A Pirate's Love by Johanna Lindsey

Dear baby Jesus and all the little angels,

Thanks for letting me have been born in 198-you-know-when. I am very grateful that I was not alive pre-20^th century. Because even though things aren’t even close to perfect as regards rape/sexual assault, gender politics/performance, sexism, etc., they are slowly getting better (I am ever the optimist [this is a lie{sorry baby Jesus}]) When you consider that spousal rape wasn’t even considered to be rape before the 19^th century and wives were considered chattel and couldn’t own property in their own name and didn’t even have rights to their own children, shit doesn’t suck nearly as much now as it did in, let’s say, 1667 (where this book/mega-shit-storm-of-epic-proportions takes place). Homigod (sorry again), I don’t really know where to begin.

I know you give everyone in the whole world their ideas, so I figure you need a refresher. Here’s the plot summary (it’s not really a plot so much as a stinking sack of shit):

Bettina Verlaine is being sold into marriage (its 1667, that’s what they did) by her father. Her dad is some snotty French dude with a major attitude problem, but Bettina has been striving her whole life to make him love her (SPOILER ALERT: he’s not really her dad). Anyway, because it’s 1667 and women didn’t really have many choices, especially if you were 1. Rich 2. Super beautiful  (flowing silver-blonde hair, slim hips, breasts like ripe apples but no purple eyes [her eyes are blue or green depending on her emotional state, like a mood ring but with blood vessels]) 3. No, really, SUPER BEAUTIFUL. Bettina’s intended husband lives in the Caribbean so she has to sail from France to go meet him. She leaves her beloved Mama (who had an affair, because unhappy marriage, blah blah, hence her dad/not-her-dad) but takes her beloved nurse with her as a companion. Natch, because of the pretty, all the dudes on the ship want to bone her, one gets whipped for trying, Le Capitaine on another ship sees her from afar, goes MINE!, kidnaps her and lies to her about killing people to get her not to fight him while he rapes her. So! Of course she hates him, right, but he makes her feel all tingly in the nether-bits.  She tries to escape (she’s on a boat in the Atlantic Ocean, not a high probability of success) and cracks him one in the head with an I-forget-what. Some other dude thinks Le Capitaine is dead and decides that Bettina should be whipped until she is dead. But lo! Le Capitaine is not dead, only mildly concussed and uses the threat of whipping to keep Bettina compliant whilst he rapes her (repeatedly). Long story short: rape, rape, rape, reluctant desire, rape, rape, escape, revenge, reunion, Stockholm Syndrome, pregnancy, reluctant love, sword fight, revenge, reunion, marriage, baby, The End. (Whew! That was one alliterative sentence [not actually a sentence]).

Honestly, I’m not certain how I managed to finish this book. I’ve read other books that were not nearly as offensive to me and threw them away without a qualm. Maybe I was hoping that somehow it would not end the way I knew it was going to end (like with a timely miracle perhaps, you’re good at those). But no, it ended exactly the way I was afraid it was going to. And you know, even with all the rape, the worst part was all of the women who weren’t being raped kept telling Bettina that at least Tristan (Le Capitaine) wasn’t, like, really hurting her. He was just using her body. I just about lost my shit every time this was said.

I do have a sort-of sentimental fondness for Old Skool romance novels and will forgive them a lot that I wouldn't forgive in a modern novel, but this book crossed every line I have. And if the truly bad story wasn’t enough, it wasn’t even written well. Poor sentence structure, choppy dialogue, unclear timeline, cardboard characterization, I mean EVERYTHING that could suck, sucked.  

But anyway baby Jesus, I was half-afraid I would be struck blind by the sheer, overwhelming awfulness of this book. So thanks for saving me from that at least. But please find all the Johanna Lindsey books in the whole world and SET THEM ON FIRE (don't really do that, book burning is bad).

You're the best.

Sincerely,

Jae

Buy It . Borrow It . Skip It

A Pirate's Love by Johanna Lindsey

Stolen Synopsis of Atlas Shrugged [OMFG THE IRONY]

I spent the last two months of my life reading this and I honestly ... honestly ... cannot say it better than this.

