I give this book 3.5 stars. There are a lot of opinions out there regarding the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novels. I can't quite decide whether I want to love the series or hate it.LOL. The series isn't going to win any literary awards, it doesn't have beautiful prose, but that's not what is so addictive about this series. The story, the fictional world, is what keeps me coming back for more. The author has created an incredibly rich and detailed world and I think this is what I love best about the series. You see the world through the eyes of the main character, Anita Blake, and it's all very real and you almost expect to see and meet all the characters once you close the book.

It's been 6 months since Anita put her men on hold to gain control of her powers. The Master of the City vamp, Jean-Claude and the Ulfric, the uber-werewolf king, Richard. She is now the human servant of Jean-Claude and is bonded to him and Richard as a triumvirate. Anita is not your average human servant, she's also a necromancer, able to raise the dead (and undead, that's vampires), so the power of their triumvirate is unknown and they're all grasping in the dark. She comes back to St. Louis ready to face them and acknowledge the vampire marks, but that isn't the only thing she has to worry about. She may become wereleopard Queen, Nimir-Ra, in truth at the next full moon, plus she has to deal with another mysterious shifter that wants her dead.

I view the 10th installment of the AB series as a turning point in the series from the previous books, 1-9. I'd consider the books 1-9 as urban fantasy with more of a mystery/detective angle, but starting with this book it's more urban fantasy erotica (It's the best I can come up with.heh) with more graphic sexual scenes.

Narcissus in Chains introduces Anita to the power of the succubus. Once Anita decides to marry the vampire marks between herself, the Master of the City, Jean-Claude, and his animal to call the werewolf king Richard, it becomes clear that this sexual power she has inherited from Jean-Claude is something she'll have to live with for the immediate future. What this entails is daily "feedings", feeding off the lust of others to satiate this sexual power, called the ardeur. This power pretty much dominates the rest of the series as Anita tries to learn to control this power, with sex being quite prevalent (however I felt the last 2 books did tone it down a lot).

I'll give a few of my thoughts and opinions about the 10th book on. I like both the early and later books, although I'll admit one huge annoyance I've had with the series is how much of a control-freak and angst-ridden Anita is. As the series is written in first person POV, you are privy to all of Anita's thoughts and feelings. Her character isn't the most likable, in fact, sometimes she's downright un-likable most times. Contradictory, stubborn, can't admit she's wrong and gets angry to cover it, etc. But, I like how the character has flaws. I think it makes her character more real despite how her frustrating her character can be.

I also think the author needs to give Anita more control over the ardeur, as Anita has been put in situations where she was unable to control it and pretty much slept with whoever was available. I believe the ardeur has been toned down somewhat, IMO the last 2 books weren't as filled with graphic sex scenes as say Incubus Dreams or Danse Macabre, but I still think it has had enough page time. I liked the early books with Anita going vampire hunting and using her necromancy powers, solving preternatural crimes, but I also like the later books that evolve into an entirely new direction (which IMO, was more supernatural politics and intrigues between the shapeshifters and vampires). I liked learning about the power structure of the supernatural world.

This book could cause uncomfortable "squeamish" feelings in some readers. Laurell K. Hamilton doesn't pull her punches when it comes to describing in intimate detail every thought or action of her characters. Whether it's violence or sex. There is a lot of graphic sex in this book (and the later books afterwards). There are themes, sexual in nature, that may cause discomfort to some readers. One of Anita's main squeezes is a vampire who had a male lover centuries before and this character still holds passion and love for this former male lover. Another broad theme throughout this book and in later books is the mingling of pain and pleasure that inhabit the dark world of the supernatural creatures, shapeshifters and vampires. Which makes sense, the world Anita lives in is very outside the mainstream and never comfortable.

One thing I liked about this book is that Anita is finally (okay, maybe not quite, but almost!) willing to accept that perhaps she isn't all that human. She's been so much a part of the "monster" world, as she was the supernatural expert the police called in on supernatural crimes, but she always viewed herself as wholly human. Now, she's learning that she is more at home with the monsters (the shifters and vamps), and that frightens her. In this book, it's clear she still has this prejudice of the monsters, which like I mentioned earlier is a contradiction in Anita. She's a necromancer and human servant with vamp-like powers (the ardeur), and yet she is loathe to have her vamp boyfriend Jean-Claude "feed" off her and she doesn't want to be a wereleopard shifter in truth. I view it as Anita was always different anyway, having the power of a necromancer so it was inevitable she'd find more of a home in the supernatural community.

Anyways, this book takes a turn for the best or worst, depending on your viewpoint. I still enjoy the series for what it is: brain candy and no thinking required.LOL. When I just want a bit of escapist fantasy that's all I want. An imaginative and intriguing fictional world that helps me escape from the "real world" for a brief time. This book more than delivers and kept me turning the pages until the end.

WARNING: I like these books quite a lot, and so if you don't, you probably won't like this review, either.

So here it finally is, ten books (My god, I can't believe I've already read ten of these! When did I start reading them, June? July? Ridiculous.) into the series and the dreaded moment has come: Anita has gained the ardeur. Anita decided in the last book to make up for the psychic wounds she gave herself, Jean-Claude, and Richard when she broke off their connection and stopped seeing both of them, and so in this book, the triumvirate go through the step of "marrying the marks," allowing their auras to intermingle and fill the holes made by their connection and separation. But in the process, Anita gains Jean-Claude's ability to gain power through lust and sex, and with it she gains his need to do so every single day. Oh yeah, and Anita also gets into the middle of a were squabble, and one of her wereleopard accidentally wounds her, maybe turning her into a wereleopard for real, so we have that thread running through the book as well. Oh, and she finds a new lover, a wereleopard king named Micah who is instantly and intimately connected to her by their shared place at the head of their respective wereleopard pards. And then there's the conflict between the werewolves and the wereleopards, when Richard blames Gregory for infecting Anita and maybe killing her -- and, much worse though he won't admit it, ending his secret guilty fantasy that maybe someday he could make Anita a werewolf and have her be his perfect mate -- and has the pack sentence Gregory to torture and death, a sentence that sticks even after Richard finds out that Anita is not dead because Richard has allowed the pack to become a pseudo-democracy, and he has new enemies that are trying to take over the pack from him and are using this to undermine his authority. Until Anita comes to get her leopard back. Oh right, and Anita and Richard finally end it completely, when they have sex, she feeds off of his lust, and he pitches a hissy-fit about her being more monstrous than he could ever be, and even worse, she is comfortable with the monsters in a way he will never be, and so he dumps her. Finally. And of course, there's the invasion of the werehyenas, an unknown but suddenly powerful faction in the shifter world, who get attacked by a remarkably nasty bad guy, the panwere Chimera, who tries to use the werehyenas as a stepping stone to taking over all of the shifters in the city, and maybe eventually the world.

And people read this book and get upset because there's sex. And they say that the plot becomes weak at this point in the series, and it all devolves into little more than porn. Are they reading the same book I did?

