Customer Reviews

Guilty Pleasures (Walmart Edition)

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I have been a great fan of Laurell Hamilton. I greatly admire her writing ability and imagination. And her daring as well, she is willing to confront unusual sexual issues in a genre where sexuality is more often a matter of hints and gestures. Struck by the intensity of the sexual focus in her recent work I thought it would be entertaining to go back and reread some of Hamilton's earlier books.

"Guilty Pleasures" is the first of the Anita Blake series. What makes the series unique is the strong, tough-minded character of the heroine and narrator. Before "Guilty Pleasures" vampire stories rarely had female leads, let alone one with the hard-nosed style of Anita Blake. She is a professional animator (one who raises the dead) and a licensed vampire killer in an alternate earth where vampires have come out of the closet (coffin?) and are active participants in American life.

Hamilton's vampires are of the Anne Rice genre. They are beautiful, deadly and follow their own code of ethics. Many humans have become enthralled with them, but many are deeply suspicious. To Anita they are monsters who, when they go out of control, must be killed. But U.S. law protects vampires that behave themselves. Even so, when someone starts killing the vampires of St. Louis, authorities make little progress. Angered, two of the strongest vampires in the city, Jean-Claude and Nikolaos, convince Anita to hunt down the killer.

Jean-Claude is one of the modern romantic vampires, easy to look at with fine manners and style. Nikolaos, on the other hand, is a thousand year old sadistic horror in the body of a thirteen year old girl. Her powers are unimaginable and dark hungers hide under her innocent looks. The vampiress takes an immediate dislike to Anita's feisty style and our heroine spends as much time dodging Nikolaos' efforts to injure and enslave her as she does seeking the killer. Jean-Claude comes under attack as well as he tries to help Anita.

Hamilton's way with characters is one of her great strengths. We meet several of Anita's regular companions for the first time. Edward the hyper-violent bounty hunter, and Veronica, a private investigator and friend are outstanding, as are many of the bit players. Her vampires and their human servants are vivid personalities. This gives the novel a realistic feel that comes as a surprise in the vampire genre.

The plot is fast paced, often moving from cliff-hanger to horrific confrontation with all the agility of the ball in a pinball game. There is a steady sexual undercurrent that veers towards sadistic and fetish oriented pleasures. It is a natural outgrowth of the vampire personality and is as chilling as it is erotic. In "Guilty Pleasures" it is an effective plot device that keeps the heat turned up. If you are a vampire story fan you will find Laurell Hamilton's efforts deeply satisfying.

The Anita Blake series -- I cannot express enough how MUCH you need it read them if you haven't already. Let me tell you the reasons why.

One, the main character, Anita is tough and modern, and she could beat the socks off of the biggest bodyguard out there at only 5'4 (with the help of some uzis, sawed off shotguns, and her precious firestar.)

Two, the best contemporary science-fiction/fantasy books you'll ever find. Guns, vampires, werewolves, and necromancers are just a walk in the park.

Three, (and I feel MOST important), might I mention that taking one look at ANY of the male characters in this book is enough to make you stop, drool, and forget your own name? How about that delectable French fanged popsicle with the tight leather pants, Jean-Claude? (You can bite ME anytime, JC!)

Ahem. In any case, I recommend these books to any sane SF/Fantasy book lover out there, because I'm afraid dissapointment is not an option. I am 99.9% sure you will fall in hopeless love with these books after reading them, so get a head start, eh?

Guilty Pleasures is the first book in (so far) a series of nine. Read away, m'friends...

This book was highly recommended by a fellow Amazon reviewer whose tastes mirror my own. Not only did she give it an excellent review, when we spoke she sang its praises. So, I went and bought the book. After all, I had read books by Anne Rice, as well as Donna Boyd, and enjoyed them. So, obviously books about vampires and/or lycanthropes are hardly a stretch for me.

To my surprise, I was hooked once I began turning the pages of this book. It is a totally fun book to read, with its diminutive, feisty heroin, Anita Blake, a formidable vampire hunter who now focuses on being an animator, one who raises the dead. She lives in an alternate America where vampirism is legal, and vampires of the world are flocking to our shores. In good old St. Louis, Missouri, where our intrepid heroine lives, vampires live openly among humans and have developed a bizarre cult following. Of course, since killing vampires is against the law, Anita works closely with the police supernatural squad.

