Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter (Top 10 Vampire Series #2)

Top 10 Vampire Book Series – Part 2

I wrote an Intro to why I love Vampires, you can find that here.

Top 10 Vampire Book Series List:

Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter by Laurell K Hamilton
Vampire Files by P.N. Elrod
Undead (Queen Betsy) by MaryJanice Davidson

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter by Laurell K. Hamilton

Oh the controversy of Anita Blake and her creator LKH😂. There’s so much to say about this series. I know that without her and Charlaine Harris and the success that they had early on, the world would be less complete – filled with not so many vampire stories.

“What The Da Vinci Code did for the religious thriller, the Anita Blake series has done for the vampire novel.”—USA Today

Anita just plain kicks ass. She’s tiny, ferocious and sarcastic. She’s a necromancer in a world where vampires have “come out”. The beginning isn’t very good (Guilty Pleasures, new author finding her writing style, was not very deep or even well written) but I got hooked to the characters and had to continue on. I was taken for a wild thrill ride – Hamilton found her style and the world she created was awesome enough to spawn a comic series.

There’s a change that takes place at around book 10, Narcissus in Chains. I was beginning to think that the books should be sold in dark plastic bags instead of displayed out on the shelf at Target. They turn into pretty graphic porn with very little story. If you took the steamy bits out, you’d be left with perhaps 5 pages of actual story.

I’m not sure what exactly caused this change in direction, other than to speculate that Hamilton was maybe under pressure by the rise in popularity of authors writing vampire fiction and she wanted to mix it up and keep it different. I don’t know. I ended my journey on book 21. Maybe I’ll pick the series back up again someday, but maybe not. If they can capture the original feisty spirit of Anita Blake correctly, I’d love to see a film series or tv show.

Another thing I can say is this – I’ve never felt the need to read that 50 shades nonsense. It’s probably pretty PC compared to this. I highly doubt anything in that series even touches on a fraction of the crazy escapades that Anita experiences. If you want to read about hot and steamy sex and explore some fantasy S&M, jump into this series at about book 10 or 11 (but you’ll miss a lot of great world building before that).

If you want someone else’s opinion – this is a pretty awesome summation on Goodreads. I wouldn’t go so far as to rate every book poorly based on where the series has ended up but it is a fairly accurate picture and a super well written review.

“You can’t save everybody. In fact, there are days when I think you can’t save anyone. Each person has to save himself first, then you can move in and help. I have found this philosophy does not work during a gun battle, or a knife fight either. Outside of that it works just fine.”
Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter/Laurell K Hamilton

Guilty Pleasures, book 1

Meet Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, in the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling series that “blends the genres of romance, horror and adventure with stunning panache”(Diana Gabaldon).

Laurell K. Hamilton’s bestselling series has captured readers’ wildest imaginations and addicted them to a seductive world where supernatural hungers collide with the desires of the human heart, starring a heroine like no other…

Anita Blake is small, dark, and dangerous. Her turf is the city of St. Louis. Her job: re-animating the dead and killing the undead who take things too far. But when the city’s most powerful vampire asks her to solve a series of vicious slayings, Anita must confront her greatest fear—her undeniable attraction to master vampire Jean-Claude, one of the creatures she is sworn to destroy…

Guilty Pleasures on Goodreads

Have you read this book? What did you think?

Top 10 Vampire Book Series List: