Guilty Pleasures, by Laurell K. Hamilton

I feel like trying something new, so I'm going to give vampires another try. The only one I had read before had been Christine Feehan's Dark Fire, which I hated. Why? Mrs. Giggles really describes my feelings when reviewing this author's latest:

"People, this is not part of the Carpathian series. Fans of Carpathians' mindrape and utter subjugation of their weak-willed walking ovaries with breasts will also be disappointed - the "intensity" of the hypnoexploitation of the said Carpathian brutes of their women is noticeably absent here."

Also, I felt the whole vampire love scenes were icky ;-D

What I'm reading next, from all accounts, is nothing like this trash. I'm trying the first installment of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series, Guilty Pleasures. Let's see if I like it any better.

Posted later...

Well, I'm done and this was nothing like the Carpathian crap. However, I've very mixed feelings about this one. I liked it, but no way I'm going to read the next ones.

On one hand, I adored Anita. She was such a wiseass, and I loved her sense of humour and her decency. Also, I was really intrigued by the world in this book, the whole normal but not too normal world, with the vampires mingling with the humans and the changes this caused in laws, etc.

On the other hand, I had lots of problems. There was way too much violence for me here. I'm usually not too squeamish, but this was past my comfort threshold. I actually stopped reading while I ate, because I was afraid I'd throw up. Blood and gore everywhere. And Anita ends up battered too often for my taste (too close to the parody in AAR!) Plus, there seemed to be a very close relationship between sex and violence, which is something I really don't get. Jean-Claude was an intriguing character, but he spends over half the book inside a coffin. Additionally, the religious element was a bit off-puting for little agnostic me. I had a problem with Nikolaos too, she was too over-the-top evil. If she'd had a moustache, she would probably have twirled it!! ;-D

All in all, a grade of B. Why, when I had so many problems? Because it was so original and intriguing. I'm glad I read it, but I'm not coming back for more. I definitely don't see the attraction of vampire books. I just find the idea yucky.