Slay

Since Demos, the demigod and fire-breathing dragon has been MIA for a few weeks, Anita feels comfortable inviting her family to town. Well, comfortable is maybe the wrong word as she has very mixed feelings about them all. But (for some reason) she wants her father to walk her down the aisle so she is hoping to introduce him to Jean Claude. Unfortunately, on the night she introduces her parents to her fiance a string of hate crimes are committed at a number of supernatural clubs and attractions. These attacks have struck very close to the people Anita loves and it soon becomes clear that there are traitors amongst her ranks, and (surprise, surprise) Demos is back and wants to take everything from her. Can Anita survive her family and show more kill a dragon?

This book was very bad, but not as tortuous as some. It was boring, anticlimactic and made Anita seem really really stupid, which isn't great, but at least it was relatively brief.

I remember being baffled when the last book just ended without her fighting the dragon or even really accomplishing anything. I was even more baffled to find this book starting with her saying, "Oh well, we haven't seen Demos in several weeks so I guess he just ... left?" She lost a dragon. What? I really thought we'd start this book with action, perhaps her dragon hunting with Ed and co, but no. She just seems to have shrugged and decided she was safe again. Safe enough that she invited her family to visit.

Things immediately go off the rails when her father brings along her bigoted and hateful grandmother who physically and emotionally abused Anita throughout her childhood. However, rather than honoring the boundaries she had set with her family she nonsensically decides to still allow them to stay with her. Her father proceeds to berate her almost non-stop about her language, her job choices, her personal choices and remind her that the Pope says she's going to hell and that her husband-to-be is an undead demon who has probably possessed her.

Again, rather than protecting herself and the people she loves, Anita takes her parents on a dinner date with Jean Claude. Predictably, her father says a number of unforgivable things and Anita storms out of the restaurant before the appetizers arrive. This introduces the first theme of the book - Anita's inexplicable willingness to let her family walk all over her. For all that the author likes to talk about Anita going to therapy, she will throw all of it out the window for the drama of having her family stand around and loudly hate her. Every book now needs at least one or two people who viscerally despise Anita so their cartoonish hatred can show her in a better light. In Slay, that role will be played by her family.

I think the author believes that the reader will sympathize with Anita because she is being irrationally hated, but I've seen this character foil so many times I'm just bored of it. The people who hate Anita are so unrealistic that no one can take them seriously. And with Anita's family, I'm not mad at them, I'm annoyed that Anita is entertaining them. They are here by her invitation and they are immediately outrageously awful and insulting. She doesn't want to eat dinner with them, why would she let them ruin her wedding?

Literally no therapist would advise anything except going no-contact and Anita bringing them into her home is a disservice to herself and everyone she loves. Anita is the bad guy here - because she is supposed to know better. Her family is a bunch of rabid abusers and she knows that and she still allowed them to endanger her people.

Which brings me to the books second theme: Anita has the worst security team anyone has ever seen.

When Anita goes to dinner with Jean Claude and her parents she naturally takes a team of body guards with her. Afterall, a few weeks ago a DRAGON tried to take over her territory and there have been other threats on their life. When she stormed out of the restaurant, half her team stayed behind to pay the bill (what? that's at most a one man job, but you can also settle up later, omg) but there were still four body guards with them. In the parking lot, she and Jean Claude are approached by a lone vampire who says he wants a selfie. The body guards tell him no but he still tries to get close to them. Anita's absolute shit security crew let a rando approach them in a parking lot and throw holy water all over them.

The two vampire body guards are hit but that still leaves two shapeshifter ones, but it is still (somehow) Anita who is left to physically restrain the attacker. Literally, there is no excuse for the vampire getting within fifty feet of them, that part is unforgivable and honestly, just felt fake. This is the problem with these books. I don't believe Anita has a shit security crew, I believe the LKH is such a bad writer she just wrote something unbelievable and thought, "Oh well, good enough."

Okay, so after her security totally fumbles the first threat (and a horrifyingly amateur one at that) they decide to tighten things up and decree that now both she and Jean Claude need four security people each instead of just two. To me that sounds asinine. If four of you couldn't stop a single vampire, what the hell are eight of you idiots going to do? But oh well, Anita has more money than God so just go nuts, I guess.

