Tag: Melissa’s Reviews

Throwback Thursday Guest Review: The Killing Dance by Laurell K. Hamilton

Posted May 30, 2019 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Features, Reviews | 4 Comments

Throwback Thursday Guest Review: The Killing Dance by Laurell K. HamiltonReviewer: Melissa
The Killing Dance by Laurell K. Hamilton
Series: Anita Blake #6
Also in this series: Guilty Pleasures, The Laughing Corpse, Circus of the Damned
Publisher: Penguin, Berkley
Publication Date: April 4, 2006
Format: Print
Source: Purchased
Point-of-View: Third
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 368
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
Series Rating: four-stars

Dating both a vampire and a werewolf isn't easy. But just to complicate Anita's already messy life, someone has put a price on her head. Love cannot save her this time, so she turns to Edward, hitman extraordinaire, for help. But finding the person behind the threat won't be easy, because as both a vampire hunter and zombie reanimator, Anita has made a lot of enemies-both human and otherwise.

Every Thursday, we’ll be posting throwback reviews of our favorite and not-so-favorite books. Enjoy!

This review was originally posted on May 14, 2008.

Melissa‘s review of The Killing Dance by Laurell K. Hamilton.

So, I saw the new LKH book at a bookstore. It interested me. I started the series from the beginning. I’m now up to the 6th book in the Anita Blake series. I love them all.

One reason why I love Anita is that she has a hitman/hitmen after her and she is still making threats to monsters. She just can’t seem to keep her mouth shut and doesn’t give f*** who she pisses off. There are a couple of different bad guys in this book.

The bad guys caught me off guard. One, I totally didn’t see coming, I just thought it was beneath him/her to hire a hit man. The other, well traitors are among us. Good old Edward appears in this book. He is such a mystery to me, he just pops in and out of books, but we really don’t know too much about him. Anita’s love triangle is getting complicated. She knows she can’t date both of her monsters indefinitely, but can’t choose either. What’s a girls gonna do.

All 3 of them are powerful. More powerful together than apart. Richard is her ideal man, except he has one flaw, he is a werewolf that won’t kill. His morals are starting to make Anita think less of him, cause trouble in the pack for him, and piss him off. Jean-Claude is a vampire and although he turns her on, she can’t get down with it, because he is the undead. I will tell you that she makes some sort of decision in this book. But, was it the right one??? And how will it affect their combined power?

Now for the part, I didn’t like..there wasn’t one. I liked the whole book.

Favorite quote:

“Gag me with a spoon”

(you gotta admit, that’s just funny)

Grade: 4.5 out of 5

This book is available from Jove. You can buy it here or here in eBook format.

Anita Blake

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Guest Review: Scions: Resurrection by Patrice Michelle

Posted January 17, 2012 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 0 Comments

Genres: Paranormal Romance


Melissa‘s guest review of Scions: Resurrection by Patrice Michelle. The first book in her Scions trilogy.

EVERYONE BELIEVED VAMPIRES WERE EXTINCT. EVERYONE WAS WRONG.

When Ariel Swanson wrote a novel about vampires, she hoped it would exorcise her fear of the creatures that had, not so long ago, terrorized the human population.

Instead, it brought her to their attention.

And to the attention of Jachin Black-a man banished from the Saguinas, a vampire pack, and forced to hunt among the despised humans. For he clung to the prophecy given years ago, of a better way for his kind to live-a prophecy Ariel unknowingly used as the basis of her novel.

Ariel hates and fears vampires. Jachin despises humanity. But the prophecy-and passion-binds them in ways they could never have imagined. Ways that may heal past, and change the future….

A little romance, government conspiracy, vampires, werewolves, and tons of action.

The part that caught most of my attention is that the government created vampires to fight biological warfare. Can we say bad idea? USMC wife here, yeah, I could totally see some dumb-ass government official doing that.

Anyway. Jachin, is banished from his vampire pack, the Sanguinas. He wronged the head vampire, Braeden…girl trouble. So for the last 10 years he has been a paid assassin. The Sanguinas are not surviving, human blood has become toxic to them. By banishing Jachin, they believed they were giving him a death sentence. Jachin, tired of surviving on his own and wanting to see his race survive, figures the cute little author, Ariel, will be his ticket back into the pack.

