Review by Vicky London
Blood Noir by Laurell K. Hamilton is the 16th book in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. Anita and her werewolf friend Jason travel to his North Carolina hometown to see his dying father. Anita is there for moral support as Jason’s relationship with his father has been more than rocky. But, no good deed goes unpunished. Marmee Noir, the mother of all vampires, takes the opportunity to completely destroy any illusions that Anita has about control of her own life and the ardeur. Anita’s latest lycanthropy strain of weretiger invites even more complexity into her life when weretigers from across the country begin to show up. As if that’s not enough trouble for one trip, Jason’s resemblance to Keith Summerland (playboy son of the governor) could get both of them killed by a very pissed off vampire.
Good Points:
1) Finally, some old school Anita style ass-kicking in the story but it comes at the very end. More, more please!
2) More of Jason and less of the myriad other boyfriends.
3) Weretigers.
4) One teeny, weeny tiny glimpse of the old Richard.
Bad Points:
1) Anita’s preachyness about sex and beating me over the head with the phrase “f**k buddy”.
2) Richard and his same tired old beef, over and over and over…… Dear God please make it stop.
3) Every O is a ***screaming***, yelling, clawing, scratching, (well you get the picture).
4) Not enough Jean Claude. I miss him and he barely makes an appearance in Blood Noir.
Before anyone asks “why do you read the books if you don’t like them?”. Well, because I do like them. Simply having criticisms of a book doesn’t mean I’m bashing it. I think there are enough redeeming qualities for me to continue spending my time to read the series. And, as long as the publisher continues to send them to me I will continue to review them. I refuse to give up my hope for Anita that one day she’ll get a grip and a better story will emerge.
UPDATE: Bloor Noir has made the number one spot on the New York Times Bestseller List. That’s an amazing accomplishment for any author but it seems to have inspired LKH to start using the royal “we” when speaking about herself. Click here to view the announcement on her blog.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Reader Ratings - Click On A Star to Rate This Book:
(17 votes, average: 2.41 out of 5)
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May 30th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Never thought i’d say this but too much sex lol.Not enough Jean Claude. At the start of this series she was sleeping with no one, now she has countless lovers. Like her much better when she is with Micah or JC. Still will read the series in hopes of more though.
June 1st, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Wow.
I’m on Chapter 9. Got it fromt he library yesterday.
…
Won’t say anything definitive yet, but so far I’m kinda eh about it.
Cheers.
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:15 am
I loved every word and read it twice thru in 3 days. Would like to have more of the weretigers (Crispin) and werelions (Haven) in future; and of course more Jean Claude, Micah and Nathaniel and Jason. Richard however needs to suck it up. Too much sex??? you have got to be kidding - there was not enough !!!!!! Laurell Hamilton can not write fast enough for me.
June 4th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Read the book in 2 days and thought it was pretty good. Will agree that there was not enough JC in this book and the addition of the new weres will be interesting in the next installments. There was not as much “substance” to this book as in past storylines but overall, I would consider this to be a stepping-stone book (for lack of a better term)….basically, needed to tell this story to lay the foundation for next few books. As far as the sex goes, I think she has made somewhat of an effort to tone that down a little bit in the last 2 books….sex only happened in detail twice in this book and when the ardeur hit and she had 3 guys at once, she didn’t even really go into detail about that. I will definately keep reading this series….too much invested at this point not to see it through!
June 7th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I love the first few books, but LKH seems to have fired her editors or something because I can’t get through a chapter of her new stuff without seeing horrible grammar and spelling. Also nothing seems to happen.
June 18th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I was actually a bit skeptical about this book because of how the last few in the series went. I totally agree with Sami and the gramatical errors or even sentences that seemed to be missing a word and I had to re-read several times to make sure. I also agree with Vicky about the over usage of “f*** buddy”, there were a couple other phrases and terms that fell into that category as well.
I found myself a bit relived when it was all said and done that this book was not inundated with sex. It seemed to get more on track with her older Anita books, and that made me happy. For some reason though, I cant help but feel this series is like a run away train, it has lost all control kind of like a bad soap. She needs to bring back the original essence. At one point I almost stopped reading because I just could not deal with all the needy men ( you think they would get over some things or learn how bitchy she is this far into the series) and I wanted to physically hurt Richard. Maybe it’s just time to put this one to the rest and start something new!!
August 10th, 2008 at 10:47 am
i say more Jean Claude, Micah and Nathaniel and Jason. and richard needs to go to the doctor i think hes a girl now. hes such a nimrod! i loved it ! bought it yesterday … read it in hum….. 8 hours. i couldt stand JC at first but hes way better than Richard now. i thoght they were close after Blue Moon .. HA! Wrong!!
October 18th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
i 100% agree with the review. i find that the later books loose some of that old bad ass anita and the sex scenes get a little rediculace to say the lease but i am truly addicted to the books and will contiune to read them.