Guilty Pleasures, by Laurell K. Hamilton
Guilty Pleasures, by Laurell K. Hamilton
Reviewed by Ciara Ní Ghabhann
Guilty Pleasures is the first in the long- running series Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter.Set in St. Louis, Missouri, in an alternate reality where vampires are recognised as legally alive, the series tells the story of Anita, who is licensed to execute rogue vampires and to raise the dead.
In Guilty Pleasures, Anita is blackmailed into investigating a series of vampire murders around St Louis. Her blackmailer is the Master of the City, the head vampire for all of St Louis, a terrifyingly powerful female vampire called Nikolaos.
Anita would rather have nothing to do with vampires, believing them to be soulless monsters. Jean- Claude, another powerful vampire high up in the hierarchy, has different ideas though, and makes moves to make Anita his for eternity.
It’s a great, fast paced novel told in the first- person. This is what makes the book great; the reader is given a front- row seat to Anita’s worries for her immortal soul, as well as her complaints about getting blood on her Nikes. It makes her seem a very real character.
The male characters are all enticingly sexy and dangerous, but there’s much more to them than that. They’re real characters with real stories and concerns and fears just like Anita. They’re much more than just eye candy.
There are some very interesting twists in the plot, and given some of Anita’s decisions, the reader is left to wonder if she is becoming one of the monsters she loathes so much.
It’s a great start to the series, and if you like it, there are plenty of other books (the 20th book is due to be released in June), but even hardcore fans of the series will admit not all of them are as good as the first few.
Ciara “Kiwi” Ní Ghabhann is an Irish student journalist with too much time on her hands. You can read her blog or follow her on Twitter.
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