Danse Macabre (Anita Blake - Vampire Hunter

Spend an hour in the bookstore with this book but don't buy it. Read the 1st 4 chapters and the last 4 chapters. The rest is bodice-ripper gothic romance. The entire book takes place in 24 hours. SYNOPSIS: Anita and Jean-Claude have ardeur sex with Augustine, Master of Chicago, and Anita *might* be pregnant by...? Everyone's powers are enhanced - some are clarified, most are not. There are a LOT of storylines left open at the end of almost 500 pages of sex: Samuel & Anita; Anita & the sirens; Marmee Noir; Jean-Claude's new powers, if any; Anita's new pomme de sang; merpeople; why the Masters came for this last performance, Belle Norte's rising power; Adonis & Merlin; Anita's 4th lyncathrope, etc. Richard is STILL a pain in *&^%. Anita has *some* character growth and Asher now has an animal to call but that could have been told in a short story.

In Short: lots of sex and here's-what's-going-on-dialogue, not much story and certainly not like we got in the 1st 6 Anita books.

I love reading these books. Sometimes I want to slap Anita for being so thick..lol love the visuals you get by reading these books of men and their beautiful bodies and looks. Not much of a long hair for guys person but it works in here.

After reading every one of the previous Anita Blake books, I have to say that this is most certainly the worst one, and that's saying something when you think of a disaster like "Cerulean Sins". The previous short book (Micah) seemed to get back somewhat torwards the kind of plots that attracted me to this series to begin with.

This book has NO PLOT, or at best a very small and weak one. It seemed to start ok, but by chapter six, it was back to "have sex with this guy, have sex with that guy, have sex with this guy again, Richard is upset, have some more sex..."

This is the last LKH book I buy.

I have read everything Hamilton has written with the Anita Bryant character. This book had an excess of sex and a deficit of story line.

Her earlier novels had interesting plots to accompany the sex. Now the plots are very incidental and the characters spend entirely too much time in the bedroom, etc. Disappointing.

I love Danse Macabre !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Finally something a little down to earth Anita's pregnancy! Don't lose out on reading this one.
I have almost all the books that are of Anita Blake in audio.
I am disappointed that not all the books, namely books 10-15, are not in audible & I had to get them in kindle.
I cannot understand why audible canceled these.
The way they do it is almost like watching a movie or going to a play. I just love all the sound effects & wish more of the audible books where like these.
The lame excuse that they are no longer in print is annoying since it isn't true.
Besides. what does that have to do with the audio ver of the books???

Once again I am disappointed with the latest Anita Blake book. There is absolutely no plot, just continuous orgies. I really hope Hamilton will start writing with the flair that she showed in her earlier books.

Yet another enthralling episode in the Anita Blake series! She is one bad-ass broad! Well written and gripping from beginning to end...not a dull moment in between. I get so into the books that my husband feels neglected. Poor dear. The sexiness of the writing....well, that's where my hubby benefits. :) Oooh la-la!

I love the character of Anita Blake and have enjoyed all the books leading up to Danse Macabre but it seems that Laurell K. Hamilton has lost sight of what made the rest of the books in the series so great and has instead focused on sex. Sex became such the focus that there wasn't time to solve a case which is one thing that makes each of these books great. I did enjoy the introduction of the new characters and a glimpse of vampires from all over. I hope Hamilton regains focus of what makes the series so great.

Yet another enthralling episode in the Anita Blake series! She is one bad-ass broad! Well written and gripping from beginning to end...not a dull moment in between. I get so into the books that my husband feels neglected. Poor dear. The sexiness of the writing....well, that's where my hubby benefits. :) Oooh la-la!

I love the character of Anita Blake and have enjoyed all the books leading up to Danse Macabre but it seems that Laurell K. Hamilton has lost sight of what made the rest of the books in the series so great and has instead focused on sex. Sex became such the focus that there wasn't time to solve a case which is one thing that makes each of these books great. I did enjoy the introduction of the new characters and a glimpse of vampires from all over. I hope Hamilton regains focus of what makes the series so great.

"Danse Macabre" is the fourteenth Anita Blake novel from Laurell K. Hamilton (counting her "Micah" novella as the thirteenth outing) and opens with a hell of a hook: Anita's period is two weeks overdue and she is starting to freak out. If she is pregnant then the burning question of who is the father, which is immediately tied to "what" is the father. However, Anita does not have time to pick up a pregnancy test let alone take the test because Jean-Claude is throwing a big bash to welcome to St. Louis the first ever mostly-vampire dance company. He is one of the group's patrons and is throwing the party to help the group earn rave reviews. Several Masters of the City will be visiting and a couple of them have shown up early and there will be a preliminary event. But when Anita shows up at Circus of the Damned, Jean-Claude and Asher are off dealing with Meng Die, who has gone off of the deep end. This leaves the Executioner to host the visiting Masters and their entourages on her own. That is when things start getting bad, because Master vampires are prone to think they are superior to a mere human servant, but Anita Blake got past that line on her resume a long, long time ago.

I was encouraged when I started reading "Danse Macabre," not because of all of the possible complications a pregnancy would create for our heroine, but because a gathering of Masters of the City is fraught with even more potential for disasters. The first two Masters to show up cause major problems and they are supposedly friends of Jean-Claude. Word is getting around of what has been happening in St. Louis and there are those who think the way Jean-Claude is running things is a sign of weakness. Meanwhile, the Council of Vampires back in Europe is starting to get a better picture of what is really going on and there is the danger that they are going to stop Jean-Claude from becoming even more powerful. At the center of all this vampire politics is Anita, who is now coming up with new powers in the first act rather than the climax of these novels. There are always those who are going to try and push her around, and we all know that Anita is always going to push back and that most of the time, but not always, she will win the encounter. The problem is that what I saw as being the big set up to get excited about, is not where Hamilton wants to go.

