2006: #17 – Cerulean Sins (Laurell K. Hamilton)

Cerulean Sins by Laurell K. Hamilton
Series: Anita Blake #11
Published by Berkley Books on August 31, 2004
Genres: fantasy, urban fantasy
Pages: 529


Also by this author: Circus of the Damned, A Kiss of Shadows, The Lunatic Cafe, Bloody Bones, The Killing Dance
Also in this series: Circus of the Damned, The Lunatic Cafe, Bloody Bones, The Killing Dance, Burnt Offerings

Cerulean Sins, the eleventh entry in the hugely-popular Anita Blake series, finds everyone’s favorite vampire hunter keeping house and kicking butt.
 
Anita Blake is trying to get her life back to “normal” after a break-up with her werewolf lover. She has settled into a pattern of domesticity, which means that the new man in her life, the leopard shapeshifter Micah, has no problem sharing her with Jean-Claude, Master Vampire of the City. Things are as peaceful as they ever get for someone who raises the dead, when Jean-Claude receives an unexpected and unwelcome visitor: Musette, the very beautiful, very twisted representative of the European Council of Vampires. Anita soon finds herself caught up in a dangerous game of vampire power politics.
 
To add to her troubles, she is asked to consult on a series of brutal killings, which seem to be the work of something un-human. The investigation leads her to Cerulean Sins, a vampire-run establishment that deals in erotic videos, videos that cater to very specific tastes. Anita knows one creature of the night who has such interests — Jean-Claude’s visitor. But if Anita brings Musette down, the repercussions could cost her everything she holds dear.
 
Once a sworn enemy of all monsters, Anita is now the human consort of both Master Vampire Jean Claude and leopard shapeshifter Micah. When a centuries-old vampire hits St. Louis, Anita finds herself needing all the dark forces her passion can muster to save the ones she loves.
 
Anita Blake returns to find hell hath no fury like a vampire scorned.

Book #17 was Cerulean Sins, the 11th book in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series.

I still like these books, but like I said when I blogged about the last ones, they’re starting to contain a bit too much sex. With this book, it seemed like the first 100 pages or so was Anita moving from one sexual scene to another. I think the series lost something when Hamilton saddled Anita with this supernatural sexual appetite that has to be satisfied (or what, I don’t really know).

Maybe I’ll understand more when I read the one I’ve skipped, Narcissus in Chains. Don’t have that one yet. You may noticed that I also skipped over book #9, but that was actually the first one in the series that I read, which happened to take place during a time when she’s not really having *any* sex at all.

I’ll continue to read the series, I just hope that Hamilton recaptures some of the formula that made the first 6 books or so of the series so great.

Book count: 17
Pages in book: 416
Page count: 7,083
Words in book: 171,442
Word count:2,018,577

1,000,000 words surpassed – 2/2/06
2,000,000 words surpassed – 2/14/06