Volume 16

www.read-that.com book review

Welcome back to Anita Blake, Vampire Executioner, Zombie Raiser, Human Servant to the Master of the City of St. Louis; Jean Claude, Lupa and Bolverk for the local werewolf clan, and Nimir Ra (queen) to the local wereleopard pard. Join Anita while she goes with Jason, her friend, sometimes lover, and her Master’s pomme de sang (apple of blood), to see his family. There is some bad blood between Jason and his father but with his father dying, Jason feels that he should go to say goodbye at least. Nathaniel, Anita’s leopard to call, nominated her to join Jason. While things should have been more than normal with a visit home to see the family, Anita can’t seem to have anything normal. Jason seems to looks more like the Summerlands than he wanted to. Evidently during school they were always getting mixed up as each other. Keith Summerland isn’t an upstanding man and he’s supposed to be getting married this weekend. Plus being rich and the governor’s son doesn’t help him be nice.

While Jason tries to tell the reporters and everyone else that he’s Jason and not Keith, nobody believes him. Since the Governor is Keith’s dad and Keith is missing just before his wedding, the media frenzy is outrageous. Only to make matters worse, the bride to be thinks that Jason is really Keith also until she finally figures it out personally. Once the bride and Jason were an item in high school so she knew him well. Jason and Anita were invited to the Bacherlorette Party. Things were going as normal as Jason would be until the entertainment showed up. A vampire and two wereanimals, which one was a weretiger.It was time to leave.

Marmee Noir, the Mother of all Vampires, is using Anita’s necromancy powers to help wake her up from the endless sleep she’s been in. Things really get weird when the weretiger, Crispin, from the party shows up as if called. Then that’s where things begin to go even more haywire. After 2 days of Jean Claude not being able to reach Anita metaphysically, he has sent Richard as the only wereanimal that could help Anita keep Marmee Noir at bay.Richard is the third of their triumvirate with Anita and Jean Claude. He is also an on again off again boyfriend and sometimes lover for Anita. She has mixed feelings when it comes to Richard as always. She hates him on one hand but loves him on the other. Richard is Ulfric, King of the local St. Louis werewolf clan. Once Anita realized that it has been 2 whole days that she has been in that hotel room with Jason and some strangers, she knew that she was being messed with badly. The charm she kept on her at all times was no where in sight and she was beginning to get scared.

Not only does Anita have to worry about the weretigers and whether she is being tormented by Marmee Noir, but now she knows why the bodyguards were so frustrated with Jason being in town. Keith Summerland has run off with someone else and is missing. That someone else is married and her husband is out to get him. So Jason is or could be in trouble and Anita isn’t wanting anything to happen to Jason.

I couldn’t put this one down. With Jason and Anita there seems to be more passion than before and the emotion is intense. Fertile imagination and amazing ability to draw in the reader as always. Hamilton is the greatest!