Jachin is doing his best to ignore his attraction to Ariel, she is meant for Braeden. But there is nothing like a (or multiple) life or death situation to light the sparks. The Sanquinas want her bad to fulfill the prophecy, so all the bad guys are after her. Ariel is terrified of vampires, they murdered her whole family. But fights the whole way, not only for her life, she fights the growing attraction to Jachin. The plot, very simple, easy to follow…Boy abducts girl, they fall in love, live happily ever after. The prophecy, still unfulfilled, is suppose to unite humans, vamps and weres. Hmm, interesting thought, considering humans made vampires to do their dirty work, and vampires made werewolves to hunt for fun??!! Even though I wasn’t all that impressed with the book, I am interested in book two, to see how we all live in harmony.

I can’t exactly say what I didn’t like about the book. Maybe it was just a little to far out there for my historical preference.

3.0 out of 5

This book is available from Silhouette Nocturne. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

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Guest Review: Skin Trade by Laurell K. Hamilton

Posted July 23, 2009 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 5 Comments

Genres: Paranormal Romance


Melissa‘s review of Skin Trade (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 17) by Laurell K. Hamilton

Once you tell someone certain things—say, you got mailed a human head in a box—they tend to think you’re crazy.

Anita Blake’s reputation has taken some hits. Not on the work front, where she has the highest kill count of all the legal vampire executioners in the country, but on the personal front. No one seems to trust a woman who sleeps with the monsters. Still, when a vampire serial killer sends her a head from Las Vegas, Anita has to warn Sin City’s local authorities what they’re dealing with. Only it’s worse than she thought. Police officers and one executioner have been slain—paranormal style…

Anita heads to Las Vegas, where she’s joined by three other U. S. Marshals, including the ruthless Edward hiding behind his mild-mannered persona. It’s a good thing Edward always has her back because when she gets close t to the bodies, Anita senses “tiger” too strongly to ignore it. The weretigers are very powerful in Las Vegas, which means the odds of her rubbing someone important the wrong way just got a lot higher…

Skin Trade is the seventeenth Anita Blake book. Laurell K. Hamilton brings together characters from Obsidian Butterfly – my all time favorite Anita book. Anita, Edward, Olaf and Bernardo meet up in Sin City to hunt the serial killer vampire, Vittorio, from Incubus Dreams.

Anita and her horde of men are living under Circus of the Damned. Vittorio sends her a gruesome gift to work, Animators Inc., were she decides immediately to rush off to Vegas, without consulting the men in her life. She meets up with the other 3 Marshalls and the hunt begins.

But Anita can’t just have one problem at a time. Not only does a blood sucking serial killer want her, but Chang Bibi, the Master of Las Vegas’ wife, has other plans for Anita ~ which includes her son. The Mother of all Darkness makes an appearance late in the book, reaching for Anita. And who can forget Olaf, yeah the hairs on the back of my neck just stood up.

Vittorio is a sick, twisted bad guy. Which makes him a good bad guy. But I wasn’t really understanding the direction his character was going, or rather, the “past” that he had. It didn’t seem to fall in line with Incubus Dreams. Maybe I just missed something, not sure.

Anita is up against the some of the same issues she has been in the past. The frustration with the men in her life, police not respecting her and thinking she gets everything done b/c she is a slut, feeding the ardeur and her ever changing lycanthrope issues. The sex seems to have really toned down.

But, once again, Anita wakes up in a room full of men, not remembering what happened, but “knowing” what happened. Only this time, there is a 16 year old lycanthrope involved….eewww! That one thing, one event, one age pushed me out of the Anita Blake fan club. Lets face it, she has fucked everything else, did we truly need to bring in minors?

The story was just ok, suspense just all right. Overall, I didn’t like the book. I am unhappy with Anita and with the repetition of scenarios. I will not be rushing out to buy the next book, if I read it at all. I would wait for the paperback release rather than lay out the significant cost for the hardback.

3 out of 5

This book is available from Jove. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

Holly says: Did you see that Anita Blake is set to become a television series? Fans how do you feel about this? I haven’t read the series, but I’m curious about how they’ll deal with all the sex…

Also (and totally aside) I really hate LKH’s new website. Its ugly, the print is tiny and its hard to navigate.

