Content warnings: this installment of The Great Big Anita Blake Reread talks about rape and racism in mild detail (and they’re connected in my analysis of Hamilton’s writing in this book) that include repeated references to what winds up being the corrective rape of a Black lesbian

Once upon a time, the Anita Blake series used to be genuinely interesting. Hamilton would open the newest novel by introducing a new and weird element of her worldbuilding and Anita, our audience proxy and authorial self-insert would immediately start stumbling all over herself trying to figure it out before saving the day thanks to her inexplicable good luck and all the illegal weaponry and magical powers she winds up with.

Burnt Offerings, the seventh novel in the long-running Anita Blake series, was one of those interesting books back when I first read it a decade ago.

After being approached by a local firefighter to take down a pyrokinetic arsonist before they escalate in the book’s first chapter, Anita finds herself dropped hip deep in a mess of vampire politics and drama as the arsonist begins to turn to vampire victims. This is also the first novel after Anita and Jean-Claude started to sleep together (and I’m pretty sure that means she and Richard are broken up for the time being) and since it’s also set after Raina and Gabriel’s deaths, this means that leopard shifter problems are becoming Anita’s problems for the first time in the series.

This novel introduces several long-running characters who will become an integral part of Anita’s life as the series progresses and I’m going to be honest: like with refreshing myself with Richard, it’s nice to read these characters as they were before Hamilton ruined them. (Even though, this early on, you can see the problems that would later balloon out of control in characters like Asher and Nathaniel as the series progresses.)

So, let’s talk about what Burnt Offerings did decently, what it did poorly, and what I wish Hamilton had left on the editing room floor back when first working on it.Read More »

Content Warnings: This installment of my reread series contains relatively detailed references to snuff films, sexual assault and harassment (including brief references to these things happening to children), particularly in the “Just Plain Borked” section so please skip that if these are things that may trigger you or otherwise cause discomfort.

First published in 1997, The Killing Dance is the sixth book in Laurell K Hamilton’s Anita Blake series.

Like the majority of the novels in this long running series, this book is primarily set in and around St. Louis, Missouri. In The Killing Dance, Anita is faced with complications in her triumvirate relationship with Richard and Jean Claude), a visiting vampire master in a similar situation to the trio, and some seriously gross shapeshifter pack dynamics that are coming back to bite Anita in the ass from previous books in the series.

It should be just another beyond busy Anita Blake book, but this is one of the most memorable and disturbing novels in this early run of the series in part because Gabriel and Raina, two of the series’ most infamous abusers and rapists, are in their element here.

There are interesting aspects to The Killing Dance, but as usual, they’re nearly lost thanks to all the weird and upsetting shit that happens and all of the absolutely pointless relationship drama.Read More »