Dagny Taggart is, you know, not unlike Anita Blake. A Mary Sue to end all Mary Sues! The parallels were, to me, hilarious.

And the website is great! Go to it! GIVE IT UR HITZ.

Also: To recover from the trauma of reading this book, I am going to read nothing but HP Lovecraft & Dean Koontz. Cthulhu and trashy horror = two of my very favorite things.

----------

Atlas Shrugged (by Ayn Rand)

ATLAS SHRUGGED: THE ABRIDGED VERSION (with spoilers)

AYN RAND

Hello, I'm Ayn Rand. I wrote a novel based on my Objectivist philosophy called The Fountainhead, but I don't think 700 pages was quite enough to get my point across, so I will write the exact same novel, only it will take 1100 pages this time.

READERS

Hey, great.

HEROINE

I'm Dagny Taggart. I am a railroad tycoon, woman-in-a-man's-world, stunningly beautiful heroine. I am the only person capable of running this railroad. I am the only woman in the universe worth a damn. I am also the only woman in the universe with a real job. I am basically the only woman in this novel.

LOVE INTEREST #1

I have worshiped you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn, from afar for my whole life.

HEROINE

That's nice.

LOVE INTEREST #2

I have worshiped you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn, naked on the forest floor. Yet I will nobly step aside in the name of noble idealism, despite the fact that I love you and want you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn, desperately.

HEROINE

Okay.

LOVE INTEREST #3

I worship you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn. Let us have creepy rape fantasy sex now. I will not ask permission to do all these kinky things to you, but luckily you want to be forced into all the kinky things, you dirty bitch.

HEROINE

This is clearly true love! Stick it in me.

ALL

Who is John Galt?

AYN RAND

I am not telling. Instead, please listen to someone pontificate about my Objectivist philosophy for a while.

SOMEONE

[Pontificates]

VILLAINS

There are many of us, but we are all exactly the same. We are caricatures of evil socialists and embodiments of pure evil. Let us create a perfect socialist world order ruled by the inept! We all suck! Socialism sucks! Ha ha!

HEROES

We are all exactly the same. We are noble and perfect and have very angular and insolent faces. We can read each other's minds and the minds of everyone else in this novel, leaving less room for misunderstanding and more room for pontificating. And we are all in love with Dagny Taggart, the only woman in the universe worth a damn.

ALL

Who is John Galt?

VILLAIN

[Threatens hero.]

HERO

[Flips coin]

If it's heads, I will gaze apathetically. If it's tails, I will laugh heartily.

VILLAIN

Although these are the only two things any of you heroes have done for the past 800 pages, I am shocked at this response! How could you! How dare you!?!

HERO

I will now pontificate about Ayn Rand's philosophy. It has been at least 50 pages since you've heard it.

AYN RAND

It is so convenient that all of my heroes are in perfect agreement about my philosophy so that their pontificating is so interchangeable.

ALL

Who is John Galt?

JOHN GALT

Hello. In this, the culmination of all the pontificating, I will explain Ayn Rand's philosophy for a full 57 pages. No, I am not kidding. This one monologue will last for 57 pages. Oh and also, I love Dagny.

DAGNY

I love you too. Man, this is really going to suck for Love Interest #3.

LOVE INTEREST #3

Despite my passionate love for you and enjoyment of our rape sex, and the fact that there is no other woman on earth worth a damn, and the fact that I sacrificed my life's passion on your behalf, and that I spent my entire fortune to get a divorce to be with you, I will now nobly step aside in the name of noble idealism.

DAGNY

Great! I will miss our creepy rape sex. Farewell.

LOVE INTEREST #3

Bye.

READER

Wait, what?

ATLAS

[Shrugs]

THE END

Open letter to LKH regarding Hit List

Disclaimer: This is not exactly spoiler-y since there’s not, like, a plot to spoil, but there are some details of Hit List ranted about below that you may want to avoid if you haven’t read it and are planning on it; though god help you if you honestly care that much.