Someone, however, is killing vampires, and although the police is investigating, the most powerful vampire in the city, Nicholaos, a thousand year old being who is ensconced in the body of a beautiful pubescent girl, has commissioned her to find the killer. The reluctant Anita, who finds herself at odds with evil Nicholaos, finds an unexpected ally and friend in the handsome Jean-Claude, a two centuries old vampire for whom she feels an unexpected attraction and affinity.

Anita finds herself in a number of hair-raising situations as she seeks to discover the killer. Along the way she is plagued by vampires, wererats, ghouls, other animators, and fellow humans. The plot is fast-paced and intriguing. Its characters capture the reader's imagination. While most of them are not particularly well-fleshed, as it is basically a plot driven book, the main character, Anita Blake, is quite interesting, as well as compelling, and resonates with the reader.

The author manages to pull together a highly entertaining and enjoyable book. The style is part detective potboiler, part mystery, and part fantasy with supernatural portents. It carries the reader along from its first page to its last, never losing its momentum. In fact, it leaves the reader wanting more. Good thing that this is merely the first in a series of books about this intrepid vampire hunter, Anita Blake. I look forward to reading them all.

I have started reading Hamilton's books only recently and right now I am at the last book, Blue Moon. On the whole, this series is very good. It has a different twist in plot, it has action, good dialogue and more importantly a gustsy heroine, one you can like. As you read the series, yes, some books will be better than others. But the one consistant throughout the series is the growth of the main character, Anita Blake. The author shows the moral dilemmas that plague the heroine throughout the series and the decisions she makes, whether good or bad. Like I said, this series is really entertaining and worth at least an attempt. Definitely start reading them by order, beginning with Guilty Pleasures, which I think was one of her best ones out of the series. So, if you're looking for something original, Hamilton's Anita Blake books fits the bill. I will defintely keep reading her books and look forward to the next one.

The start of a great vampire series! Those who already know that they like vampire novels, anything at all that features a vampire, can skip this review, and likewise, those who hate the whole idea of vampires can skip it. But for those trying to decide whether or not to read more of this genre, or whether the one vampire novel you've already read was a fluke, it may help to have some ways to categorize these novels. Thus: BunRab's Standard Vampire Classification Guide. First, most authors of vampire novels approach from one of the main genres of genre fiction; thus their background may be primarily in romance, or in science fiction/fantasy, or in murder mysteries, or in horror. Second, many vampire novels come in series; knowing whether this is one of a series, and where in the series it falls, may be helpful. Then we have some particular characteristics: - Is the vampire character (or characters) a "good guy" or a "bad guy"? Or are there some of each? - Are there continuing characters besides the vampire, through the series? - Are there other types of supernatural beings besides vampires? - Can the vampire stand daylight under some circumstances, or not stand daylight at all? - Does the vampire have a few other supernatural characteristics, many other supernatural characteristics, or none other than just being a vampire? (E.g., super strength, change into an animal, turn invisible) - Does the vampire have a regular job and place in society, or is being a vampire his or her entire raison d'etre? - Does the vampire literally drink blood, or is there some other (perhaps metaphorical) method of feeding? - Is sex a major plot element, a minor plot element, or nonexistent? - Is the entire vampire feeding act a metaphor for sex, part of a standard sex act, or unrelated to sex? - Is the story set in one historical period, more than one historical period, or entirely in the present day? - Does the story have elements of humor, or is it strictly serious? - Is the writing style good, or is the writing just there to manage to hold together the plot and characters?

Laurell Hamilton's series starts from the thriller, and is a continuing series, with new books appearing each year for the last several years. _Guilty Pleasures_ is the first book in the series. The "hero" or main character of the story is not a vampire, it's Anita Blake, zombie reanimator and occasional vampire executioner. However, Jean-Claude, the vampire who in the course of the series becomes the Master vampire of the city, also eventually becomes Anita's lover, and is, we might say, the assistant lead character. The continuing characters include the various vampires living in St. Louis, a few police detectives and officers whom we see regularly, and Anita's neighbors. There are other supernatural characters, lots of them - zombies, ghouls, werewolves, wereleopards, wererats; for all I know, were-wombats may show up sometime. Jean-Claude and the other vampires have the usual super-strength and super-speed; in addition, they have the traditional "power to cloud men's minds." The master vampires occasionally turn out to have other, unexpected, powers. Many of the vampires work for or in nightclubs; the city of St. Louis in this universe seems to have a really kinky nightclub district! The vampires do drink blood, human, and by no means necessarily from consenting adults. The drinking of blood doesn't have to be associated with sex, but sometimes is. There are a lot of sexual undertones, overtones, innuendo, and atmosphere in the books, and after the first couple in the series, the rest have a generous amount of explicit sex. And some of it is inter-species, sort of. This series is not for the prude! Hamilton's characters have a nice sense of irony and sarcasm, and both Anita's thoughts to herself and the dialog can be quite funny, but the stories and plots themselves are quite serious. No cutesy fantasy or playing it for puns here.

