Blood Noir

Anita decides to accompany Jason home to visit his estranged family because his father is on his deathbed. Although Jason's father has never loved or accepted him, Jason is hoping to reconcile with him before he passes. Anita's role will be to convince his family that Jason is straight. It seems that Jason's family is fully convinced that Jason is gay and have invested a lot of time into bullying him into admitting it.

Things are quickly complicated by the fact that Jason's doppelganger is in town for his wedding. Apparently, Jason looks exactly like the son of the richest man in town who is a senator and about to make a run for president. Jason is immediately mistaken for him throwing both he and Anita into the center of a media circus. show more To FURTHER complicate matters, there has recently been a threat on the senator's son's life so security is very tight and they've also decided to guard Jason and Anita (for some reason). It seems that the senator's son has run off with a local master vampire's wife and the vampire has put a hit out on him.

Naturally, The Mother of All Darkness is also pursuing Anita and picks this moment to put a call out to weretigers in the area. Anita loses two days to a mindless, animalistic mating with two strangers. When she wakes up she has blank spots in her memory and is actively being influenced by Mommy Darkest. Richard shows up and immediately makes everything about him and then develops spontaneous vampire powers. Also, Jason is now Anita's wolf to call.

Moments after Richard flounces away, Anita and Jason are abducted by vampires who have mistaken them for the senator's son. Jason is tortured until he is saved by Anita.

This book is basically my worst nightmare. The premise is so stupid and makes no sense. Even though Anita is Jean Claude's human servant and any time she travels around the country it has to be carefully negotiated with the local vampires they just forget all about that this time. She also inexplicably travels alone even though she's been going everywhere with body guards lately. The reason they all have temporary memory loss is that if they remembered to do this then the rest of the book couldn't happen. All this bullshit drama with people thinking Anita and Jason have run off and jilted Jean Claude together wouldn't have happened if their travel plans had been properly announced and negotiated. Furthermore, this business with her being abducted by two shitty vampires also wouldn't have happened if she travelled with the usual contingent of body guards.

Finally, the whole town full of inbred offspring from a cult is just ... so dumb. It's also fairly disturbing considering they all look like siblings and are definitely related and yet Jason has fucked all of them. Also, it's ludicrous that Jason looks so identical to this senator's son that his own body guards and fiancée cannot tell him apart. Also, this guy has a twin, and no one ever thinks it's his twin brother but only assumes it's the one who's getting married.

Also, it just seems very flimsy that what Anita and Jason are accused of doing is exactly what Jason's doppelganger is actually doing. This seems like very lazy writing. Does she only have one idea?

A full half of the book is just Anita meeting Jason's family and talking to his old high school friends. It's really really boring and nothing supernatural happens for about 200 pages. When the supernatural stuff finally arrives it's all a bit over the top, but at least more interesting. Unfortunately, Richard features heavily and is just as awful as always. They make a big deal about how he's only acting like an asshole because he's "inherited" Anita's rage and then Anita takes it back so he's better now. But I know better than to believe that. This is like the tenth book where Richard supposedly turns a corner or changes but it never sticks. He's such a tedious jerk. He's a bully. He tries to rape Anita in this book and only barely fails. And that's after she "fixes" him. So.... show less

Slight improvement on previous stories but still left me wanting more plot and less porn in this story of a road-trip with Anita. Again with the pointless sex and sermonising about how sex is a good thing while sidelining the assassination attempts on Jason's look-alike cousin because he decided to shack up with a vampire's wife.

There are sparks in this book of what I read the older titles to enjoy them but there aren't enough to light a fire and make me yearn for the next book in the series.

A friend who loved all the Anita Blake books to date recommended the series to me, but warned that some didn't like the direction the books went after the tenth book, Narcissus in Chains. As it turned out, I was one of those people. I don't have an objection to (well-written) sex that's more than tab A goes into slot B. I do have a problem not just with it dominating a story, but with what is essentially non-consensual sex--and that's what the ardeur is, however you dress it up, which is why I hated the device from the start, and hoped that plot-line would come to an end.

No joy.

I did love the series up to Narcissus. I liked the dynamic between Anita, Jean-Claude and Richard. Jean-Claude, the vampire, started out fairly menacing, and show more the whole plotline with the different marks, with Anita struggling to remain human, resonated with me. Richard the werewolf represented something different: someone struggling himself to remain human, but perhaps in vain given his basic nature. And you could see Anita struggling not just between the two men, but what they represented. Learning that not all such "metaphysical" creatures should be seen as monsters, but struggling with the darkness within herself and where to draw the line.

At the time when I started this series, it was irresistible to keep going even after Narcissus, given that the books up to The Harlequin had already been published. This was the first book I had to wait for, and that rather broke the spell. Someone pointed me to an excerpt of the first chapter online before the book itself was published. I read it with disbelief. It read more like a parody than anything I should take seriously as professionally published. Unfortunately, not only was that the true beginning, but it was truth in advertising. There's hardly any of Richard or Jean-Claude here, and what exists of them is unappealing. There's lots of Jason if you find him appealing--and more of the ardeur, and its tiresome machinations, which I can't abide. I lasted through one more book, Skin Trade, then dropped Flirt mid-read. This was truly the beginning of the end for me and Anita. A shame. show less

While I love the Anita Blake series, I fully admit these books often have problems. Blood Noir is like the perfect storm of the usual Anita Blake issues. It was as though the issues of many previous novels came together in this one book in an effort to test series fans ability to read past the bad and find the tiny shreds of plot beneath.