But anyhow, when Anita gets caught in traffic on her way back to the Circus, she decides to just abandon her entire security detail and jump on the back of a motorcycle with Nicky. She is instantly abducted by Demos which leads us to the third instance of this theme.

So it turns out that Anita has been betrayed! A bunch of their people who swore blood oaths just decided to join Demos instead. Which really makes me wonder what the hell a blood oath even does? I thought it compelled vampires to be loyal but oh well I guess not. Also, Anita is betrayed by Rodina, the obnoxious harlequin who hates Anita and is always saying that she wants a different queen. I've commented several times that it seems absolutely fucked that she is on Anita's security detail when she is constantly speaking about how she wishes Anita harm. And (shockingly) I was right. Why do I know you shouldn't pay people who hate you to protect you but no one else did? So again, in a bold display of terrible writing, Anita's bride (read slave) was able to betray her even though that should be impossible. Also Rodrigo is back but is also a vampire now because nothing means anything anymore.

And in the final and most ludicrous instance of Anita having abysmal security, the book culminates with her grandmother trying to kill Jean Claude. Despite all that has been said in the rest of the book about having four people on each one of them, a nonagenarian found the king of all the vampires in America sleeping alone in a bedroom, locked the door and opened the sunlight-blocking shutters to cook him to death.

It's not that there weren't security in the house, Anita made a point of kissing two of them in front of her family in the kitchen. One of them even accompanied her grandmother to the bathroom, but I guess didn't wait to escort her back? And there was no security at all assigned to Jean Claude? Again, it just reads as terrible writing. Nothing else is believable.

So I guess we should also talk about how Anita did nothing at all in this whole book. She doesn't use any of her magic. She doesn't use her specialize knowledge or crime fighting expertise. She doesn't save the day at all. Multiple times in the book, her body guards will remind her that she has various powers at the exact moment that the plot needs her to have them. Which is just a missed opportunity to at least make her seem competent. When they eventually kill the dragon, Anita is not involved. She stands at a minimum safe distance while the men talk around her about what to do. Eventually, wererat mercenaries fly drones loaded with grenades into the mouth of the dragon blowing it up in the most anticlimactic way possible. Anita didn't even need to be there for the climax to happen.

A few other tired tropes worth mentioning:
1. Anita gets something splashed on her and has to spend several chapters looking for a shower. (Thrilling every time!)
2. Anita has lots of women lovers as well! She's very serious about them! Look, here they are! Her girlfriends! Their entire relationship has been carried on off screen but, again, she's in to it!
3. No woman is allowed to be happy unless they are in a relationship with Anita. Her sister is getting married, but it's made abundantly clear that her fiance doesn't appreciate her and she's not happy. Anita's ex-girlfriend is bitter and dissatisfied and jealous of Anita's other girlfriends.

This book was bad in a unique way, which after 30 books is its own accomplishment. It really seems like LKH is tired and running out of ideas and not thinking critically about her characters, plots, or prose. I knew something was up when Ed and Olaf went running off after the dragon and she just ... stayed behind. It was the most un-Anita behavior I've ever seen. She just, stayed out of it. She elected to stay out of the action of her own book. Bizarre. show less

This was an excellent entry into the long-running Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. Anita has gotten to the part of planning her wedding which she is least looking forward to: introducing her family to Jean-Claude and the rest of her poly group. Her family is ultra-religious and, if the pope says vampires are evil, they are right there with him.

The visit gets off to a horrible start since the grandmother who abused her until she grew up enough to hit back has come as part of the family visit despite Anita asking her father to leave his mother at home. The grandmother begins the belittling right away and her father isn't much better. Both say that their main concern is for the condemnation of Anita's soul to hell. But nothing can show more satisfy them about Anita.

And, while the family visit is causing personal stress, the city of St. Louis seems to be facing a growing number of seemingly random attacks on vampires. Maybe the ancient evil sent running in the last book didn't go too far before regrouping for another try to take over St. Louis and Jean-Claude's role as the new king of the American vampires.