 ------------------------------------

Dear Laurel K Hamilton,

I’m not a fan. Let’s be honest. While the following is a fact that I’m extremely pained to admit – a pain, like, you have no idea, fucking tears my soul asunder -- I have read every single one of the books in your Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series. I just finished your most recent installment, Hit List. I need to assure you that I have never paid for one of your books. I cannot bear the thought that any of my hard earned dollars would be filling your coffers, and possibly contributing to your false assumption that there is one more person in the world that wants you to continue to do what it is that you do …  which summarily is reduced to poisoning the universe with the shittiest characters every fucking dreamed of by man or beast.

Back to Hit List. The book took me about four hours to read, cover to cover. Its brevity was undoubtedly the best thing about it. Said brevity, however, had mild surface value at best, as you have somehow managed to work some kind of black magic on the space/time continuum, insofar as that four hours was hands down the longest fucking stretch of time I have ever and possibly will ever experience. Great cities fell in that four hours. I saw the face of Lovecraftian madness and the world was fucking consumed by tentacled Old Ones in that four hours. Your book made me age, Laurel K Hamilton.

The title, first of all – what the fuck? At this point I’m longing for the times when each book was dumbly named after a location of indeterminable import in the story. It was fucking lame, but at least it made sense. There was no hit list in this book. Like, not even a haphazard one. I can see, sort of, where you maybe named the book before you wrote it. That seems very You. I mean, things are murdered? Sort of? But things are fucking murdered in all of your books, so I feel like that’s hardly a plot point relevant enough to use as the title.

And who, seriously, was asking for more of Olaf? HE IS A TERRIBLE CHARACTER. And every time you talk about him, why do you feel the need to spend THIRTY FUCKING PAGES vomiting the same shit over and over again about how he’s a serial killer and how Blake is his victim type (because Blake is everyone’s type in some way or another, amirite?) and HOMIGOD SOMEDAY HE MUST DIE? You are clearly never going to fucking kill him off, because you never fucking kill ANYONE off. You just keep inventing more and more characters whose sole purpose is to be obsessed with Anita Blake, and no one she “cares” about in return ever . fucking . dies; despite the fact that there is laughable, hyperbolic, ridiculous violence and death basically every goddamn day of these people’s miserable fucking lives.

AND WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE POINT OF THIS BOOK, ULTIMATELY? The Harlequin! Are killing clanless weretigers! That is the premise. But at some point, YOU FORGOT TO FUCKING EXPLAIN THE PREMISE. The Harlequin work for Marmee Noir, so I’m guessing this is her bag. Her goal, you know, overall, is to inhabit Blake’s body so she can, whatever, fucking rule the world with her magical vagina – I couldn’t/can’t ever actually justify, in my head, why the MOTHER OF ALL DARKNESS would give two fucks about Blake, despite how illogically amazing she is, like, who could POSSIBLY trump what is explained to me as The End All Be All of every scary fucking thing ever invented, but OK, you win, this is what happens, this omnipotent/omnipresent being is endlessly thwarted by a stupid bitch with guns and an effervescent hoohaa.

Anyway, her goal as mentioned is to take over Blake’s body. How, exactly, is sending The Harlequin out to kill clanless weretigers all crazy style like a logical conduit to that end? It’s a lure? Apparently? Is what you’re telling me? That is the dumbest fucking thing I have ever heard. I reiterate: mother of all darkness! Should not need a VERY half-baked plan with absolutely no relevance to her goal to lure Anita Blake to fucking Tacoma, Washington (and WHY THE FUCK Washington?!) and UM WHOOPS it doesn’t work anyway, because of course it doesn’t work, because of course Blake wins every time, but usually you have the decency to at least give me a believable reason why whatever fight is happening is actually happening and not just 200 pages of “I AM ANITA AND I AM AMAZING AND COPS ARE ASSHOLES AND I AM AMAZING AND SEX WITH ME IS GREAT AND I AM AMAZING AND SOMETIMES PEOPLE HATE ME AND I DON’T CARE AS LONG AS THEY ARE STILL TALKING ABOUT ME”

So I guess congratulations are in order, because you have managed to keep me sufficiently full of blinding rage for an entire 20 books. Perhaps it is YOUR vagina that is magical (I’m assuming you write your books with your vagina.) Under other circumstances, I would also consider thanking you for giving me a book that is entirely free of Richard, but if given the choice between 200 pages of his existential angst and 200 pages of THE WORST DIALOGUE EVER* with angry misogynist cops (because there are no other kinds), I think I almost prefer Richard. I mean, the devil you know, right?