I thought the sex scenes were as well done as every other graphic, visceral moment in this very graphic series. I thought the moment at the end of the shower scene, when Anita ends up crying on the floor of the shower because she thinks she has finally turned completely into a monster was incredibly poignant, and I loved the way Hamilton managed to bring Anita around to some kind of acceptance over the course of the single book. I love how this author has managed to bring Anita a step closer to monsterhood, without ever taking away her basic humanity and her core beliefs and strengths, and her intrinsic conflicts and vulnerabilities, in every single book of this series. Anita has been forced by her own values and her basic nature into becoming a radically different person, one she herself would have hated -- and yet, because she has never betrayed her basic values, has in fact given up almost everything else she held dear in order to keep to her most basic values, she can accept the new person that she has become and even like herself. I think it is amazing, and incredible fun to read.

My only complaint about this book is that it was too full, as the list above implies; there were just too many things going on, and so some of the plots, particularly the title one of Narcissus and the werehyenas, got short shrift, and that was too bad. But since the book is already 650 pages long, and took me longer to read than any of the previous books have required, I can understand why the final fight with Chimera ended up shorter than I would have liked. It focused on Anita, which was really what I wanted to read about, anyway.

Too bad...this was neat book series. Ended up skimming the ending. Appeared sex scenese were more important to the author than plot. Not worth the money to download.
Too much like a wierd romance novel. Anita would have been ashamed...

This book continues the evolution (or devolution, depending on your point of view) of the Anita Blake character and the series as a whole. At the beginning of this series, the sex was rated PG, the violence R. As the series has progressed, the violence has remained constant, the sex become more prevalent. In "Blue Moon", the book two before this in the series, I said that the sex had matched the violence. Now, it has surpassed it; if you truly care about such things, I have to say that the sex in this book could be rated "X". I've read unapologetic porno novels that have less graphic sex. Of course, this one's written light years better than any of them, but that doesn't make the sex any less graphic.

Me, I love it. I find the plot development of the "good little Catholic girl" who finds herself turning into a succubus in spite of herself, who finds that her sex drive has been supernaturally augmented until even with the iron-hard will power that we've seen from her in previous episodes, she can't help herself, to be a very erotic subplot. And I understand what the author is doing: she's showing us how a person slides down the slippery slope of losing every last vestige of her humanity an inch at a time, not in spite of but because of the very best of intentions. But many fans of the early novels will find this one virtually unreadable; much of what they liked about the characters and the plots is gone. And I would not advise starting with this novel, without having read the early ones, unless all you're looking for is a VERY powerful, very well-written, very graphic erotic novel and don't much care if you're coming in in the middle of the story.

This book remains one of my most favorite in the entire series. Every aspect of the main character's relationships changes and she is starting to strip away the annoying tendencies that helped flesh out the character to begin with, but had become a little annoying that Anita, despite the radical changes in her life, could not seem to grow up.

I was told by a friend to stop reading at book 8. I'm glad I didn't listen and kept reading. Read the reviews yourself and decide based on what you like/don't like. If you liked the other books, the entire book -- not just parts of the book -- then you will like this one too.

There are alot of complains about the sexual content of this book and how the author has crossed over to AO Eroticism. I read alot of historical romance and many are much worse than this! Yes, there are sex scenes in this book... so what. There is also a story there that makes it difficult to put the book down.

Years back, I stopped reading this series after the first four or so books. I was too bored to read the rest of them. Recently, I decided to give the rest another chance. I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. Several reviewers complained that Hamilton changed the storyline- too much gore, not enough ethics, too much sex, etc... I was thrilled.

I loved the changes. Enough to plow through five more books in rapid succession. Each book was better than the next...Though I will admit, Obsidian Butterfly bored me to tears-it was hard to get through... For me, this is the best book thus far! I like the changes.

Not only is this book action-packed, but it also contains amazing sensuality! It's the right mix of action and "romance," and is very sexy!

Well, I just finished Narcissus in Chains, and I have to say, I'm disappointed. I really loved the Anita Blake series, especially 1-7, 8 and 9 being okay, but LKH dropped the ball on Book 10. Anita isn't a likeable character anymore, and the mostly-adventure/part-romance balance of the series has become reversed. The main plot is now taking a backset to the romantic plot.

One of the signs of a complex character is internal conflict. Prior to Book 10, there was loads of it. Anita wondered if she was really cold-blooded, if she should really fall for a vampire, and constantly questioned the actions that didn't coincide with her beliefs. Her beliefs seemed to have gone out the window. She doesn't seem to contemplate her killing anymore; it just is what it is. While in earlier books, she was even squeamish about sex, now it is just no holds barred. She doesn't even flinch at being with a vampire anymore, and sex has become commonplace, even with more than one person!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against love triangles (or "love quadrilaterals"?) , but she doesn't even stress over it anymore, which is very inconsistent with the Anita character from all the earlier books. Sure, she says things like, "All this thinking makes me tremble" and such, but do we really see that anymore? Do we really see her stressing over dating a vampire, being in a menage-a-trois, having regular sex, and killing people?

And what about her job? Anita hasn't worked as an animator in 2 books already. Does she even have a job still? Part of the excitement of the Anita Blake series was her job as an animator, but I guess the great Anita Blake no longer has to show up to her 9-to-5?

Furthermore, in earlier books, Anita had weaknesses. Her main defense was her gun and her religious icons, but now, she can just scare the baddies off with the ardeur and drain the life out of them? She's scared and thinking of what to do for 5 pages, then just simply drains the life out of her enemy?

Not only has she become invincible, but she's conceited about it. There is a lot more of "Do this or I'll kill you" or "Don't do this or I'll kill you." Anita always seems to get her way, even in her love life. She can fool around with 3+ partners, but she doesn't allow Jean-Claude to be with anyone else because she's a homophobe and selfish, and Jean-Claude just nods at the double-standard? Jean-Claude has become little more than a pet for Anita, who does what he's told to do, explains situations and procedures, then goes into his coffin. She even gets her way in his duties as Master of City, telling him what he "has to do" with his vampires. What happened to the persuasive, seductive, powerful Jean-Claude? What happened to his personality? What happened to his busy schedule managing multiple clubs, that now he's just available at Anita's convenience?

And as for Richard... He did a complete 180. He was already comfortable with his beast and wanted to make it work with Anita in the book before last, and suddenly in Book 10, he dumps her because of an accident and becomes insecure with his beast again? Talk about inconsistent! And while Richard and Anita tried to reach a middle ground or compromise on moral issues, suddenly Richard becomes a moral extremist and Anita becomes the complete opposite, and they no longer care to meet half-way? That whole break-up seemed way too convenient.

Speaking of the break-up, some of the dialogue in this book was just plain ridiculous. While the dialogue was interesting in previous books, in this one, it would just be circular in really long conversations that kept coming back to the same issue, like the really long one with Richard about mid-way through the book. This happened in more than one conversation, and I had to check whether I had reread a page or whether this conversation really was just going in circles.

