89 of 93 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clear the calendar--you'll read this one in one sitting!, April 11, 2000
I'm quickly making my way through the Anita Blake series. Any of these novels is a winner on its own, but you'll miss so much if you don't start at the beginning (GUILTY PLEASURES).
DANCE, in my humble opinion, is the best book thus far in the series. The main characters (Anita, Jean-Claude, Richard, Edward) are much more developed, the relationships between them all are so well written that you start to feel like you know them. In DANCE, Anita faces the realization that a mysterious "money man" has put out a huge contract for her death. With the help of her friends (and I use that term for lack of a better word for these complex characters), she battles her way through shapeshifters, shooters, makers of shapeshifter-porno movies, vamps, psychopaths and cops. And then things get strange.... Forever undaunted, Anita arms herself to the teeth to protect her life as well as the "lives" of the men/undead/werewolf that she loves.
DANCE also brings Anita to some decisions regarding her feelings for Jean-Claude, the seductive Master Vampire of the City, and Richard, the potential alpha male of the local werewolf pack. Who will she choose? Will she tell them both to take a hike? How will she reconcile her own ambiguous feelings about what it means to be a monster and what it means to be in love?
All in all, this entire series is a great ride. Anita narrates each story. She's petite, she's pretty, she's tough. She doesn't need to be rescued because she's typically the one doing the rescuing! She's a necromancer with incredible powers, and these powers are more developed in DANCE through her relationship with Jean-Claude and Richard. Laurell Hamilton introduces new characters and brings in some old ones from prior novels. It's rather difficult to pin this series into one genre. It's part romance, part mystery, part detective, part horror, part gore, part vampire and all of the above. There's something here to please almost everyone. These books are fun, they're scary, and I guarantee you'll keep reading them to find out what happens next!
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35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A much needed and exciting character development for Anita, June 18, 1997
By A Customer
Book 6 of Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake series gives a refreshing new twist to her tough as nails necromancer. The story starts with the complicated love triangle between Anita, the vampire Jean Claude and Richard the werewolf who happens to be a teacher. It continues with dangerous politics as Richard finds himself in a struggle to take control of his pack without the violence everyone wants him to use and Anita and Jean Claude must join to help him to do this. Considering the breathtaking pace at which Ms Hamilton paces the story with it's high tension sexual moments and it's nail biting combat, it becomes impossible to lay the book down and you'll find yourself propelled to read it in one sitting. Longtime readers of the series will likely be in for a surprise as Ms Hamiltons departs from her previous formula for writing the Anita Blake books and truly adds even more detail and depth to her much loved character. As always with the Anita Blake series, the supernatural, the backstabbing politics and one woman's struggle to scrape a living raising the dead will sure to delight the reader and make us all wait with anticipation for the next novel
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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
As Satisfying as an Ice Cream Sundae, September 18, 2002
I have read all of the novels in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series and the "The Killing Dance" is one of the very best and my own personal favorite. Readers would be well-advised to start the series with the first novel "Guilty Pleasures" and enjoy the development of each of the characters instead of starting with this novel.
The book explores the growth and development of each of four main characters; our heroine Anita Blake, junior-high school teacher and alpha werewolf Richard Zeeman, mysterious bounty hunter Edward, and master vampire of St.Louis Jean-Claude. A huge bounty has been placed on Anita's life by an unknown money-man and Anita must somehow protect herself until the time limit expires. Anita puts a lot of effort into survival, a skill at which she has had a lot of practice and at which she excels.
Several plots run simultaneously throughout the book with the action being non-stop and rivetting. Everything ties together nicely at the conclusion, with just enough dangling ends to make us want to start the next installment "Burnt Offerings" right away.
Anita's hard-boiled attitude and biting sarcasm provide several instances where the reader can't help but laugh such as her commentary on a dinner party; "There were three kinds of people at Catherine's dinner party; the living, the dead, and the occassionally furry." Her dry sense of humor serves to break the tension at just the right moment; "What do you say to boyfriend A when he finds you naked in the bed of boyfriend B? Especially if boyfriend A turned into a monster the night before and ate someone. I bet Miss Manners didn't cover this at all."
Readers will devour this novel like an ice cream sundae; satisfying yet leaving you wanting some more. Top ratings are well-deserved.
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