Anita Blake has been asked to raise the dead-but the results aren't going to make everybody happy...
Flirt (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter)
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Book Description
--This text refers to the
Mass Market Paperback
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About the Author
Laurell K. Hamilton is a full-time writer and mother. Her bestselling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels include Narcissus in Chains, Obsidian Butterfly, Blue Moon, Burnt Offerings, The Killing Dance, Bloody Bones, The Lunatic Café, Circus of the Damned, The Laughing Corpse, and Guilty Pleasures. She is also the author of A Kiss of Shadows and A Caress of Twilight. She lives in a suburb of St. Louis with her family.
--This text refers to the
Mass Market Paperback
edition.
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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
92 of 94 people found the following review helpful
By CorpseWater
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I love her. When I first began reading the series, I couldn't put LKH's books down. I would want nothing more in this life than to pick up a newly released Anita Blake book, read it, set it down on my night table and write this review starting with, 'Thank you, Mrs. Hamilton. Thank you. You've brought me back into the fold. Bravo to you.'
Before I begin I feel the need for a disclaimer. It is quite possible that because I don't understand LKH's attempt to utterly destroy the title and humiliate herself that perhaps I am just as shallow as she indicates for 'not understanding' where she's going with the series and not wanting to force myself to 'think too hard'. Perhaps I don't understand good story-telling or exploring character development through hardcore sex and whiny conversations (which all males enjoy having with one another around the the woman they're all plugging comfortably) at lunch. Ah, the lunch scene. Prepare yourselves, boys and girls, for the lunch scene. The singular event in my life in which I can point to and demand those minutes back. What a waste of pages. If I have to read about the waiter's smile one more time....I digress.
Perhaps I'm so obtuse that I shouldn't even be buying these books anymore, because their value on the market seems to decrease every time one of us morons gets a hold of one of them, reads it and says to ourselves, 'This book is absolute horse manure. The writing is amateurish. The plot is non-existent. I don't care about almost any of these characters and frankly, I'm forced to skip about 58-64% of the material due to hysterical fits of laughter over the ridiculous language used to describe people having sex, which normally I'd be secretly changing my underwear afterwards. Now I'm just changing my underwear because I laugh so hard at the sex scenes I pee a little.'
If the series had started out with writing and 'plot' like this, no one would be buying it. It never would have caught on. The only reason anyone buys this series now is pure hope only a small child who still believes in the Tooth Fairy could appreciate. I loved this series. I recommended this series. Now I have to hide the book under the sleeve of my arm around the bookstore before I read it and subsequently put it back, glad that I didn't waste my hard earned $26.00 on it. Did I ever read an Anita Blake book in the bookstore when I first started this series? No. Of course not. I trusted that the writer cared about her craft and her character. I trusted I might not enjoy this book as much as the rest, but I know I'll at least have fun reading it. Now I dread.
I especially get angry at the sheer disdain Laurell K. Hamilton has for her readers and ultimately her critics. I truly admired her for her creativity and writing style when I first started reading this series. But after reading her comments on people who don't want to be made to think too hard (meaning people that paused for a moment and said, 'Um. Mrs. Hamilton? Ma'am? Maybe if Anita could do something other than just have sex with everything and perhaps if the entirety of your books now weren't just about conversations between her and her 'men' involving whining and crying and emotional drainage, perhaps that would make the series better? No? Oh. Oh okay.) I can say that I am no longer concerned about communicating any kind of respect towards her, as she apparently has no respect for some (if not most) of her readers.
Flirt is not exceptional. It was given to me as a gift (from some well-meaning person who didn't understand how much I've come to loathe the series I spent years boasting about). It's not good, it doesn't further any plot and it doesn't make me care to read anymore from this series. This series ended with Obsidian Butterfly and no one can convince me otherwise.
My suggestion? Don't be a serial killer. Don't keep strangling the life out of this book only to wake it back up to partial consciousness so you can watch the life drain out of it again. Do what Anita would do. Put a damn bullet in it.