I think I was already set against Micah when Anita could not shut up about how big his **** is. I lost count of how many times we had to read about that, and rather than being sexy, it felt more like a slap in the face for Richard and Jean-Claude that she had to compare them like that. Is that really how you would think of your lovers? I've never thought to assess and compare measurements of lovers' body parts, and it seems really superficial for Anita, who was squeamish about sex and in love with those other two men, to suddenly analyze and rate their respective lengths with Micah's. Aside from that, Micah seemed like a yes-man, just bobbing his head in reply to whatever Anita said to him. Love at first sight would have been a nice change of pace, but it really took away from that love plot to make such a fuss over his ****, compare it to Richard's and Jean-Claude's, and not give him much of a personality. What are Micah's beliefs? What are his morals? What makes him mad? What does he do during the day? The only things we seem to know about him is that he's got it bad for Anita, protects his pard, and has a gigantic ****. And this book makes it seem like that's all that matters about him. Richard and Jean-Claude were well-rounded characters (until this book), which made their respective love plots with Anita much more interesting.

One of the highlights of this book for me was the relationship between the different were-clans. I was interested in seeing them communicate more and organize themselves better, and I eagerly anticipated the parts in the book that had to do with pack/pard politics. Anita, despite her many, many flaws as a character in this book, has become a stable leader for the leopards, and her interactions with them were interesting to read about. I was also interested in Damian's story, and the relationship of master/servent between him and Anita. It seems that these most interesting aspects weren't as fleshed out as the romantic ones, though, and I certainly would have wanted to read more about her job and police investigations. In fact, I think this book could have easily been better if it followed the formula of the earlier books, and had Anita brought into an investigation somehow for the were-animal disappearances, maybe a battle of wits in catching the kidnapper, finding the victims, and figuring out why he wanted them. Maybe Micah, as a newcomer in town, could have been a suspect. Then add in small doses of romantic tension and jealousy from Richard. Keep Anita reliant on her instincts and her guns, and not give her super-awesome invincible life-stealing powers. Maybe have her put up a fight with the ardeur, instead of whining about it and giving into it?

The main plot in this book is very weak, at best, with sex scenes and fluff in the way. The Anita Blake books before this one had very strong plots, and I was surprised at how "subtle" the main plot was in this book. I'm guessing I can expect more sex and more powers for Anita in the coming books, along with weaker plots. I do like romance novels, such as J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series (which can be rough), but it still seems odd to me for LKH to change the genre of the Anita Blake series 10 books in. I know we readers cannot dictate what authors write, but I love books 1-9 of the Anita Blake series so much, that they are easily among the top books I've read (and I go through about 1-2 paranormals per week). After reading such wonderful books, packed with action, suspense, thrilling and surprising plots, complex characters, both internal and external conflict, and playful but complicated love plots, this change in the series could be nothing but a letdown.

I ordered this book along with 9 and the next few after 10, and now I don't know if I should read the next few or leave Anita Blake in my mind as she was in the earlier novels. I am hopeful that she will turn around and be the complex character she used to be, and I can enjoy her adventures again, but seeing the ratings of the next few books tells me I'm probably going to be let down some more.

I loved this book. I agree that the series has gone a bit down hill in the last couple books, but I think this one picked it back up a bit.
Richard gets tiring. His unwillingness to accept himself and the way he leads his pack is annoying. His anger at Anita "feeding" off him is annoying. If he loves her as much as he says he does then he should want to be the one who satisfies her instead of forcing her to be with someone else. I think Micah is good for Anita and for the pard. He is strong and confident. He is willing to give Anita what she needs and doesn't whine about it later.
She still hasn't gotten back to her job yet and I'm wondering when she's going to go back to raising the dead. I miss it.
Still I found this book to be exciting. I don't think the sex scenes are boring, and there is a plot apart from the sex. So I disagree with most of the other reviewers.

Not much to say, fun read, can get repetative. after a couple of these books.

Sincerely,
Ira Carmel.

This was the first Anita Blake novel I picked up, and hard as I tried, it just didn't work for me. I couldn't find a plot, there were sooo many characters and the kink was kinda bland.

So...having heard so many times how great the series is, I was a good little reader and went back and started at the beginning of the series and read in order. Okay...now I get it.

Some fans seem to be seriously turned off by the sexual content, but really, considering that Anita is a succubus in the making, it works. She's also a bit of a prude being thrown into the deep end, she's not sluttish, and has major issues with her new physical nature. Frankly, the ardeur is a lot less creepy than Anita channeling the munin of Raina.

This book is the beginning of a story arc that seems to resolve in book 15, Harlequin. Serious characters are stepping up here that will have big influence on where the future books go: Nathanial, Jason, and Asher, as well as the current Swan King. Oh...Micah...forgot about him. The author seems to want really bad to make Micah work, but for some reason, his character is really slow in developing, even in later books. Narcissus is just a seriously creepy fellow, and I'm glad he's still with us. Richard continues to be a wild card, a flawed hero who can throw a major monkey wrench into Anita's story. Ya love him, ya hate him. Long may he live...

Back to the erotica themes. The adversary in this one basically runs a deadly supernatural BDSM club of an often particularly nasty kind.

Anita discovers that she has Jean Claude's s*x you up, give you the horn and s*x slave you vampire ardeur powers.

She also adds being master of a vampire to her ever growing list of supernatural abilities and titles, and gets herself yet another boyfriend, a new male wereleopard in town.

There is just enough of a plot in there to keep some interest.

Threesomes abound for this chick.

This was the first Anita Blake novel I picked up, and hard as I tried, it just didn't work for me. I couldn't find a plot, there were sooo many characters and the kink was kinda bland.

So...having heard so many times how great the series is, I was a good little reader and went back and started at the beginning of the series and read in order. Okay...now I get it.

Some fans seem to be seriously turned off by the sexual content, but really, considering that Anita is a succubus in the making, it works. She's also a bit of a prude being thrown into the deep end, she's not sluttish, and has major issues with her new physical nature. Frankly, the ardeur is a lot less creepy than Anita channeling the munin of Raina.

This book is the beginning of a story arc that seems to resolve in book 15, Harlequin. Serious characters are stepping up here that will have big influence on where the future books go: Nathanial, Jason, and Asher, as well as the current Swan King. Oh...Micah...forgot about him. The author seems to want really bad to make Micah work, but for some reason, his character is really slow in developing, even in later books. Narcissus is just a seriously creepy fellow, and I'm glad he's still with us. Richard continues to be a wild card, a flawed hero who can throw a major monkey wrench into Anita's story. Ya love him, ya hate him. Long may he live...

Back to the erotica themes. The adversary in this one basically runs a deadly supernatural BDSM club of an often particularly nasty kind.

Anita discovers that she has Jean Claude's s*x you up, give you the horn and s*x slave you vampire ardeur powers.

She also adds being master of a vampire to her ever growing list of supernatural abilities and titles, and gets herself yet another boyfriend, a new male wereleopard in town.

There is just enough of a plot in there to keep some interest.

Threesomes abound for this chick.

