Guilty Pleasures

So as soon as I finished Call of the Wild I picked up my next book. A friend of mine lent me three books in a series she has been reading. Guilty Pleasures, by Laurell K. Hamilton is the first of the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter books.

At first, I wasn't sure about these books. Based on what my friend had told me, they seemed a little out there. Zombies, ghouls, vampires, wererats? Not just plain old werewolves...wererats, werehyenas, etc. A little over the top for me.

Now I know that I must just love to read...because damn if I didn't finish half the book on Saturday afternoon/evening. And with very little time at home on Sunday and no time to read until the kids were in bed tonight, I still finished it. It was a thoroughly entertaining book.

The main character, Anita Blake, is an animator. This is someone who raises the dead. That is her job. The vampires in this book are part of mainstream society, and are even fighting for the right to vote. But when they do wrong, and murder people, they must be punished. No jail for the vampires; when they do wrong, they get executed. That is when Anita becomes the Vampire Hunter. Just something she does on the side. And boy does she kick butt, and keeps a sense of humor while doing it. In this particular book, someone is slaying vampires and everyone wants Anita to find out who. In fact, her life depends on it.

The relationships she has with others, the vampires, the other animators she works with, and her friends are fascinating. And there is a ton of action, lots of violence, blood and guts. But not in a scary way, in an entertaining, thrill ride sort of way. These are not horror books, they are part thriller/suspense, part sci-fi, lots of action.

I finished the first book and immediately picked up the second. There are something like seventeen books now in the series. I don't know if I will stick with them for that long...but for now, I am intrigued about where Anita's next adventure will take her. Stay tuned....

Happy Reading!