Cerulean Sins (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series) [Abridged, Audiobook, CD] [Audio CD]

Laurell K. Hamilton (Author), Cynthia Holloway (Reader)

Book Description

Series: Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series | Publication Date: June 28, 2008

With her New York Times bestselling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels, Laurell K. Hamilton wraps readers up in stories of suspense and sensuality. Cerulean Sins is no exception. Now, Anita learns what it's like to be at the new end of a centuries-old bloodline - and just how far she’ll let herself get pushed around... How the mighty have fallen! Once a sworn enemy of all vampires, Anita is now the human consort of both Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire, and Micah, the leopard shapeshifter. But her love life doesn't stop there. It can't. For Anita - not quite as human as she once was - is consumed by both the lusts of the vampire and the primal hungers of the wereleopards. Desires that must be sated - time and time again... But it is Jean-Claude who needs her now. His oldest ancestor has sent one of her vicious and powerful underlings to St. Louis, putting Jean-Claude and his clan on the defensive. Unsure of where she stands with the interloper, Anita finds herself tested as never before - needing all the dark forces her passion can muster to save the ones she loves the most...

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Laurell K. Hamilton's legions of eager fans will be pleased to see Cerulean Sins), the eleventh novel in her Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series, which is set on an alternate Earth where magic works and vampires and werewolves are real. When a sinister stranger tries to hire the magically potent Anita Blake to raise the dead, she finds herself embroiled in the search for a vicious, supernatural serial killer, and also in the clandestine international politics of the vampires. And as she becomes more deeply enmeshed in cruel plots and counterplots, her tangled personal life only becomes more demanding, more wrenching, and more erotically fraught.

With ten previous books in the Anita Blake series, Cerulean Sins is not the place to start. Though author Hamilton artfully reveals the backstory in small doses, the numerous returning characters and the complex history will overwhelm most newcomers (and even the most devoted fans may find that the backfilling slows the pace). Also, the characters frequently stand around talking and psychoanalyzing one another, which makes for static stretches unlikely to hold a new reader's attention. Newcomers should start with the first book, Guilty Pleasures. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Anita Blake is one the more fascinating fictional heroines since Scarlet O'Hara-and a hell of a lot more fun than most. Despite her satin lingerie, short skirts and high heels, she kicks both human and non-human bad-guy butt-hard. Having gained immense supernatural powers and become an important force in the vampiric and lycanthropic communities of St. Louis in the 10 previous books, Anita begins this fantastic dark adventure by raising the dead and ends it by tackling a murderous monster. In between, she wades (literally) into a bloody investigation of a preternatural serial killer and (metaphysically and physically) into dangerous vampire politics. šber-vampiress Belle Morte has sent her dreaded surrogate, Musette, to demand that Anita's paramour, Jean-Claude, Master Vampire of the City, return the vampire Asher to her-a fate worse than a stake through the heart. In order to save Asher, Anita must be both sexually and psychically creative. Anita and the vampires also need head werewolf Richard to help defeat Belle Morte's designs. But can Richard, who recently dumped Anita because she was more "monster" than human, be relied on? Meanwhile, cop Dolph Storr, who's gone violently anti-preternatural, won't let Anita (now a federal marshal) help stop a series of gruesome murders. If this all seems complicated, it's nothing compared to Anita's sex life. There's plenty of the hot stuff, but it's presented with a certain morality and definite hilarity. After unraveling, to the detriment of writing and plot, some character and story line knots in previous bestseller Narcissus in Chains (2001), the author is back on track with the best Blake yet.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio on CD Value Priced; Abridged edition (June 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1423362276
• ISBN-13: 978-1423362272
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (425 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,153,292 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laurell K. Hamilton is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of two series that mix mystery, fantasy, magic, horror and romance. Her Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels from Berkley Books began with GUILTY PLEASURES (now a hugely successful graphic novel from Marvel - the first sexy paranormal comic ever!) and continues with the SKIN TRADE, number seventeen in the series, in which Anita's complex personal and professional relationships with a master vampire and an alpha werewolf continue to evolve. There are now more than 6 million copies of Anita in print worldwide, in 16 languages. Hamilton's Ballantine series features Fey princess and private investigator, Merry Gentry and there are now six novels exceeding one million copies in print. Divine Misdemeanors, the eighth in the series will debut Octobe 29, 2009. She lives in St. Louis County Missouri with her husband Jonathon Green, daughter, one pug dog and one boxer/pug dog.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

85 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I'll read the next book solely out of morbid curiosity. :-(, June 3, 2003

By 

A. CLARK (Cedar Rapids, IA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cerulean Sins (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 11) (Hardcover)

Sheer disappointment. I keep seeing that word, "disappointment," all throughout these reviews, and I don't think that's simply coincidence. These are my personal, major complaints in no particular order:

1) *Shift of plot type*
I got hooked on these books because they were a cool, supernatural combination of the whodunit, detective, and action genres. Don't get me wrong, Anita's love/sex-life has always been part of the stories, but it wasn't ever really the primary plotline. Now it is, and since I don't dig soft-core erotica nor romance novels, I don't care for it.

2) *Apparent metamorphosis of major characters*
When I was reading passages involving Dolph or Richard, I couldn't imagine why they're now such different characters. People go through difficult, sometimes traumatizing times in life, but for pete's sake, these guys are so different from the way they were in the previous books that their names ought to be changed!

3) *The ardeur*
I'm sick of it, sick of it, sick of it. That's about as concisely as I can put it.