One Redeeming quality: if I run out of toilet paper, I can put this to use as my ancestor's did the Sears catalog.

The author totally trashed this series, we have the Vampire Humper meets the Hardback Whore.

What a pity.

I strongly recommend you try something by any of the following authors instead: Charlaine Harris (I love her Shakespeare series), Jim Butcher, Wen Spencer, Patricia Briggs, Rebecca Bradley, Lilith Saintcrow, Rob Thurman, Tanya Huff, Lois McMasters Bujold.

Life's too short to read crap.

RIP Anita Blake.

This is something of a joint review. I recently finished two novels in the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton: OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY and NARCISSUS IN CHAINS. These represent respectively, in my opinion, perhaps the best and the worst novels in the sequence and highlights both Hamilton's strengths and many weaknesses as a writer. By approaching why I think the earlier novel is quite good and why the latter is so dreadful hope to get at the reasons I've had such a love-hate relationship with the Anita Blake series.

There is something of a formula in the Anita Blake novels: the less sex, the better the book. I'm hardly a prude and sexual content in a novel certainly doesn't bother me. I'm not a home schooler type who fears that any content with sexual matters will corrupt the soul and send one to hell. But neither do I subscribe to the fallacy that writing about sex makes for a better novel. The philosopher Wittgenstein once wrote that raisins make for a better cake, but that didn't mean that too many raisins made a better cake. On sexual matters everyone is going to have their own idea of what constitutes good or bad, interesting or uninteresting sex. In my humble opinion, few writers deal with sex less ably than does Ms. Hamilton. Much of the time when she writes of sex I'm put in mind of the covers those romance novels for which Fabio posed for covers. The passages in her novels that deal with sex are among the most cringe-worthy that I have ever encountered and I often find myself skipping entire paragraphs or pages or groups of pages to escape her libidinously challenged characters. And from what I read in the reviews of her books by other readers, I don't appear to be alone in this. In fact, I seem to be a part of a solid majority.

OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY has less sex than almost any of the Anita Blake books apart from some of the very early ones. I don't think it is a coincidence that it is perhaps her best book. Because there is so little sex and so little of the horrid love triangle between her and Jean-Claude (my nominee for one the worst characters in fiction) and Richard (can I have two nominees?). I have read the Anita Blake novels because I enjoy the alternative universe that Hamilton has created with vampires, werewolves, fairies, and other supernatural entities living in civil society alongside nonempowered human beings. In reading the books I want that world explored. Instead, we get way too much laboring over poor Anita's sex life. Who gives a flip! A lot of sex does not make these books interesting. The alternative universe I described above is what makes these books fun.

OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY is great because we focus on a number of characters--some over the top admittedly--with whom Anita is not sexually involved. This forces Hamilton to focus on the world she has created. Anita goes to New Mexico to help her associate Edward solve a series of bizarre murders. The action takes place during a time during which Anita is spending time away from both Richard and Jean-Claude (if only she had left both for good!). Apart from Edward we meet none of the characters who have become fixtures in the previous novels. The action is great, the story compelling, and the situation described is unique and fascinating.

Unfortunately, Hamilton seems to have failed to learn the lessons OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY should have taught her. Instead, in NARCISSUS IN CHAINS she reverts to the increasing sexuality that afflicted BLUE MOON and earlier books. I read OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY in three or four days. It took me nearly a month to read NARCISSUS IN CHAINS and even then I toyed with the idea of quitting the entire series. I am something of a completist and if I read one book in a series I usually like to read all. But after this most recent clunker I may join those other Anita Blake readers who found this to be the final straw. Instead of keeping the sex minimal as in OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY, she ratcheted up the sex to a degree unknown in any previous novel in the series. There were chapters in this book that I found to be close to unreadable there was so much poorly written sex. As bad as Anne Rice is writing about sex (unless you happen to be a sadomasochist), Hamilton is worse.

But sex isn't the only reason Hamilton is such a terrible writer. She violates one of the most important rules of writing: she constantly puts at the heart of her books incoherent, incomprehensible concepts. For comparison, there is a deeply flawed book by the Sci-fi novelist Robert Heinlein entitled STRANGERS IN A STRANGE LAND. The flaw lies in the fact that a central character, a Martian, is supposed to be deep and wise and insightful, all of which others can only recognize if they can speak Martian. But since the reader cannot speak Martian, we have to accept the testimony of the characters that this character truly is wise and sage. In the same way, we are supposed to accept Hamilton's assumption that "power" can be used in the vague, sloppy, and absurd way that she employs it and still have it refer to something rather than nothing. Her characters are perpetually sensing the power of other characters. Power paralyzes, intimidates, inspires, terrorizes, and afflicts her characters. But her concept of "power" puts me in mind of another philosopher, Gilbert Ryle and his famous essay "Systematically Misleading Expressions." Every sentence in which she employs the concept "power" is a sentence that does no real work because there is nothing in human experience to which her concept of "power" can denote. It is a nonsense word as she employs it and all she can do is concoct more and more nonsense. I find every passage in which one character feels the "power" of another to be infuriating, because we are just supposed to take her word for it that such a thing is possible. One reason that I find BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER so marvelous is that Joss Whedon and his writers never have to leave the kind of existence that we normal human beings experience to tell any of his stories. Yes, he has vampires and monsters, but he never introduces vague and unintelligible ideas like "power." He would be ashamed to do so.

Up to a hundred pages from the end of NARCISSUS IN CHAINS I was convinced that it was going to be my last Anita Blake novel. Luckily, those last hundred pages reminded me of why I continued in the series to begin with. They were exciting, suspenseful, and thrilling, everything the first five hundred pages of the novel were not. I'll try one more novel, but at this point I'm so tired of the horrid tangle of over-sexualized relationships that Hamilton has concocted that it won't take much for me to quit for good. In reading the various reviews others have written here I wonder if she has misread her audience. Perhaps she thinks fans really love the sex and that is why they read the books. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps there are legions of readers who think the sex is the highpoint. I don't discount the possibility. I find AMERICAN IDOL to be almost inconceivably boring, so obviously I'm not always a good judge as to what most people like. But for my part, I'd love to see more books in the Anita Blake series like OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY and fewer like NARCUSSUS IN CHAINS.

I wasn't impressed with this installment at all. The shower scene w/Micah was just...unclassy. Even getting past that part then Anita gets all protective of him. So what if they're one part of a whole (Nimir-ra & Nimir-raj)? The whole discovery of the ardeur was interesting but it took so long to all pan out. Then bringing Damian back from the cross-bound coffin was supposed to be this huge deal yet they got through it so quickly, with the only side effect Anita passing out from the hot tub. As in the other recent books all the men fall over themselves for Anita. There was barely any mystery/crime going on. It seemed like it was thrown in just to keep the theme of Anita's day job involved. Many of the better previous novels had a crime theme w/romance-erotic overtones. this one was the opposite.