In _Guilty Pleasures_ we first meet Anita, at her "day job" - make that mostly a night job - as a zombie animator: she deliberately raises corpses from the dead, usually in order for their relatives to ask them questions about where the missing will is. Hey, it's a living. She is also on contract to the police - the "Spook Squad" which investigates crimes in which the supernatural beings are suspected to be the criminals or to have played a part. In this role, she meets Jean-Claude and other master vampires, as well as some of the relatively ordinary vampires. Incidentally, the titles of the books are taken from the names of various nightclubs that the vampires own/run; Jean-Claude owns "Guilty Pleasures." We also meet Edward, who is more of a freelance killer of the supernatural; keep an eye on Edward, as he will play a large part in later books.

This book contains adult content, not suitable for young readers, blah blah blah. Although this book isn't a kids book, by any means, it is not overly graphic. I am only 14 and I loved it! It is very interesting how a master vampire is portrayed in the body of an adolecent, and yet she has the mind of a killer. Somehow Laurell K. Hamilton managed to take the most unimaginably sweet kid and turn her into the scariest character in any of Laurell's books. This is my favorite Laurell K. Hamilton book.

P.S. this is only my second review, so please tell me if it helped

Published before Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed were on TV, Guilty Pleasures is one of the books that helped set the stage for those shows. Guilty Pleasures introduces a modern world where lycanthropes are news reporters and vampires are lobbying for their rights. At the center of the story is Anita Blake, a woman of many talents who works as an "animator" raising the dead and also as a vampire slayer, executing vampires for the police.

I believe that Ms. Hamilton had vivid ideas about this world and her striking heroine when she wrote this book. Unfortunately, I don't feel that they came through very clearly. She dives right into her story without taking any time to clarify what the world is like. She glosses over the issue of vampires wanting legal rights and proceeds to introduce a handful of crazy, murderous vampires, leaving the reader to wonder why anyone would ever consider lobbying to give them legal protection. There are a lot of interesting questions and stories suggested in this book that are completely skipped over in favor of the main plot, which was probably the least interesting element of the story.

Most of the characters in the book are strangely inconsistent and erratic. The Master Vampire demands that Anita help her solve a mystery and then spends most of the book terrorizing Anita and preventing her from making any headway on the case. The beautiful, selfish bad boys fall for Anita and make great sacrifices for her. Even Anita ping-pongs from seasoned vampire hunter to having emotional outbursts when she's supposed to be undercover.

I have not read any other books in the series. Personally, I'm hoping that Ms. Hamilton took more time with the other books and created plots that make better use of her characters and world. However, after wading through this sloppy, poorly written book, I'm afraid I will have to pass on the rest of the series.

"Guilty Pleasures" is the first book in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake - Vampire Hunter series, and it starts the series off with a bang. Full of nasty preternatural critters and compelling characters, Anita's world is a wild and wonderful place!
The book starts as Anita, tough-as-nails animator and vampire executioner, attends a bachelorette party for a good friend, only to find out it was a set-up for her to meet the Master of the City, Nikolaos, a terrifyingly powerful thousand-year-old vampire. There have been numerous vicious vampire murders in the city of St. Louis of late, and Nikolaos wants Anita to find whoever or whatever is responsible. Anita usually doesn't work for vampires, but Nikolaos doesn't ask nicely, so Anita has no choice but to take on the case.
Jean-Claude, the third most powerful master vampire in the city, takes an interest in Anita, and she can't help but be attracted to him too, despite what he is. Jean-Claude is expertly portrayed by Hamilton - he's smooth-talking, a little wicked, and oh so sexy!
As Anita works desperately to solve the murders, with Nikolaos becoming more and more threatening, she begins to realize that her only way out of this whole mess is to kill Nikolaos. Anita seeks the assistance of her "friend" Edward, a cold-blooded assassin, and together they concoct a plan to destroy Nikolaos.
The suspense builds to a thrilling climax that will have readers on the edge of their seats.
One complaint I have is that I would have liked "Guilty Pleasures" to have been longer, as it ended up being a very fast read (only 266 pages). Despite that, it is an action-packed, fun-filled and thrilling read that will leave readers craving much more of Anita Blake. Hamilton has created a fascinating world of vampires, werewolves, wererats, zombies, and ghouls (among many other things) that will captivate readers and [draw] them straight into the story. With her mix of intriguing characters and three-dimensional monsters, Hamilton has come up with a winning formula. I guarantee you'll have a fantastic time while you're in Anita's world, so don't miss out on the fun.

