Blood Noir by Laurell K. Hamilton

3 out of 5 Stars

My Review:
Ok, #16 of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series is on the chopping block. I love this series. If you're looking for a book that is like the first 8, don't bother. This one has lots of steamy scenes in it... However I feel like Hamilton toned it down a little. I love how the characters in this series have changed and evolved with the situations that happen in each book! Anyway, we get a closer look at Jason, Master of the City Jean-Claude's blood doner/ pomme de sang and Anita's lover/best friend.

Jason and his immortal mermaid girlfriend have just broken up because she is jealous and doesn't trust Jason... at the same time, he finds out his estranged father is dieing of cancer. Jason's father has always had the misconception that he is gay and despised him for it. Jason's mother then asks him to bring home a girlfriend so his dad can die in peace... only, this isn't going to work as he and Perdy just broke up. Ah, what to do? Nathaniel, Anita's live-in honey, convinces Anita to go in place of Jason's girlfriend. She finally agrees and when they arrive to Jason's hometown of Ashville, NC he is immediately mistaken for for his lavish, scandalous, well-known cousin. Unfortunately, his cousin is getting married that same weekend Jason is there to visit. The entire novel revolves around Jason being mistaken for his cousins and it ultimately results in the kidnapping of Jason and Anita.

Throughout the time they're in Ashville, the Mother of all Vampires (Marme Noir) is screwing around with Anita's head from Europe. She causes Anita to black out and send out a call to all the weretigers in the area. (She is doing all of this psychicly of course!)

As Anita is a succubus, in this novel she figures out that she can feed off the emotion rage as well as lust. This helps to free Richard (werewolf, ex-fiance) of the uncontrollable rage that he inherited by becoming apart of Anita's triumvirate with Jean-Claude. However it helps to free up his new rage- it gives him some new power-the ardeur.

It is pretty obvious that Blood Noir is opening a lot of flood gates into an awesome plot for Skin Trade (book 17.)

1. Jason gets some background- making him a more significant character
2. Anita has a new way to feed (rage), which means there won't be as many pointless sex scenes
3. Taking rage from Richard could give him a new major character flaw due to his newly inherited ardeur... Maybe it will be Richard now with lots of live in lovers?
   
4. Anita can call out the weretigers, making them a bigger part of the plot...

Great book, I couldn't put it down. However, the plot was stretched out pretty thin with some bad sex, whining, and a few silly plot twists. I really do think that these silly plot twists and everything will open up for a better book in Skin Trade... I will not be giving up on Anita Blake anytime soon! I love Jason's character, which helped me get through this book. And for those that complain about all the useless sex scenes in the newer Anita Blake novels- this one didn't have too many that were useless to the plotline.... and now, onto the next Anita Blake novel- Skin Trade!!

Book Details:

• Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Jove, Reprint: May 26, 2009
  
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0515146374
• ISBN-13: 978-0515146370

Books in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series in order they should be read:

1. Guilty Pleasures
   
2. The Laughing Corpse
3. Circus of the Damned
   
4. The Lunatic Cafe
5. Bloody Bones
6. The Killing Dance
7. Burnt Offerings
8. Blue Moon
9. Obsidian Butterfly
10. Narcissus In Chains
11. Cerulean Sins
12. Incubus Dreama
13. Micah
14. Danse Macabre
15. The Harlequin
16. Blood Noir
17. Skin Trade
18. Flirt (Release date: February 2, 2010)