Before I begin I feel the need for a disclaimer. It is quite possible that because I don't understand LKH's attempt to utterly destroy the title and humiliate herself that perhaps I am just as shallow as she indicates for 'not understanding' where she's going with the series and not wanting to force myself to 'think too hard'. Perhaps I don't understand good story-telling or exploring character development through hardcore sex and whiny conversations (which all males enjoy having with one another around the the woman they're all plugging comfortably) at lunch. Ah, the lunch scene. Prepare yourselves, boys and girls, for the lunch scene. The singular event in my life in which I can point to and demand those minutes back. What a waste of pages. If I have to read about the waiter's smile one more time....I digress.
Perhaps I'm so obtuse that I shouldn't even be buying these books anymore, because their value on the market seems to decrease every time one of us morons gets a hold of one of them, reads it and says to ourselves, 'This book is absolute horse manure. The writing is amateurish. The plot is non-existent. I don't care about almost any of these characters and frankly, I'm forced to skip about 58-64% of the material due to hysterical fits of laughter over the ridiculous language used to describe people having sex, which normally I'd be secretly changing my underwear afterwards. Now I'm just changing my underwear because I laugh so hard at the sex scenes I pee a little.'
If the series had started out with writing and 'plot' like this, no one would be buying it. It never would have caught on. The only reason anyone buys this series now is pure hope only a small child who still believes in the Tooth Fairy could appreciate. I loved this series. I recommended this series. Now I have to hide the book under the sleeve of my arm around the bookstore before I read it and subsequently put it back, glad that I didn't waste my hard earned $26.00 on it. Did I ever read an Anita Blake book in the bookstore when I first started this series? No. Of course not. I trusted that the writer cared about her craft and her character. I trusted I might not enjoy this book as much as the rest, but I know I'll at least have fun reading it. Now I dread.
I especially get angry at the sheer disdain Laurell K. Hamilton has for her readers and ultimately her critics. I truly admired her for her creativity and writing style when I first started reading this series. But after reading her comments on people who don't want to be made to think too hard (meaning people that paused for a moment and said, 'Um. Mrs. Hamilton? Ma'am? Maybe if Anita could do something other than just have sex with everything and perhaps if the entirety of your books now weren't just about conversations between her and her 'men' involving whining and crying and emotional drainage, perhaps that would make the series better? No? Oh. Oh okay.) I can say that I am no longer concerned about communicating any kind of respect towards her, as she apparently has no respect for some (if not most) of her readers.
Flirt is not exceptional. It was given to me as a gift (from some well-meaning person who didn't understand how much I've come to loathe the series I spent years boasting about). It's not good, it doesn't further any plot and it doesn't make me care to read anymore from this series. This series ended with Obsidian Butterfly and no one can convince me otherwise.
My suggestion? Don't be a serial killer. Don't keep strangling the life out of this book only to wake it back up to partial consciousness so you can watch the life drain out of it again. Do what Anita would do. Put a damn bullet in it.
141 of 150 people found the following review helpful
By Luxx Mishley
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
In the afterward that follows the main narrative Laurell K. Hamilton writes that Flirt is her 29th novel. Calling the story a novel is overly generous; if judged by length, I would suggest the publication be referred to as a novella. But judging the story by its content I would call Flirt a short story - something better suited to a collections such as Strange Candy than its novel-esque hardback printing.
The inspiration to publish two Anita Blake "novels" in a year may work in favor of Hamilton's bank account (as another reader has suggested), but the pace has greatly diminished the quality of her writing. While I felt Hamilton gained ground with the publication of Skin Trade, Flirt takes two steps back and one step to the left. The premise of the novel is shallow, the action ridiculous, and the development careless. What would ordinarily be presented as a parallel plot in a novel has been given center stage, and has left me (despite my frequent defense of Hamilton's later novels) rolling my eyes.
Flirt is an excuse of a publication to take advantage of the current fandom and introduce yet another supporting <strike>sex toy</strike>, er, character.