I'll focus on the sex first, as that's how the book begins. After an entire first chapter of awkward sex discussion (that wasn't supposed to feel awkward at all), Anita, Jason and Nathaniel get right to the sex in chapter two. Follow this by three full chapters of sex between the trio with nary a plot line in sight. The book abstains for about 100 pages, then be are treated to multiple false starts as show more Jason and Anita attempt more sex. Two full chapters of foreplay leading into serious discussions about pointless things that do nothing to further the plot. Then more foreplay, then more interruptions, again and again until the big plot twist - which was sex.

I love Jason. He's one of my favorite characters in the series, so when Anita travels alone with him to visit his dying father, I expected a great book. Unfortunately Jason is acts out of character for the entirety of the book. Perhaps the author was attempting to show Jason's hidden depths, but he really just came off as whiny and depressed.

While waiting for something (anything, really) to happen, I noticed how poorly Anita dresses. Who wears jeans, a read t-shirt and a suit jacket to a bachelorette party? Even if you don't want to go, can she seriously not even make an effort? This may be nit-picky, but there really wasn't much else to focus on in the book. Anita has yet another encounter with the Mother of All Darkness, argues with Richard again and has more sex with strangers (tigers this time). By the end of Blood Noir, nothing major had changed and the entire trip, and book, seemed to be a waste. Blood Noir is definitely the least enjoyable Anita Blake book for me so far. show less

If you liked the first 5 books of the Anita Blake series, thought the next 5 were going downhill somewhat & thought the next 5 descended into romance & page counts, then you feel about the series as I do. If you thought the writing got poorer in the past few, we also agree. If you felt ripped off by "Micah", we still agree. In that case, don't bother to read this book. Seriously, keep the few good memories you have.I'm afraid that Hamilton has had it as a writer. This was the worst book I've read in the past couple of years. Certainly the worst one I finished. Why did I? Because I've read the all the previous ones & I skimmed a LOT with the forlorn hope that things would get better. Also, the book was given to me.The plot was poor & show more half the book took place in one hotel room. Bring lots of cheese, because all the characters do is whine about & to each other about their lives, feelings, relationships & powers. The only displays of the last are filled with remorse, anger & desire - but the last isn't even very well done. It's not even good soft porn. Basically, it's a very negative play of how to have bad, supernatural relationships & spend hundreds of pages whining about it. There is no suspense. Every possible suspense element is obvious & hackneyed. They're usually immediately revealed. One is saved for the very end, but it is so obvious that I knew it from the start & kept hoping for a twist. Didn't get it though. The book was nothing, if not predictable. I think Hamilton is just tired.Finally, I got to the last chapter which could have been a good book - should have been the book, with all the wasted pages beforehand edited down to a couple of chapters - at most. In a few terse paragraphs, all the action that should have been in the book is summarized in a very passionless voice. "This happened, that happened, end of story." Yeah, it's the end of the Anita Blake story for me. It's a shame. I loved the first books but I can't bear to read another. show less

Anita travels with Jason the werewolf to visit his dying father in Asheville, NC. They get caught up in a case of mistaken identity – as has happened all his life, Jason is mistaken for his cousin Keith Summerland, bad apple of the Summerland clan, and mixed up in things that make it dangerous for Anita and Jason to be in town.

This is a review of good negatives. Not too much sex, not too many vampire politics, not too many Psych 101 conversations. The positives are a meaningful storyline that is interesting, a father-son story that is handled pretty well, and the potential for some good books to come.

This was going to be the last book I was going to buy in the Anita Blake series. I’ve been disappointed since Obsidian Butterfly, but show more kept slogging on, hoping for something better. I bought this book against my better judgment, then regretted it. But, as I read it, this book reminded me of the early Anita Blake books. Anita is actually doing things rather than worrying about her multiple-partner sex life. There are humans in the story, with very human feelings, and all the silliness that wraps itself around a wedding. (Not Anita’s, don’t worry).

Oh, there are a few lapses. Ms. Hamilton can’t resist starting the book off with a long conversation to justify sex and then describe the sex.

And there is a Psych 101 conversation when Jason ignores Anita at a bachelorette party and they have to discuss it a ridiculously long time.

And, finally, Ms. Hamilton can’t resist dipping into the convoluted relationship Anita has with Richard. He whines a little and has the usual angst a little, but then leaves quickly, and we get back to the actual story.

It’s like Ms. Hamilton wants to write the kind of books she’s been writing lately but has to jerk herself back to what is really good and what will make most of her long-time fans happy. If that’s what she’s doing, that’s okay with me. A little bit of irritating is better than a whole book of irritating.

Jean-Claude is barely in the story at all, and although I really like Jean-Claude, it was refreshing to just deal with Jason and some weretigers, strange magic with Marmee Noir, the Mother of All Darkness, and strange magic with Richard.

All in all I was happily surprised and will probably buy the next installment. show less

This volume is a mere detour, literally, in Anita Blake's long-running saga. Anita agrees to accompany her friend and sometime sex donor Jason to his estranged father's deathbed. Upon their arrival, Jason is repeatedly mistaken for the son of a local celebrity. Anita and Jason are mobbed by press and paparazzi while trying to visit his father. An ill-advised visit to a bachlorette party opens the door for Marmee Noir, the penultimate vampire/lycanthrope, to psychically assault Anita.
There's sex, of course, and worry and angst, and the threat of paranormal war. Ex-fiance Richard arrives to save the day, and as his wont, only manages to make things worse, and Anita angrier.
This volume is less frenetic than most in the series. In the show more last few volumes, Anita finally shows some character growth. But removing her angst over being a type of vampire who feeds on sex, and her conflict over her (offstage) polyamorous household, and BDSM desires calms not only Anita, but the pace of the story as well. In this volume, even most of the sex occurs off the page, a reticience which doesn't serve the story well. show less