Review ~ Crimson Death by Laurell K Hamilton @LKHamilton @BerkleyRomance

Crimson Death by Laurell K Hamilton
Narrator: Kimberly Alexis
Length: 24 hrs 12 mins
Series: Anita Blake,
Published by Berkley on October 11, 2016
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 720

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I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

In her twenty-fifth adventure, vampire hunter and necromancer Anita Blake learns that evil is in the eye of the beholder...

Anita has never seen Damian, her vampire servant, in such a state. The rising sun doesn’t usher in the peaceful death that he desperately needs. Instead, he’s being bombarded with violent nightmares and blood sweats.

And now, with Damian at his most vulnerable, Anita needs him the most. The vampire who created him, who subjected him to centuries of torture, might be losing control, allowing rogue vampires to run wild and break one of their kind’s few strict taboos.

Some say love is a great motivator, but hatred gets the job done, too. And when Anita joins forces with her friend Edward to stop the carnage, Damian will be at their side, even if it means traveling back to the land where all his nightmares spring from...a place that couldn’t be less welcoming to a vampire, an assassin, and a necromancer.

Ireland.

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I have been following along with the Anita Blake series for a long time. Even after the stories and Anita made such drastic changes. My hope was that all the amour stuff would work itself out and we could settle back into the old days where most of the book was devoted to chasing down the bad guys.

The plot for this Crimson Death was for the gang to travel to Ireland, where there is a completely different view of vampires. The Irish did not really want her there, but finally gave in when Edward did some persuading. When I heard Edward was involved, I was excited thinking this book would take us back to the old Anita where 3/4 of the book would be crime solving.

My first disappointment was that up to 50% of the book started out with the politics of the group dynamic. I kept ranting to my husband “we are NOT in Ireland yet”! There are some new powers arising, so there was that. It kind of pointed to a shift in dynamics for Anita’s triumvirate. Anita has so many people in her life right now that doing something as simple as picking who was going to go with her to Ireland turned into many pages.

I have been a faithful follower of this series and have been grinding my way through them in hopes that we got back to the way things were. While reading this though, it occurred to me that a) Anita has accumulated so many different powers that I can’t keep up, and b) I’m totally losing track of who is who. I think the process they are taking of narrowing down their group to a select few, will help me in future books.

The second half of the book totally focuses on the investigation and I enjoyed it much more. I had some really tense moments, and some were really sad. I enjoyed those though because it kept us away from all the group politics. The ending felt a bit rushed. Like, one minute they are being tortured, and the next they are running and fighting for their lives. But it all seemed to happen at the last maybe 10%. I also kind of thought the confrontation with bad guy was so quick. This is someone they were all scared of dealing with, but it seemed she was taken down pretty quickly. And if you didn’t already guess it, yes, there is an addition to Anita’s life. I can’t believe Anita would have anymore room in her life for more powers or more people.

There is also a line that Anita thought she would never cross, but now, mainly out of jealousy, has her changing her stance.

Overall, I felt like Crimson Death could have been a LOT shorter. That first 50% does contain some important details, but I didn’t recall the player’s names, let alone their stance on feeding Anita. I do think she is getting sick of all the politics and just wants their lives to be simple again. I’m kind of getting impatient for things to change. Maybe even ending the series after this wedding. The characters have changed so much, including Anita, I don’t know how we could get back to more mysteries and zombie raising without all the arranging of guards, etc., that will keep her amour in check as well as guard her from harm. I thought she was kick-ass enough to take on all the bad guys herself. Now though, it seems she has to have a carefully chosen entourage.

So for those who are hoping for a change, Crimson Death moves a little closer to the old Anita in some ways. But if you gave up ages ago, I don’t think this would be a place to jump back in.

Oh how I miss the old Anita!

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