Vampire hunter Anita Blake is back and so are all her serious romantic problems. It has been six months since she banished both Master Vampire Jean-Claude and werewolf king Richard from her bed and her life. Linked psychically, Anita, Jean-Claude and Richard remain vulnerable to magical attack until Anita can accept the implications of their menage a trois. When an attack on Anita's wereleopard clan results in a life threatening situation, Anita is forced to ask for help from Jean-Claude and Richard and merge together with them to assume their powers. But the merging forces human Anita to assume their hungers and their monster side. She becomes consumed by a sexual desire called the aurdeur that curses Jean-Claude with an insatiable craving for sexual contact. Unless Anita can conquer these alien desires, she is dooming herself and all those who depend on her for protection. Hamilton weaves a fascinating tale of desire and pain. Anita's new animal urges have unleashed a hunger to feel and inflict pain that threatens the submissive Nathaniel, a masochist member of Anita's adopted were leopard clan. Nathaniel is incapable of saying no to a dominant partner, even to save his own life. Hamilton creates a complicated society with rules and taboos that are constantly surprising the reader and Anita. Her books are always alluring and never dull.

Anita's life just keeps getting more and more complicated and i love following this is a wonderful book and those who dont like it are probably just upset she gets yet another boy toy lol however it all makes sense anita doesn't even seem like a slut she is just well... anita lol WONDERFUL BOOK A MUST READ!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been reading the Anita books and loved it ever since Guilty Pleasures. That is why I'm thoroughly disappointed with this book. I'm halfway through the book already and still there's not even a hint of a big bad. After the scene at the club, it's like 200 pages of repetative sex scene nonsense. I found myself glossing through paragraphs just to get to the end of the chapter. It feels like LKH ran out of things to write and stretched a scene into 5 chapters. I mean the curing Gregory part was just wayyyyyy tooooooo loooonnngggg... If the remaining books are like this, I think I'm going to pass it. AND Anita is getting to be so annoying. Whatever happened to her raising the dead or her police work or hell does she even works at her office anymore?

The normal elements of an Anita Blake novel (supernatural detective work, exciting action, and Anita's strong will) are reduced and pushed aside in favor of gratuitous sex scenes. There's nothing wrong with a little romance, especially if it advances the plot. However, these repeditive scenes are about as romantic and subtle as a sledgehammer. They don't contribute to the plot, but instead interrupt it.

The excuse is that Anita has been infected by the ardour, a supernatural hunger for sexual energy. Supposedly she got it from Jean Claude, even though it was never mentioned in the previous nine books. It's a very flimsy plot device. More annoying is the change in Anita. Always before, she fought stubbornly to maintain her morals against all influcences. However, she makes no attempt to resist the ardour.

The book is so different in focus, flow, writing style, phrasing, and word choices that I suspect it was partially or entirely ghost written.

I greatly enjoyed all the Anita Blake novels prior to this one. I recommend reading those.

I advise against reading this one.

The normal elements of an Anita Blake novel (supernatural detective work, exciting action, and Anita's strong will) are reduced and pushed aside in favor of gratuitous sex scenes. There's nothing wrong with a little romance, especially if it advances the plot. However, these repeditive scenes are about as romantic and subtle as a sledgehammer. They don't contribute to the plot, but instead interrupt it.

The excuse is that Anita has been infected by the ardour, a supernatural hunger for sexual energy. Supposedly she got it from Jean Claude, even though it was never mentioned in the previous nine books. It's a very flimsy plot device. More annoying is the change in Anita. Always before, she fought stubbornly to maintain her morals against all influcences. However, she makes no attempt to resist the ardour.

The book is so different in focus, flow, writing style, phrasing, and word choices that I suspect it was partially or entirely ghost written.

I greatly enjoyed all the Anita Blake novels prior to this one. I recommend reading those.

I advise against reading this one.

Narcissus in Chains marks the turning point in the Anita Blake series. In this book, Anita makes decisions that change her character in drastic ways. It is these changes that, I believe, caused much of the fan base to turn against the series. I personally prefer the Anita Blake series after book nine, but it appears that I am in the minority. It is true that starting with this book, there is a great increase of graphic content, but given the plotline I believe it adds to the story, and causes the series to rise to a new plateau in quality. Readers need to keep in mind that for whatever other genres are mixed in, this series is primarily vampire fiction. Being an avid follower of vampire fiction I must say that graphic content is (among other controversial elements) par for the course. Hamilton does an excellent job in keeping the series from stagnating and in this book begins to take all of the characters in a drastic new direction. She does it quite well, and I found this book, as well as those following it, to be great reading. My advice for those who have read the first nine books is to ignore the reviews, and give book ten a try. I loved the change in direction.

Narcissus in Chains marks the turning point in the Anita Blake series. In this book, Anita makes decisions that change her character in drastic ways. It is these changes that, I believe, caused much of the fan base to turn against the series. I personally prefer the Anita Blake series after book nine, but it appears that I am in the minority. It is true that starting with this book, there is a great increase of graphic content, but given the plotline I believe it adds to the story, and causes the series to rise to a new plateau in quality. Readers need to keep in mind that for whatever other genres are mixed in, this series is primarily vampire fiction. Being an avid follower of vampire fiction I must say that graphic content is (among other controversial elements) par for the course. Hamilton does an excellent job in keeping the series from stagnating and in this book begins to take all of the characters in a drastic new direction. She does it quite well, and I found this book, as well as those following it, to be great reading. My advice for those who have read the first nine books is to ignore the reviews, and give book ten a try. I loved the change in direction.

I so enjoyed this series and couldn't wait to get to the next book. I read all of them in order and was so pleased to find a series and heroine I was really excited about. What a let down. However, I persevered, read this book and went all the way to Cerulean Sins. Now, I understand the negative reviews and other remarks by disappointed readers and fans. I do not mind sexual influence when it adds to the story, character, whatever. But, this is down right ridiculous. I mean, give me a break here. It was one reviewers opinion that the author refuses to listen to her fans opinions, I hope that is not the case and the plots get back on track and off the current story lines. Because I miss the original Anita and her stories.

I first picked up on the Anita Blake series a little over a year ago. I was absolutely enthralled. Not only was the main character witty, intelligent, and kick-butt, but there was a memorable set of supporting characters to see her through. Who can forget Zerbrowski's antics (even in the worst of times) or the cold-hearted killing of everyone's favorite bounty hunter? After reading my share of the books and floating around to some of the other reviews here on Amazon, I am left wondering the same thing many of the other fans are: what happened?

I just finished Narcissus in Chains. Normally when I finish a book, I'm left with a sense of fulfillment, like I've accomplished something. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I've always found this series to capture me from the get-go, but trying to convince myself to read this one was hard. Not only was the plot rather weak, but Anita seemed to keep on debating the same situations over and over. Jean-Claude, Richard, Micah, and even Asher seem to plague her thoughts. And although she will do anything to save a member of her pard, or anyone else for that matter, her focus always seemed to drift back to the boys. And did anyone else notice the repetitiveness in the writing? Hamilton used the exact same wording for certain feelings or actions throughout the book. Unlike the earlier part of the series, the writing in Narcissus in Chains is less imaginative and less memorable. On top of it all, come the end of the book, we have this bad guy who I can't even remember where he came from in the first place!