Can’t wait for the next installment. Honestly. I can’t wait to round up every copy in publication and throw them off a fucking bridge. No. No. Set fire to them, THEN throw them off a fucking bridge. I think it might now be my personal crusade to destroy all evidence that your terrible books every existed. And by crusade, I mean I’m not actually going to do anything because I’m pretty lazy, but I will fantasize the fuck out of a world that is free of Anita fucking Blake.

*No seriously, your dialogue sucks. It is physically painful to me to even skim through the 10 page conversations about nothing that always take place in parking lots. You’ve been doing this for a while. It’s time to take a course or get some kind of professional help in this area. There are books on the subject. Like, lots of them.

Burnt Offerings, AB:VH Book 7

Did you get your copy of Hit List yet? Are you ecstatic? I haven’t gotten a copy because I am vehemently opposed to giving LKH my money. But here’s a refresher for the heinous shit that precedes it, just in case you’ve forgotten (really though, how could you?).

As ever, we begin with Anita in her office, being offered a job that has nothing to do with her status as a necromancer or even really as a “monster expert” (do you hate that phrase? I fucking hate that phrase). The St. Louis FD thinks there is a pyrokinetic person setting fires in the city and want them stopped before someone dies. Anita is not actually an expert with psychic gifts, but they think she can help anyway. (We won’t come back to this until the mystery is miraculously resolved with a 2-paragraph sequence in the last 3% of the book. Did I ruin the suspense? Sorry.)

Richard is all sad-face and is ignoring his responsibilities as Alpha of his pack because Anita thinks he’s gross. Some stuff happens that doesn’t matter resulting with Anita becoming responsible for some of Richard’s werewolves and Gabriel’s wereleopards (Gabriel was in the last couple of books, he was a total shit, now he’s dead). Anita tells the wolves and the leopards that she is going to protect them because she’s awesome and also, she has a big gun.

Whilst out on a date, Anita and Jean-Claude find out that the Vampire Council is in town and that they are pissed because they think Jean-Claude is trying to set up a rival faction in the U.S. Also, that Jean-Claude killed Mr. Oliver and has not taken his place as a member of the Council. The VC takes over the Circus of the Damned and hold Jean-Claude’s vampires and wolves hostage.

Let’s meet the Vampire Council:

The Traveler: He can use another vampire’s body like a puppet

Padma, known as the Master of Beasts: He can control another vampire’s animal to call

Fernando: Padma’s son; he is seriously a sociopath, likes to rape women (he is not actually part of the Council)

Morte D’Amour: He can make his body appear to decompose; couldn’t be buggered to come in person and is represented by

Yvette: She can also make her body rot and

Warrick: He is a trained warrior (who can walk in the daylight, but this is kept sooper sekret from all of the other vampires)

Belle Morte: She can make lust overwhelm you (pay attention, that bit is basically the premise for every book after #9); also couldn’t be buggered to come and is represented by

Asher: He doesn’t reveal any special powers yet. He used to be pretty but got scarred with holy water by some priests during the Inquisition. Jean-Claude was once part of a threesome with Asher and his human servant but Asher, thinking Jean-Claude betrayed them, is looking for revenge.

(There are a couple more high-muckety-mucks, but since they don’t make an appearance in his book, we’ll leave them out, shall we?)

Do you care about any of that? No? Excellent, moving on.