On her Twitter account Hamilton has hinted that Bullet holds a world of tragedy for Anita in the deaths of people she loves. I only hope that the novel as a whole is meatier, more developed, and cuts back on the throng that swarms around the "vampire hunter".
The inspiration to publish two Anita Blake "novels" in a year may work in favor of Hamilton's bank account (as another reader has suggested), but the pace has greatly diminished the quality of her writing. While I felt Hamilton gained ground with the publication of Skin Trade, Flirt takes two steps back and one step to the left. The premise of the novel is shallow, the action ridiculous, and the development careless. What would ordinarily be presented as a parallel plot in a novel has been given center stage, and has left me (despite my frequent defense of Hamilton's later novels) rolling my eyes.
Flirt is an excuse of a publication to take advantage of the current fandom and introduce yet another supporting <strike>sex toy</strike>, er, character.
On her Twitter account Hamilton has hinted that Bullet holds a world of tragedy for Anita in the deaths of people she loves. I only hope that the novel as a whole is meatier, more developed, and cuts back on the throng that swarms around the "vampire hunter".
160 of 176 people found the following review helpful
By K. E. Gibson
Format:Hardcover
I LOVED all the early Anita Blake novels. And by novels I mean books with 400-500 pages. I understand that authors want to express themselves and take their art in different directions. It is such a shame that this great series had gone in the direction it has. I haven't given up on the series entirely, I feel I have too much reading invested in it. But I haven't bought an Anita Blake book in some time - I get them from the local library. Overall, I still the love world the books are set in and the characters. But the plot is getting thin and repetitious and the dialogue can be just plain annoying at times. There were a couple of new, interesting ideas introduced and this book could have been so much better if those ideas were explored in depth. I see another Anita Blake book is due out in June. I hope it is more that 158 pages and takes longer than 90 minutes for me to read.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love this book.
I've been looking for books from this series for years! They're a great horror meets sci-fi meets strange kinky romance. They're a great read for the open minded.
Published 8 days ago by Angela M Hubbard
2.0 out of 5 stars
A continued sad decline
I had told myself I wasn't going to buy this book when it came out due to how disappointed I'd been with the last two in the series but, as hope springs eternal, I decided to give... Read more
Published 1 month ago by D. Parks
5.0 out of 5 stars
go back
if this is the first luarel hamilton book you're reading go back and start from the beginning of the series, and try the merry gentry series as well.
Published 1 month ago by Thomas D. Woodward
4.0 out of 5 stars
Flirt
Overall I love all of the drama and everything Anita but I am a little frustrated like a strip tease the book was a very good but short book.
Published 1 month ago by Amber
3.0 out of 5 stars
Felt Unfinished..
I have been reading the Anita Blake novels ever since they started and over the years I have seen the series have good novels and bad ones. This one is really just so-so! Read more
Published 2 months ago by M. Genevieve
2.0 out of 5 stars
Way to short
It only took me 2 hours in total to read this it was a waste of time and money. The last two books have been about almost nothing
Published 3 months ago by jamie
4.0 out of 5 stars
FLIRTING WITH SUCCESS
Another hit in the Anita Blake series! Each book gets successively better and better. Allowing the reader to like her foes even as we know she will kill them. Read more
Published 3 months ago by CDean
5.0 out of 5 stars
another small book?!
again, a nice edge of your seat read, but yet again, another small book!, this one i finished in 2 hours !!
all in all recommended
all in all recommended
Published 3 months ago by Jason C. Laurenzo
5.0 out of 5 stars
Flirt. Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter
I've read almost all the Anita Blake books. love them all, Have more to read.
Thank you. L K H
Thank you. L K H
Published 3 months ago by Evelyn J. Shelton
1.0 out of 5 stars
Needs a vacation
----Truly not worth the poor, pulpy little trees killed in order to publish this drivel. A snarky aside: Why does LKH keep referring to herself as a "full-time" mother? Read more
Published 3 months ago by Gayle E. Loveland
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