My favorite part of the books has always been Anita's police work. I am honestly ten times more interested in her career than I am in her love life. I miss having a tight, intense plot that flows, instead of drifting around like some kid with a short attention span. And as pointed out in the book, the charming Anita Blake we used to know and love really has become a monster. A literary disaster of a monster.

Although the reviews for Cerulean Sins are probably just as grim as the reviews for Narcissus in Chains, I plan to go ahead and continue the series. I can't give up on something that has such great potential, and from the sound of it, this next one has a more recognizable plot. I can only hope. Unfortunately, I believe that Obsidian Butterfly was probably the last of one of the best series and best characters ever created.

This book is the turning point. It's the death of the Anita we all knew and loved and the birth of the new Anita. The old Anita was a tough, no-nonsense girl who's life revolved around raising the dead, solving crime, and slaying vampires. From this book on, Anita loses more and more of her independence. The things that were most imporatant to her, the police work and the like, get pushed ever further back in lieu of more and more sex and relationships with an ever-increasing harem of emotionally damaged men.

If you like the crime solving, police work, hunting, and mystery found in all the earlier books you should stop reading the series now. From this book on, the series is completely different. It revolves almost totally around sex, with the story and plot shoved further into the background with each successive book. By the time you get to the most recent books, there's not really any plot left, just a sequence of sex scenes loosely connected by the vague skeleton of a story that's really just a timeline.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind sex in books as long as it doesn't interfere with the plot and story. There's just two problems:
One, in the later books, the sex completely takes over the plot and the story. That's all there is. 80% or more of the book involves sex scenes in one way or another.
Second, Hamilton doesn't write good sex scenes. They nearly put me to sleep. They're not interesting and they add nothing to the book (other than hundreds of dull pages).

Hamilton's success was never due to her skills as a writer. From a technical stand point, she's actually a pretty poor writer. Her books are filled with grammatical errors, and composed almost entirely of short choppy sentences. What made her worth reading was that she had made a very good and unique character, Anita Blake, and was proficient in telling the story through her eyes. Now, Anita has been stripped of nearly everything that once made the character unique. And, her point of view and perspective is now almost always atop an erection.

My advice, stop reading this series until Hamilton gets it back on track. There are many wonderful books out there worthy of your time and money, this series is no longer among them.

Reminiscent of her own steely character Anita Blake, Laurell K. Hamilton has blown the competition out of the water and provided a flesh-feast of sensuality unrivaled by anyone. It is definitely not a tale for everyone and in some cases with the later sequels, the plots have made or broken some die hard fans. Some might prefer to read about Harrisons' Rachel Morgan, Armstrongs' Elena Michaels and Paige Winterbourne, or Harris' Stookie Stackhouse. I was introduced to this genre through Laurell K. Hamilton's series. Yes, everyone starts off with Anne Rice, but I think that Hamilton developed a special place in the genre for her characters that's worth exploring. Her niche appears strongly reliant on Jean-Claude and his interactions with Anita. Without JC...well the series would be flat.

I read all the installments in less than two weeks, sacrificing sleep and reading until I was sated, until the wee hours of the morning. Jean-Claude, Master Vampire Extraordinaire is a frothy confection of "sex, blood and majick" and the errogenous tug-of-war between he and Anita sets the pace for the whole series.

What is very important for readers to remember is that this latest book is another level of Anita that we have never seen. Throughout each book, we have been taken on a development of her character and finding answers to questions we've had. It is impossible to explore this heroine without understanding why she is so angry-why she fights having someone close to her. It is an exploration into her humanity and that includes sexual experimentation and softness in her character that we had never seen before.

She has new powers developing all the time as a Master Necromancer and as she is taken on a discovery of them, so she takes her companions...After all, why did the Vampire Council kill necromancers on site?-because they were dangerous! Anita's metamorphosis into her new non-human self is not nearly complete. Maybe the culmination of this metamorphosis will occur when she, Jean-Claude and Asher meet up with Belle Morte (read Queen Succubus) in the next book. It can only get sexier and bloodier. Will Belle Morte ensnare our delicious "ma petite" Anita-who knows?
This is tricky genre to write and read-but Ms. Hamilton has done an admirable job of exploring it thoroughly. If you even have the merest hesitation reading these books, throw it aside and indulge, feel it hook you and take you into their world. Narcissus in Chains explodes with ferocity between Jean-Claude, Anita and Richard, and leaves the reader panting for more.

Narcissus in Chains Laurell Hamilton's 10th book in the Anita Blake vampire hunter series marks a big change in the series that had been building in the books leading up to this one. In the past tough Anita, zombie queen, necromancer, preternatural expert for the cops stayed focused on solving the crimes and getting the baddies. Now she has discovered that her magical bond with werewolf Richard and master vampire Jean Claude has left her open to more magical powers. These powers have their negative side--she is now at the mercy of ardeur, a power that must be fed regularl--basically by Anita being overwhelmed with desire and jumping the nearest male.

Anita has a new magical bond with a new cat in town--the head leopard of the leopard shapeshifters of which she is Queen. She immediately hops in the shower with the leopard King Micah, whose major attributes seems to be that he is very well endowed below the waist. Micah becomes a kind of servant to Anita as she runs around rescuing all the hapless submissive shapeshifters and necromancer entranced vampires in town. If she more than cuddles with them--well it's not her fault--it is the ardeur.

Despite all this it is still Anita--the smart-ass, wise-cracking, hard-boiled aggressive detective. This goes a long way towards making me enjoy the story even though I had to skim through some of the lengthy and graphic scenes of physical intimacy. I was disappointed to see Jean Claude pushed into the background as he was one of the better characters. Still suspenseful and action packed if not quite as compelling as prior books!

After taking some time off to do some soul-searching and find out what she really wants to do with Richard and Jean-Claude, Anita finally returns home. Back in St. Louis to reestablish her relationships and renew friendships, she comes home only to find out that she has a whole lot of mess to clean up. First, there are the wereleopards that still need babysitting, then Damian, her own vampire servant, has gone psycho due to her absence, but the gravest problem of all is that Richard has opted to give his werewolf pack democracy without retaining the final vote himself. And now his new third in command may very well kill him by the next full moon. Oh dear...maybe she was better off staying away a little longer especially when she becomes an unwilling guest at an S&M club in order to rescue Nathaniel. And with Nathaniel's little escapade comes another complication in Anita's already complicated life: she, Jean-Claude and Richard finally marries the marks; and this time, there is no turning back for this powerful triumvirate.