Anita beats her chest at the VC, the Traveler decides he likes her, Padma and Yvette decide they hate her, and Asher wants her but still hates Jean-Claude. Fernando rapes one of Richard’s pack and Anita promises revenge (there is a lot of rape in this particular book, I don’t mean to sound callous about it). Blah, blah, blah, end scene.

There is an aside where Anita uses the power of the wolf pack to channel Raina (thought she was gone, did you? Oh, no, she makes several appearances in the following books, despite having been cannibalized by her pack) to heal Nathaniel (one of the wereleopards, get used to hearing about him) even though she is in no way, shape or form a shifter (get used to that too). Also, there is an awful lot of Richard angsting at Anita about not being able to love him and Anita angsting at herself about the same. I am already tired of this particular storyline and it’s only come into play during this book.

The presence of the Council in STL makes the lesser vampires in the city lose their shit, Anita has to go clean up the mess, and she has Jean-Claude make a bargain to let the vampires and shifters being held hostage at Circus of the Damned free. Anita and Jean-Claude take Richard with them when they go to free the hostages, there is a big show-down, Padma lets Anita kill Fernando in exchange for his own life, Yvette reveals that Morte D’Amour wants the vampires to return to the old ways (i.e. no more legal citizenship) and has been egging Warrick into setting fires (with his brain! Mystery solved!) to scare humans into revoking the legal protections that U.S. vampires now have. Warrick sees the error of his ways and kills Yvette and himself in a final (literal) blaze of glory. Asher joins up with Anita and Jean-Claude (because Anita thinks he’s pretty despite his scars) and we are treated to a soliloquy wherein Anita yaks about trying to be friendly with Richard, learning how to control her new powers (she has discovered at least two), fucking Jean-Claude in a bathtub (again!) and gaining some new insight about herself (that she won’t ever actually put to use). The End!

You’re welcome.

If you want recaps of the previous books see here:

Guilty Pleasures, The Laughing Corpse, Circus of the Damned, The Lunatic Café, Bloody Bones, and The Killing Dance

Burnt Offerings, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, Book 7

The Killing Dance [AB:VH Book 6]

I feel like I start out all of these with “no, really, it gets worse” or “this is the beginning of the end” but … seriously, this one is the absolute last of the Hurtling Rapidly Towards The Cliff part of the series. We’re encroaching on Lock Up Your Daughters Along With Your Will To Live territory. With all speed.

I’m sure that didn’t make any sense, but get used to it! Because nothing will going forward. No. Nothing.

The book kicks off with … wait for it … some fucking dude (in case you hadn’t gathered, they all start out with ‘some fucking dude’). Only this dude is not interested in Anita’s zombie raising services, as he too has read the past five books and realizes that mostly that entire premise has been abandoned like a dumpster baby outside of a Paris, Texas senior dance. So, some dude and some dude’s minion talk to Blake about, whatever, finding a cure for vampire cancer or something, and she’s all “Yes, I will help you, because this fucking books needs SOME kind of plot point other than my angsty bullshit relationships and magical vagina”  Rest assured, Some Fucking Dude AND his minion both have stupid names. You don’t even need to know them, because they will both be dead and forgotten by the end of the book, and grossly neglected during the middle bits.

At some point after some other random and inconsequential shit involving vampire pregnancies, Robocop calls Blake to tell her that someone tried to hire him to assassinate her for $500K, which I feel is a reasonable sum of fictional money to end the most repugnant fictional character ever created. But what do I know. Robocop may be immune to the magic of the vagina, but is not immune to the general infatuation of love/euphoria surrounding Blake, so of course he does not take the contract. Stupid Robocop. Naturally this plot point develops immediately, and Blake has a gun fight maybe 30 seconds later with a hitman who clearly sucks at his job.

Then, like, werewolf stuff happens. I don’t know. Whenever I have to try and explain the werewolves, my eyes glaze over. There’s so fucking many of them, and they’re all obnoxious. Richard is still struggling to be SuperWolf of the pack, there are still sadistic and murderous werewolves who continue to do sadistic and murderous things, and it’s all rife with drama and horror. Someone's brother gets raped or tortured or both on camera, because the Evilwolves (E-wolves? Were-vils?) think  wereanimal snuff porn is a lucrative industry (which seems like it's probably a fair assessment) and Blake is all THIS IS WRONG, I WILL TALK ABOUT MY GUNS AT IT. Or, shake her vagina at it, or whatever the fuck she does.