An attack when Anita storms out of a family dinner with her family causes Wicked and Truth to be burned with holy water. And, while Anita should be able to use the ardeur to heal them, something is blocking her access to it and her access to Jean-Claude through their marks.

Traitors within Jean-Claude's ranks conspire with the ancient evil which makes it even worse and the fact that the evil vampire can turn into a 50-foot-tall fire-breathing dragon means that Anita and her allies including Edward and other preternatural marshals have their hands full.

There was lots of excitement and action and, thankfully, less of the gratuitous sex scenes that filled earlier volumes of this series. This one spends more time talking about love and the nature of family - birth versus found. It was a very satisfying story with an ending signaling big changes. show less

What a waste of a book. Nothing happens until the 25% mark and yet somehow still nothing happens?
This book was supposed to be part 2 of the previous book and it shows. Neither book had enough plot to be split like this. This should have been a novella because of how useless it was towards the total series plot. Just give us the wedding so we can move on.

The pacing for the whole book was terrible. Most of the book can be summarized as Anita getting into arguments with a different group of people. Starting with her family, moving on to some of her lovers, etc. When we finally get to the actual plot it's wrapped up in a couple chapters and then over. For a villain who could turn into a giant dragon, he was boring and I couldn't wait for show more him to die so I didn't have to read about him anymore. The plot made no sense. There was no way this was edited right?

Hamilton is an older white woman and it shows in her writing. I appreciate her trying to be inclusive but at this point it feels like she's trying to add diversity just to be a good person. There's a few characters with darker skin mentioned in this book and it felt so awkward to read about them because they were not done well. One vampire fully changes his skin and facial features to appear more black? It was weird. And that homophobia plot line? An overused trope.

If you like reading more about interpersonal drama than any sort of plotline, then this is the series for you. Otherwise save yourself and don't bother. show less

Anita is preparing for her wedding and her family arrives. It's as contentious as expected, but that contention is interrupted by crime against supernatural persons escalates, Anita is kidnapped and separated metaphysically from Jean-Claude. Deimos is once again trying to take over control. Very much enjoyed this story without the long drawn out sex scenes. There was more focus on plot and connections between people, and what does it mean for Anita to lose her connections to her poly group.

hmmmm. First - I did not read - I listened to an audio copy. It does make a difference. This book is a bit different in a few ways. The first major difference was there was less sex - still a lot of sex talk - but fewer actual sex scenes and some were kind of glossed over. The reduction of sex was filled in by a major amount of inner dialogue and counseling was frequently in the mix of thoughts.
As readers, we finally get to meet her family (which was great) and the meeting caused me to restructure my views on some. I still really dislike granny, but learned that Anita's Dad is a problem and the rest of the family is fine - flaky but fine.
The next major difference was that the plot was broken between 2 books - a small difference even show more if it did drive me nuts - but the big difference? The villain was a joke. The idea and character had all this potential, but then Hamilton just did not develop him. It also led me to some serious questions on her worldbuilding. The whole purpose behind the 4th mark was to bind them solidly. This was just not believable. In fact, all of the interactions seemed watered down and Anita would have these long wandering inner dialogs instead of going after the villain or fighting. She was almost a wispy princess in need of rescuing.
Then there was the writing - it came through as choppy and without flow and then would begin to flow only to dissolve again. It just did not feel like Laurell Hamilton. It is almost as if she has stretched this as far as she can, and it is time to end the series. show less

So I was correct that the previous book (Smolder) could have been put together with this book. All the focus was on the bad guys, with a little bit on Anita's family.

My completionist tendencies are rearing their ugly head, so I might have to go back and read the books I missed. I'm a little curious if Hamilton ever writes a sex scene between Anita and one of the girlfriends.

Skim, Skim, Skim, Skim, Done.

I wasn't getting dragged down into the depths of rehash hell with every other page, so I skimmed until I got to something interesting. Dialogue, action, something other than what I already knew.

Plotholes, but some good. Not the worst, not the best, but it was good.