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Guest Review: Dark Highland Fire by Kendra Leigh Castle

Posted October 2, 2008 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 2 Comments

Genres: Paranormal Romance

Melissa‘s review of Dark Highland Fire by Kendra Leigh Castle

A WEREWOLF FROM THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS WHO HAS LIVED A CHARMED LIFE…
Desired by women, kissed by luck, Gabriel MacInnes has always been able to put pleasure ahead of duty. but with the MacInnes wolves now squarely in the sights of an ancient dragon, everything is about to change…
A FIERY DEMI-GODDESS WITH A NEED FOR BLOOD, AND AN AVERSION TO OVERBEARING SHAPE SHIFTERS…

Exiled from her realm, on the run from a dragon prince who will stop at nothing to have her as his own, the last thing Rowan an Morgaine wants is to accept the protection of Gabriel and his clan…
But the MacInnes pack is Rowan’s only refuge until their common enemy can be stopped. In the deep woods, under a different moon, there are secrets yet to be revealed. and Rowan and Gabriel discover and intertwining fate that demands their utmost devotion or the ultimate sacrifice…

This book is very descriptive and goes through different realms. The first 1/3 of the book I had to read slower than usual, just so I could understand who and what all the characters were and where they came from.

Rowan is next in line to be leader of her people. She is running from a dragon who wants to wed her. When Rowan refused, the dragons attacked her family, her people. Rowan’s brother Bastian, helped Rowan get away, but brought her through the portals, to earth. Eventually she is put into Gabriel’s protection. Gabriel is a stubborn Highland werewolf, and won’t let Rowan refuse his protection, or flee back to her own realm in attempts to save the day alone.

The story is good. But it took me longer than usual to read this book. It is very, very descriptive. The characters are out-of this world, and it took me a while to put it all in place. I enjoyed the second half of the book much more than the first. Probably because, by then, I was understanding the flow. But, if there is ever a sequel, I think it would flow much better, now that I “get it”.

The only part I didn’t like….

The heroine Rowan is of the Dyadd, she has powers of her own, drinks blood (but is not a vampire) and 1/2 something else (I can’t tell you because it would spoil the ending). The hero, Gabriel, is a forest shifter. He turns into a wolf. Lucien’s, the bad guy, other form is a dragon.

I can’t see how wolves can go up against dragons and be triumphant, even with the help of the Dyadd.

Grade: 4 out of 5

This book is available from Sourcebooks Casablanca. You can buy it here.

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Guest Review: Micah (An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novel) by Laurell K. Hamilton

Posted July 17, 2008 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 3 Comments

Book CoverMelissa‘s review of Micah, book 13 in Laurell K. Hamilton‘s Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series.

“Raising the dead was easy; love was hard…”
There are lots of reasons to raise the dead-some private, some public. In this case, the Feds have a witness who died before he could speak on the record. they want him raised so his testimony can be taken. So here I am, on a plane to Philadelphia, flying off to do my job.

But I’m not alone. Micah is with me. Micah, head of the St. Louis wereleopard pard. King to my Queen. The only one of my lovers who can stir my blood with just a glance from his chartreuse cat’s eyes. I was happy to have him at my side.

Until he mentioned that this will be our first time alone together. No master vampire. No alpha werewolf. Just me and Micah. And all my fears and doubts…

Well, what can I say. This review will be short and sweet.

Larry, Anita’s co-worker, was called for a job in Philly by the Feds. Due to a personal emergency, he calls Anita to sub for him. Anita and Micah fly off, Micah posing as her assistant. She fights the bad guy, raises the dead. Voila, end of story.

This book was a total disappointment. The poor trees that were sacrificed! I could have done without the story completely. All we learned was 1) Micah wants more of Anita 2) Anita is still combating her commitment fears.

Well, I guess that is not completely true, we did learn a little of Micah’s past. But. Well. Yeah, that is all I have to say on this one.

Someone asked how I felt about Micah. I think this quote sums it up:

“It was sort of nice to be the brave one for a change.”

Yeah, just not my cup of tea.

Grade: 2.5

This book is available from Jove. You can buy it here or here in e-book format.

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