Actually, I just saw this on the Wiki page for this book (if you seriously thought I was re-reading it for the purpose of this recap, you clearly don't know me at all), and it fucking killed me in its perfect simplicity:

The Killing Dance is also a turning point for the series in several other ways:

•  Anita has accepted being Jean-Claude's "declared human servant" at the beginning of the book.
•  Anita and Richard form a vampire triumvirate with Jean Claude, accepting the first three "marks". In addition, Jean Claude and Richard announce that they are allies within the supernatural community. Taken together, these changes make it impossible for Anita to completely separate her life from Jean Claude or Richard.
•  Anita kills the werewolf lupa Raina and the wereleopard leader  Gabriel in self-defense, resolving some unsettled conflicts from The Lunatic Cafe.
•  Richard becomes the Ulfric, or leader, of his pack.
•  Anita and Jean-Claude become lovers.
•  Richard eats Marcus

Um, YES. All of that happens. It is the last bit, the eating of Marcus, that really eeks Anita out and sends her into the undead arms of JC, and they fuck like bunnies in a bathtub* which surprisingly is the first appearance of actual fucking in the series. I hope you enjoy it, because that is all you will have for next thirteen books. That's right. Thirteen ** books about supernatural fucking. You read it here.

To clarify (...ahahahaha), Raina & Gabriel are the evil sadists who rape/torture/maim/kill for giggles, so of course Anita had to righteously gun them down. But of course you have not heard the last of Raina, who decides to, like, live forever in Anita's head or something, because Anita is MAGICAL IN CASE YOU HADN'T GOTTEN THAT YET, OK.

Oh also, this is where Richard decides he hates everything and everyone, including himself, and is all SUPER ANGST. I mean, he was definitely angsty before, but now you kind of just want to punch the closest living thing every time someone even mentions his name.

I'm sorry. This is the best I can do.

If you care, like, really give a shit about this book, the Wiki is very informative and written straight-forwardly. Please. Be my guest.

* fuck like bunnies while in a bathtub, not fuck like bunnies who are in a bathtub

** there is one, somewhere in the middle, that eschews the fucking in favor of ripping off Queen Of The Damned, which ... OK

Books without a point [Circus of the Damned, AB:VH, Book 3]

As usual, the story starts off with Anita at work, interviewing potential zombie-raising clients. (Look! Anita has a job doing stuff! This is a reminder that she is a regular person! Also serves to present a unifying theme!) This time, these clients don't want to raise a zombie, they want Anita to help them kill a vampire. Specifically, the Master of the City (they are not aware that this is Jean-Claude and Anita ever-so-politely declines to tell them). Dudes Jeremy and Karl are part of an anti-vampire group called Humans First that wants to kill all vampires despite the legal protections that vampires now enjoy. Anita tells the dudes to fuck off, she's not interested in helping. Mostly because their plan sucks.

Anita gets called to assist Dolph (his name is Randolf, why does no one call him Randolf? Oh, right, everyone in these books is quasi-German) with a murder investigation. Male victim with multiple vampire bites is found on someone's lawn. Anita identifies that the victim has been bitten by multiple vampires which rules out the possibility of him being turned. Anita doesn't believe that this murder is the work of Jean-Claude (him being such a nice guy and all) but goes to see him to find out if he has any information about the attack. At the Circus of the Damned (it really is a circus, if a circus could be said to smoke massive quantities of crack) she meets a couple of shifters, sees a giant snake, and has a confrontation with a psychotic lady-vampire. Then the giant snake goes berserk and eats a few people. Anita, Jean-Claude, various shifters, some Naked Dude, and Psycho Vampire fight the snake and kill it. Jean-Claude tells Anita that he does not know who killed the Murder Victim but would she please stop fighting against the vampire marks he placed on her against her will and also, get naked for some sexy vampire loving. Anita tells Jean-Claude to please STFU and proceeds to plan a date with Richard (previously known as Naked Dude). Then there is a pointless interlude with Edward "I love to kill things" Nolastname and one with Ronnie "I exist to fill page space" Sims.