"Guilty Pleasures" is the first Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novel by Laurell K. Hamilton, but when you read it you will wish that it was not. What I mean by that convoluted sentence is that Anita is well into her career as an Animator when this book opens and the more you find out about her backstory the more you want to learn. One of the most important things in this story is when the master vampire Jean-Claude puts the first two marks upon Anita, which links them psychically and makes her somewhat immune to the mental powers of the vampires. Obviously this will have long term repercussions in the series, but it is not as momentous a change since this is the first novel in the series; when it happens Anita has talked about killing vampires, but we have yet to see her ply her trade. If there had been a prequel to this story, in which Anita earned her reputation as "The Executioner" and we learned the rules of the game in terms of vampires and this brave new world they inhabit, then her transformation in "Guilty Pleasures" would have the weight it deserves. Similarly, the idea that the thousand-year-old Master Vampire of St. Louis wants to hire Anita to solve the sudden rash of vampire murders also has less impact than it would if this story was told further down the line. Hamilton comes up with some excellent ideas in this novel, but you can imagine how much more of an impact they would have if this was the third or fourth Anita Blake novel instead of the first. However, Hamilton gets high marks for giving us the feel that we have stepped into an ongoing story, always a laudable goal. You have to be quite optimistic about her ability to up the ante as the series continues.

The world of Anita Blake is one in which the Supreme Court has granted the undead equal rights, so that you cannot kill a vampire without a warrant and you can just imagine the legal morass involving zombies, ghouls and were-beasts. Hamilton has created a world in which the undead are still creatures of the night but have become a part of society, which runs the spectrum from vampire strip clubs such as the Guilty Pleasures of the title to the Church of Eternal Life where becoming a vampire can help you achieve that particular goal. This is a thoughtful look at the "realities" of such a world and although you will recognize elements from Stoker and Rice in this world, Hamilton has constructed one that stands on its own. As for our heroine, she is also extremely realistic: Anita Blake has horrible scars on her body from her battles against the undead, her dreams are tormented by what she has seen and done, she is terrified by her current situation and does not know who she can trust or turn to for help. The fact that she feels fear, cries, gets sick to her stomach, add to her heroism because despite all these obstacles, she gets the job done. There is a much harder edge here than what you find with other vampire slayers. Anita Blake is not a two-dimension character, which is why once you read "Guilty Pleasures" you have to move on to the next novel in the series. All in all, this is an excellent start.

The paralells between Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Anita Blake series are virtually infinite. Both are tough, slim, short hot girls whose main goal in life is to free the world from the baddies. Both seem to have more than their fair share of relationships with some of these supernatural "baddies". Both of them love weapons. And both of them kick major .... while cracking tongue in cheek jokes.
I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And I love these books.
I read several reviews pertaining to the lack of sex in this first book. Well if you want sex, read on....the series soon becomes permeated with it. Ms. Hamilton seems to either give us too much or too little. Personally I prefer too little. I'm more on the ride for the action and plots, not the sex. If I want sexual satisfaction from a book I'll read a romance novel. This is not a romance novel.
In the same way Buffy the Vampire Slayer has become more and more "sexual", so do Hamilton's books. Since it is a series, some of the books are more for setting the scene and creating sexual tension than supplying a release for it. I would say on the whole though this series (taken as a whole) has something for everyone. Humour, Horror, and lust.
An easy writing style and a killer character make this book a must read for anyone who likes things along the line of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.