No turning back, indeed, especially for our feisty heroine who is now infected with the ardeur, which pretty much becomes the prime focus in this book. No longer is it Anita, the vampire executioner extraordinaire, but Anita, the lusty necromancer. Not only is she simply worrying about annihilating the monsters, but she is struggling more on deciding whose bed she should be in. The plot of the book was more like: save the good guys, so I can jump in one of my lover's bed soon. I liked the old Anita who showed both ruthlessness and vulnerability; the kick-as* petite who went home after an action-packed day to cuddle up with her favorite penguin toy, Sigmund.

Yet all complaints aside, NARCISSUS IN CHAINS has its moments, usually when Anita is embroiled in what she does best: killing the enemies or swapping verbal insults. And regardless of the direction of the series, even if Anita turns shagadelic, I will still read the next books because I simply have to find out what happens to Anita and her friends.

Say what you will about where the Anita Blake storyline is going, but this was still a memorable book. I read this for the first time a year and a half ago and still remembered the suspense, the evil baddy, the shootout, and the new characters. Yes, there are parts of the book that I had some qualms about(we'll get to that)but as an overall story, I still enjoyed it.

Anita comes back to St. Louis for her bestfreind Ronnie's birthday. She is on vacation. But her and Ronnie fight and start drifting apart when Anita gets a call from her wereleopards and she gets dragged back into the supernatural world. She decides to make it a fresh start and accept her place with both loves of her life, Jean-Claude the Master vampire, and Richard the somewhat annoyingly critical werewolf king. They unite their powers in one great magical moment on the dance floor of an S&M club were we meet an Eddie Izzaresq werehyena king.

Then the supernatural poop hits the fan.

Anita is injured by one of her own leopards when he saves her from having her heart removed. Stunned, the rest of her freinds respond, healing her as if she has already become a cat. Richard typically overreacts though and kidnaps the leopard who injured her to sacrifice to his angry pack. Jean-Claude is jailed for her murder even though she's not dead. And a new leopard king has entered her territory, her shower, and her body.

If that's not enough for our heroine to deal with, something has begun to hunt down St. Louis's wereroyalty. A panwere, able to turn into many animals, will chill readers with his craziness, though he won't seem to last for many pages. Oh, and Anita needs to visit "Vampire in a Box" because not only hasn't Jean-Claude let Gretchen out of her coffin since book 4(gasp)but now Damian's gone nuts and had to be stuck in one too.

How will our heroine get through this? Are she and Richard really done for good (ofcourse not their gluttons for punishment)? Will the Arduer force Anita into a moral decline? Read and find out.

The series:
Guilty Pleasures
The Laughing Corpse
The Circus of the Damned
Lunatic Cafe
Bloody Bones
The Killing Dance
Burnt Offerings
Blue Moon
Obsidian Butterfly
Narcissus in Chains
Cravings Anthology
Cerulean Sins
Bite anthology
Incubus Dreams
Micah
Danse Macabre

Laurell K Hamilton, writes great books. Her books are inpossible to put down because they make you want to read the book until the very end of it. This book is from the Anita Blake series in which Anita battles vampires and other evil beings that want to get rid of her. Although some of her Vampire books are spooky, they always make the reader wonder what will happen next, but in order to find out you have to read the next book in the series.


If you love to read great spooky stories with suepense and lots of love then you will enjoy this Laurell K hamilton book, but be sure to read it in the lighted room with people because sometimes her books get really scarey.
Overall a great read for many.


Also recommend Kim Harrison;s books, Sharon Shinn, and Laurell K Hamilton's Merry Gentry series.


Have fun reading everyone. =-)

I always seem to have a different opinion from the majority, but that's ok. I don't follow the pack like a sheep.

After borrowing Narcissus In Chains from the library, reading it and loving it - I bought it today (don't worry I didn't pay too much for it *rolls eyes*) in paperback. Apart from The Killing Dance, this is my favourite Anita Blake book.

Why do I like it? I happen to like the sex in it. Unlike most readers, I didn't think it had too much sex in it. It was quite entertaining to me, for some reason.

My main complaint is that there are way too many main characters to keep up with - half of them don't have substance, and I have no idea of their personalities. Also... I intensely dislike Micah. His inclusion in this book almost made me knock it down to 4 stars, but a lot of Jean-Claude kept it at 5 stars.

I don't think Anita has gone in a bad direction - sure she's changed from the earlier books, but it's not all bad. I still laughed at some of the things she said. Jean-Claude is as sarcastic and witty as ever (he's one of my favourite characters and always has been), and I'm probably one of the only people who actually likes Richard. Having both of them in the book made me happy - the scene where they finally finish the triumvirate is one of my favourites. Like I already mentioned, Micah gets on my nerves - he just turns up randomly, and Anita just falls in love with him. First she hates him, then just changes her mind and has sex with him (needless to say, I probably won't read Micah because I don't think I could stand an entire book of him). Other characters I did like though were Nathaniel and Jason.

Overall, I really liked this book. You all have your own reasons for disliking it, and I have my reasons for liking it. It's as simple as that.

I was so hoping that the other reviews for this book would be wrong. Its a longer book than usual with over 600 pages, yum! And i thought to myself, how can such a long book be so lacking in plot? Well the answer is simply this: Anita spends so much time in bed with just about every male charachter in this book that she hardly had time to ya know... put on clothes and stuff. I'll admit that when i finished this book i had the bitter taste of disappointment on my tongue. And i'll tell you why. Anita used to be tough, stubborn, implacable, focused, and employed. Now she doesn't seem to be any of those things. Its been several books ago that we even heard mention about her job. And she has no purpose anymore. I can sum this book up pretty quick... Anita saves Nathaniel. Anita wakes up every morning with an intense lustful NEED that must be filled even if it means sex with a total stranger she just met 15 minutes prior (Michah). Anita saves Gregory from Richard. Anita saves Damian from Jean Claude. Anita saves everyone from a big bad panwere named Chimera. And when she isn't saving every other charachter in the book, she's having sex with them. I just miss the old Anita who had direction and drive. This Anita just falls into situations and manages to sleep with everyone once she gets there and then save them all from certain death and never even have to shower. Still, i'm willing to hang in there and read the next installment because I've grown to think of Anita like a best friend. Even when you can't stand her anymore, you're still always there for her.

I had accidently written the review for this book under Incubus Dreams (so if you wanna read that one, look under that book)... :P Anyway, Micah is one of my favorite characters and I liked the direction of the series. This book is my favorite of the Anita Blake Series.

Anita Blake begins a shift starting with this book. I suppose it was inevitable with the character arcs moving the way they have been from the beginning, but this is the first of the Blake books that leaves me uncomfortable. Too much sex, not enough story for my tastes. That said, I have friends who stand in line to buy the hard covers the day they come out. They tell me I'm prudish. I can live with that. :-)

I have been reading the Anita Blake series since it first came out, and have loved every single book she has written in different ways. From Guilty Pleasures to Incubus Dreams, the story of Anita Blake and her comrades has intrigued me, and Narcisuss in Chains is probably one of Hamilton's better books in different ways than the rest she has written.