For several books in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series a lot of us have been wondering what Laurell K. Hamilton is doing to her heroine. The sex in these books continues to escalate, both in terms of frequency and (oh, how to put this) new frontiers. Hamilton is relentlessly pushing the envelope and finds yet another major bridge to cross when Anita is involved in threesome with two other males and this time she is not the one in the middle. Fortunately, the characters in this book talk about sex more than they have sex, although it is a close call on that score, because while I found the first time Anita finally got off the fence (the black wrought-iron one with the pointy spikes on the top that represents the world of Jean-Claude and not the white picket fence favored by Richard) to be pretty hot, most of what has followed since has been less effective (I attribute it to gender as much as age in determining why I dismiss the sex scenes). Off of my reading of "Danse Macabre," I believe the primary purpose of his latest novel is to convince us that Anita is not a slut. The fact that there is a scene where somebody who apparently thought that was she decides that she is not and makes a point of telling Anita would be one clue. Another would be how the book ends, emphasizing the power of love even in the face of all that sex.

I was leaning towards rating this book at least a star higher as I got into the final act and looked forward into things hitting the fan at the dance, and certainly Hamilton was heading in that direction. But then she backed off and the best that can be said would be that she is setting up something bigger and better down the road, the problem being that has been true of the last couple of novels. The time frame of this 2006 novel is about forty-eight hours, so while on the one hand a lot happens, on the other we are not getting very far. Overall, I enjoyed this book more than the last Anita Blake novel because I saw it as heading more in the direction I want (outright horror) and there were several of those verbal duels Anita has with people who do not understand and therefore underestimate her at their own peril. But when Hamilton backed off of the big finish I so desperately wanted, even though the stage was fully and truly set, I had to end up rounding down on the whole thing. Just call it horror interruptus.

Finally, I was blithely unaware that Hamilton's married life was providing a subtext for how Richard has been replaced by Micah although I will admit that I had wondered what her husband was thinking about the radical changes in Anita's sex life. So you can look at her dedication to this volume and retrospectively read everything that has been happening with these characters in the last several books in that light for what it is worth, but that is hardly necessary. Even if what is happening with Richard represents catharsis, revenge or whatever on Hamilton's part with regards to her ex-spouse, the idea of having a really, really bad break up that never ever ends is a key part of the dynamic of this series. But that makes perfect sense because in the world of Anita Blake killing somebody is never the end of the matter. I might be unhappy with the direction of the series and left cold by the sex, but I am by no means disgusted enough with the proceedings to quit the series. There are still enough glimpses of what I consider to be the real Anita Blake to keep me interested.

LKH newest installment was to me very predictable and not enough substance. I think Anita Blake is one of the best female characters I have ever read and lkh imagination is awesome but the last two books just did not have LKH energy. If you must read it you may want to borrow it. I know I won't be buying anymore from this series unless someone reputable tells me it has changed. Hope this helps.

I have enjoyed all of Laurell's "Vampire Slayer" books to this point. I have ordered all of them on my kindle and I go from one to the next. When I'm finished with this series I will get the next because I like her style of writing.

This book did not have enough progression of the plot. There was too much sex thrown in at every opportunity. This, like the last few Anita Blake books, was a disappointment for me. I loved the series for a long time, but I am so disappointed at the lack of character development and plot. And no, I don't count getting tons of new powers as character development. This series used to have great supernatural politics, some romance, detective stuff, etc. Now it's just sex, sex, sex. I can't continue to read this series until there is a balance. It's ok to have sex, if it furthers the plot. It can't be the only plot. There needs to be more to the books than just sex. I'd have given this book 0 stars, but there was not that option, so it received 1 star.

I LOVED the Anita Blake series when it first started. Now all it is is sex...no action, no suspense. If I wanted to read a dirty book, I'd buy one. I want to read about the vampire hunter, raising the dead...The nasty cops, anything but the same old lets all get in bed for sex...Ms. Hamilton has made a BIG mistake (in my mind) in making her books, LESS than they used to be....( I own 5000 books and collect vampire books, have for most of my life..I like to be entertained by mystery, not slapped in the face with someones privates...)

Based on the consumer ratings, and my increasing boredom and disappointment in this series, I am boycotting the rest of the Anita Blake series. There is an interesting series written by Kim Harrison along some of the same lines as Anita Blake, without all the trash. Title of the first of three is "Dead Witch Walking. Like almost everyone else here, I miss the old Anita, and am finding her a distressing mess, with the storylines beginning to blur between her and the Merry Gentry character Ms. Hamilton writes about in another series.

While this series has gone more towards romance and erotica than the titles before 'Narcissius in Chains' I admit I still find the series a good way to pass my time while my husband is on the computer. I still want to know what will happen to Anita next, and hope she can somehow obtain some sort of control over the ardeur. I look forward to seeing the outcome of The Mother's interest in her, having a feeling that Anita will somehow come out on top.

I have only written reviews for books I have genuinely liked. This is the first time I have written a "Don't buy this book" warning. Buy it used or get it from the library if you must read it. But it is a plotless waste of time and I am more sorry about that than I can say.