Later, another Murder Victim (this time a lady) is found with multiple vampire bites. When Anita firsts shows up at the crime scene, this lady is merely dead. After a little while Anita notices that the lady is now dead AND pretty. She realizes that the first Murder Victim must by now be turning into a vampire. Because, apparently, a powerful enough vampire could turn someone even with bites from many vampires. Anita remembers reading this in an article, but neglected to mention it at the first crime scene (where she assured everyone that the victim was really really dead). There is another pointless interlude at the morgue where the NOW-NOT-DEAD dead man has been sent. There is much mayhem and carnage.

At Anita's behest, a new animator is hired by Animators, Inc. ( the zombie-raising firm Anita works for). New guy Larry is sent out by himself to do some zombie raising. Anita meets him at his 3rd job, where he has over-extended himself and proceeds to save his ass. She gives him a TOUGH-LOVE talk. As they are leaving the job site, Anita and Larry are attacked by Humans First. Then they are attacked by a group of vampires. Then they are saved by Karl(of Humans First). It turns out that the vampires who attacked are the rogue vampires who have been biting people a lot and the master of this group, Alejandro, wants to be Master of the City of St. Louis. He has placed the first vampire mark on Anita in an effort to weaken Jean-Claude's power. AND THEN it turns out that Karl is the human servant of Mr. Oliver who also wants to be MotC. And Mr. Oliver is a million years old. Literally. And he has a pet Snake-Lady who is also immortal. Mr. Oliver offers to free Anita of all of her vampire marks if she tells him who the current MotC is. She tells him she'll think about it.

Snake-Lady later comes to Anita and tells her Mr. Oliver wants to see her and gives her a ride to some cave in the middle of nowhere. Melanie (Snake-Lady's name, wtf) then tries to kill Anita. She gets bitten by one of Melanie's snake buddies but manages to escape and is picked up by Edward (just in case your brain has not yet turned to mush, this is merely another implausible coincidence in a series of implausible coincidences) in THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING NOWHERE. Now Anita nearly dies from the poison in her bite but is saved by Jean-Claude giving her yet another vampire mark. This makes Anita very angry and she tells Mr. Oliver who Jean-Claude is. Then she finds out that when Mr. Oliver takes over as MotC, he plans on a very public killing spree to force vampires back into hiding. So she calls Jean-Claude to tell him she has betrayed him. Jean-Claude tells her that Mr. Oliver has already challenged him to a duel. Then there is a giant fight at CotD. Alejandro (who is nominally working for Mr. Oliver) forces the last vampire marks on Anita. She uses her extra-special super-sort-of-vampire strength and rips Mr. Olivers spine out through his neck and also stakes Alejandro. Anita and Jean-Claude both survive the epic battle. And then Anita re-schedules her date with Richard. Oh, and Richard is a werewolf. A very sexy werewolf.

Here's something that annoys the piss out of me: each book reads like Anita is telling her story to herself but then WHAM, all of a sudden she's talking to the reader or asking the reader questions. This juxtaposition is both off-putting and obnoxious. But mostly it's obnoxious. Talk to the reader or talk to yourself. PICK ONE.

I have some advice for authors too: continuity is really important. Characters should not be described as having longish hair and then 10 pages later described as having short hair. Unless you have specifically mentioned them getting a haircut. Also, don't make a point of saying that people can be turned into shifters only by the violent attack of a shifter-in-animal-form and then say that they can also be turned by a bad vaccine. Hire an editor. Pointing out shit like that is their JOB. Continuity might not make your story GOOD, but it will make your story better. I PROMISE.

Here's a link. But please remember that I read this so that YOU DON'T HAVE TO. Save your money. Or better yet, use your money to buy me a present.

Circus of the Damned, Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter, Book 3