2/5 is bedroom/relationship stuff. Meh.
And yeah, 21 books into Anita Blake and I’m done with this series with one caveat: I’m only going to read the next book if it’s about bringing Otto down. Why am I done? Nothing new is happening – with the earlier books I felt like they were building up to something, but now that something is a big unwieldy beast with no end in sight. The writing is annoying as crap (“What does that mean?” I know I’ve carped on that in the last couple of books.) And I hate to say it, but I just don’t care about the characters the way I did before.
2.75 out of 5
This book is available from Berkley. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
You can read more from ~ames~ at Thrifty Reader.
This series has gone into 21 books? Wow, no wonder it’s gotten unwieldy. I don’t think I could stick with reading, much less writing, a story that long.
it is funny when i think that this series is just too long, an then I think about the In Death books and there are lots more of those but I look forward to everyone. Makes me think about what is the difference. This series seems to have lost its focus.