Okay. Let’s do this. In terms of character building, I really like all the characters in the Anita Blake books, except the title character and her lycanthrope lover. So let’s take a minute and talk about the minor characters. Recurring characters who show up in this book include Jason, Zane, Cherry, Nathaniel, Jamil, Dolph, as well as the more major characters—Anita, Jean-Claude, Richard, Asher, and Damien. A couple new characters show up (the bad guys). These are Colin, Barnaby, Nikki, and Frank Niley.

I really enjoy the world of Anita Blake. Indeed, the world building employed in the early novels made for believable scenarios in which vampires and were-creatures, magic and preternatural situations could exist in this world we live in. I like the mystery and adventure aspect of the stories, the love interests, the details of the magic and, most of all, Hamilton’s take on spirituality in relation to monsters/evil. In this book she spends a moment, through Anita Blake, the narrator, to explain that demons don’t concern themselves so much with killing. If a demon kills a pure person and sends that person to heaven, it doesn’t do the demon any good. The demon wants to corrupt the person’s soul, then kill them, dragging them to hell. This meshes with how I’ve always thought of demons.

Unfortunately, I am not the target audience for these books. In the beginning, I thought of Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, as a series of urban fantasy stories with a tough of paranormal romance. That I could deal with and enjoy. Blue Moon showed the series true colors, though, and has quickly slid (way downhill) into supernatural erotica. Erotica is simply not for me. I find it gross and it very much puts me off. With that said…

Here’s what I thought of this eighth installment of the Anita Blake series and why I won’t be reading any more. Too much sex, with far too much detail. Senseless violence. Poor plot. And worst of all—a contradictory POV character. One moment, Anita is prudish and judgmental, telling us all that she’s trying so hard to be pure, the next she’s lusting after everyone and suddenly (very suddenly) willing to begin sleeping with multiple men. This is so out of character for her and it felt like the author living out her own fantasies through her character. Anita is whiny (somehow whinier and weaker than the “Alpha Wolf” Richard) and just cannot be satisfied with anything…except, of course, the very detailed and completely unrealistic orgasm the reader is subjected to. She gets everything her way and then complains about it. Whines. Incessantly. The vampire hunter/necromancer as gone from being tough and assured to being immature and indecisive. Oh, she still makes threats and manages to kill to bad guys, but now she’s weak in the knees at the sight of…every man she comes across. Because they’re all shredded and hot. All of them. And, being the fickle, horny 25-year-old she is, Anita spends most of the novel barely containing her newly unfettered sexual appetite.

As stated above, I like many of the minor character. But I can’t go on reading a series when the protagonist and POV character (it’s all first person) has become so repulsive and unlikeable. We all want flawed heroes. Flaws make them believable. In Anita’s case, her flaws are beginning to far outweigh her attributes.

If this had been the first Anita Blake book I’d picked up, I would have never picked up another.