4) *Long hair on men*
Okay, Hamilton, so you like long hair on guys. So do I -- on the right guy, of course. But get over it! I'm weary of reading endless descriptions of some man's long, flowing, beautiful, cascading, lustrous, rippling, flaxen, luxurious, blah blah blah hair. Oh, and lets not forget how traumatizing it is for his friends when a man cuts off his long hair!!

5) * "So much meat" *
Might there possibly be any other phrase to describe a human being who's been ripped to shreds? <reaching for thesaurus...> Seriously, I should've kept track of how many times that particular phrase was abused... er, used.

6) *Lack of editing*
Way too many typos, grammatical errors, blatant overuse of some phrases and words (e.g. #5 on my list). Need I say more? Although, like another reviewer said, this is less the fault of Hamilton than of her editor/agent/publishing house/whatever.

There's more, but I think I'll leave it at that.

Back when my friend first got me hooked on this series, I practically salivated with anticipation during the weeks before each new book was released. Since _ Narcissus in Chains_ was a letdown to me, I was eager to see if the next book would be an improvement. How sad that it wasn't. I would say I won't bother to read the next book in the series, but I know my lack of willpower won't let that happen. I'm sure I'll read it anyway, if only out of pure, morbid curiosity.

62 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars not so very hot, November 9, 2003

By 

Lucinda A. "lucinda2002us" (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cerulean Sins (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 11) (Hardcover)

I know, we don't confuse fiction with reality. Yet, when you read enough about a character, you start relating to "it" (him or her) as if that character were a personal friend. Sadly, I have broken friendship with Anita in this new installment. "Anita" books used to have two major strengths, I think: a good mystery plot which got solved at the end (and if Anita kept pulling increasingly unbelievable tricks out of her sleeve, more power to her), and Anita's coherence as a character. The reader may have gotten a bit bored with her constant moral qualms ("An affair with Jean-Claude, does that make me a monster? Maybe yes...maybe no...yes...no...") and may not have agreed with some of her choices, but at least they used to make sense within Anita's system of beliefs, the way the author described it. In this book, we encounter a new Anita who, while trying to learn self acceptance, also stops making sense. I don't mean it as moral judgment, but Anita's quite brusque transition from "prudish" to "orgiastic" seemed more motivated by real market pressures than the internal logic of a fictional character. Anita is as coherent as a software with a virus: push the button marked l'ardeur, and lo and behold, there's no stopping her. (I have to say that at this point I sympathize a lot more with Merry Gentry from the other series, who at least does what she enjoys best.) To top it off, one of Anita's strong points, her ability to take control of an explosive situation, here turns into the obsession of control: she whines, she complains, she complicates fairly straightforward circumstances. Unfortunately, that doesn't come across as complexity, but rather as a badly constructed character.

My second problem was with the plot of the book. Surely enough, the first 100 pages or so build the right momentum and offer the promise of great suspense. Then it all goes away, leaving the reader increasingly frustrated. The story is only partially resolved - we don't find, for example, the key to Anita's visions (or at least it wasn't clear to me), probably in anticipation of a sequel. Because of that, you cannot help but feel throughout the remaining pages that the author actually had two books in mind, couldn't quite figure out which one to concentrate on, and decided to wait awhile and hope for the best. I don't think the best happens, not in this book. I am not sure whether to give it 4 stars out of nostalgia for the early series, or 2 stars out of disappointment. An average it is.

230 of 276 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What a Disaster, June 13, 2003

By 

Jessica (Seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cerulean Sins (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 11) (Hardcover)

What on earth has happened to Anita Blake? What was once an engaging, funny, and human character whose vulnerability in a world of superpowered creatures made her so intriguing is now a hypocritical, self-centered, spoiled, childish, delusional, hateful, mean-spirited, nigh-omnipotent, humorless and unappealing sex fiend. Now, usually I rather like sex fiends, but Anita Blake is perhaps the most irritating, unlikable, and revolting character I have come across in a long time, and no amount of orgasmic sex is going to fix that.

Anita's supporting cast almost holds CS together and makes it palatable, but unfortunately Anita's overbearing presence kills the other characters' appeal. The fact that all of the characters in this book have been reduced to spineless bootlicking sycophants, hateful villains, or pale, zero-personality ghosts with no will of their own doesn't help matters. What LKH has done to Richard and Dolph is atrocious, and Zerbrowski is getting dangerously close to being yet another Anita groupie. The newest male to be added to Anita's ever-growing harem, Micah, is completely useless as a character. Sadly, I actually *like* Richard's sudden raging hatred of Anita, because at least this means he's not another mindless Anita-worshipper. Jason is adorable, as always, and Nathaniel is finally becoming interesting--almost. Jason alone is the bright spot in the hideous morass that is this book.

The ever-escalating superpowers Anita keeps getting are also very tedious: at the rate she's going, Anita will soon be able to control every vampire, ghost, were-animal, and other supernatural creature in the world, and probably not even God will be able to defeat her in combat. Ridiculous.

Add a total absence of plot to the mix, and what you get is a self-indulgent mess with little to no redeeming qualities whatsoever. There is nothing to recommend about this book, not even good writing or pacing. The pacing is dreadful, and the writing is... well, I've seen better writing in badly translated assembly instructions.

The only way to fix the atrocious mess that this series has become would be to have someone, maybe Edward, come to town and blow Anita Blake to kingdom come. Then, Asher and Jean-Claude can get together without having to ask Anita's permission, Richard can finally find a woman who supports him, the wereleopards can get lives, and Jason can join RPIT, the preternatural police squad, and engage in entertaining high-jinks with Zerbrowski, with Dolph to keep the two in line. And Micah dies, of course.

Now THAT'S an Anita blake, Vampire Hunter story I'd pay money to read. Anything else? Won't spend a penny on such disappointing drivel.