Most people are put off by the sensuality in the novels, and I think that this was Hamilton's intention. From the reactions of different characters in the novel who believe Anita to be a "slut" because she has accepted her sexuality and the fact that it can not only bring the people she loves closer, but heal them, shows Hamilton's intentions. It is easy to label someone a "whore" for having sexual relations with different men, but no one seems to be complaining that the different men in Anita's life have had sex with various different women themselves. As Anita seems to be struggling sublty with the man/woman stereotypes, Hamilton starkly outlines society's stereotypes, the ones that pertain to everyone, by making Anita someone who is both comfortable and frightened by her desires and her lack of regret for what she has done. As a devout believer in God, one would assume that she is contradicting her morals, but what really seems to be occuring is that Anita is becoming closer to God, but also closer to who she is as someone who kills when necessary, and closer to understanding the basic, primal needs all humans have but cannot face.

I have noticed that many people complain about the different men in Anita's life, mainly because they haven't been "developed" well enough. However, i have to disagree with this because in every character that is presented, a different facet of Anita and her struggle to come to terms with herself is brought into light. She loves Richard, but because of their inability to compromise, they have problems being together (Especially in Narcissus in Chains). As he is unwilling to change his weaknesses, Anita becomes more and more aware of how unwilling she is to change herself. She also loves Jean-Claude (honestly, I have been rooting for him from the beginning), but cannot give him her own blood or her heart, and pulls back from him, further showing how her previous relationship has damaged her for the men she loves and for herself. Micah serves as the example of someone who gives Anita what she wants, and yet she is not satisfied. She seems to be slowly realizing her faults, but still doesn't know what to do with them.

On top of all that, the various struggles throughout Narcissus add to the tension already escalating in Anita with her personal life. She isn't satisfied with her job, which was what was extremely secure to her before, and is even more confused with her love life than ever. As she struggles through this, she builds ties with her wereleopards, and begins realizing that she isn't a mere human at all, but growing in power because of the ties she has made.

Many have also complained that in Narcissus, Anita is no longer the same rebelious vampire killer as she ones was, but I feel that this is unfair to the overall plot of the story. The irony of it all is that what Anita hated most, what she feared most, she is becoming through her love of two men whom she should have killed because of who she was. Her powers grow through her ties and her love, through her closeness with others, yet she continues to push them away for fear of being consumed. She became even more believable, more human-like in her desperation to keep herself away from what she is becoming, because of the struggle. We all struggle against ourselves, against the pieces of ourselves that we wish weren't there. Anita, slowly beginning to realize she must accept them, yet continuing to fight them regardless of this, reveals a weakness that didn't seem to be present before. Because of this weakness, and Anita's continued "hard-ass" persona in order to protect those she loves, even if she hurts them emotionally, makes me like her even more than before. Anyone who couldn't see the developments, think past the steamy sex-scenes (that, initially, act to bring Anita and her lovers closer, making them a more tightly-knit unit, and probably to give Hamilton the last hurrah when people begin to squirm and shy away from something so obviously natural between all people) they would realize the depth the characters have, and how they seem to outline our own internal conflicts with ourselves.

All who have read the Anita Blake series know Anita from her stuffed penguins to her sharp remarks but reading this book made me wonder, what happened to to all that. I mean Anita is tough but when something freaked her out she had her penguin and her gun and some smart-aleck remark to annoy people but here its like she lost all of that. She comes back from Obsidian Butterfly wanting a vacation and to get back in touch with her friends and eventually her guys. Immediatly there is a crisis but through the book the plot was put on the back burner for what ammounts to mystical sex that she can't help. It isn't focused on the plot and there isn't much of the action you expect. Anita always had some comment that may annoy the bad guy but is almost always funny but here she keeps her mouth closed. No funny comments and little action except for a few gunfights where one of her people always die. You barely knew there was a plot until the end. It is frustrating to see the way Anita's character is degraded. I didnt like this book and i would not advise buying it. If u want to read it get it from the library they always take it back.

I started to read the Anita Blake series when I read an exerpt of Narcissus in Chains in "Out of this World" when I was continuing with the "In Death" series by Nora Roberts AKA J.D.Robb. I loved that exerpt and was what got me into the Anita Blake series in the first place less than a year ago. I read a lot of books and something about that exerpt in "Out of this World" hooked me, so I started with "Guilty Pleasures"
As we all know after reading this book, "Guilty Pleasure" and "Narcissus in Chains" are very different. Yes, this book has sexual or more like sensual scenes, but it is not as bad as people make it seem.

Before I opened this book, I read the reviews and was a little hesitant when I started this book. But it had all the qualities that I love in Anita Blake and Laurell K. Hamilton. There is only two real sex scenes and a few near sex or sensual scenes. It is a book for an adult, but reading books like these in a series means that the audience reading it is mature enough to do so. Anita is not a whore, as I have read in the other reviews. She sleeps with two men, not seven or eight as one would think. Richard is one of her normal lovers and Micah is her Nimir-Raj. Even the scene with Nathaniel does not involve penetration, more like rubbing and touching (and biting, etc.). I don't know if the rest of the books in the series involves more men in her life since I have not read them, but at this point, the only men she has slept with is Jean-Claude, Richard and now Micah, who is her companion (and her previous fiancee who broke off the engagement because she was not 100% white). If anything, the scenes made me want to keep reading to see what was going to happen by the end of the book, considering all the other action going at the same time, as a reviewer said previously.

It may seem as if Richard is whinning a lot in this book, but I totally understand what he is going through. He is mad that he can't live a normal life, yet he really can't do anything about it anymore since he is Ulfric. He does need to accept that he is master wolfe, but somehow, even after so much time has passed, he has not accepted it, which he needs to do in order to save his pack. I do understand how other reviewers feel that he should just be taken out of the series or killed, but I know I would really be sad if he was killed off. I have come to care for him as a character in Anita's life and he is also one of Anita's weaknesses, proving that she is human, or something like it at least. I understand the jealousy that he is going through, I mean, who wouldn't feel jealous if their girlfriend or previous lover suddenly has an ardeur (or "curse" as Jean-Claude refers it) and needs lust to feed it. That means he has to accept that Anita must take a lover that will feed her lust. He is not willing to be a "pomme de sang" for her, so someone must. He loves her and she loves him, and suddenly they seem to be drifting further and further apart.

This book is more than just a sensual or transformation of Anita. The beginning starts with a kidnapping, then we see tortures, killing, more kidnapping of other lyncanthropes, and then the last section involved a psychopath lyncanthrope that wants Anita as his mate. So much happens in the 630 pages of this book that I read it in less than 24 hours, and the actions or new problems were not lost to me or did not confuse me.

I can't wait to read Cerulean Sins, I do hope to see some intimacy scenes with Jean-Claude, he is one of the my favorite characters (since he has been around since the first book) and, for some reason, am more attracted to him as the man for Anita than the others, even though Richard and Micah are way "bigger" as Anita puts it, and has seen Anita grow so much. Great books, and I just see the series getting stronger, not weaker.

Laurell K. Hamilton gets better with each book. This one had a twist that I wouldn't have predicted as possible. A definite great read.