A Brief Guide to Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter Series

There are currently 14 books in the story of Anita Blake, an ever evolving character who went from monster-hating zombie raiser and vampire executioner to the lover of a harem of sexy supernatural males, the human servant of the vampire Master of the City of St. Louis, master Necromancer, and...

Well, no one knows exactly what Anita has become, but she grows more troubled and more complex in each installment of this fantastic dark fantasy series.

This is a brief guide to the books of the "Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter" universe as of June, 2006, along with a brief synopsis of each.

Titles:
1. Guilty Pleasures (First Edition 1993) ISBN
2. The Laughing Corpse (First Edition 1994)
3. Circus of the Damned (First Edition 1995)
4. The Lunatic Cafe (First Edition 1996)
5. Bloody Bones (First Edition 1996)
6. The Killing Dance (First Edition 1997)
7. Burnt Offerings (First Edition 1998)
8. Blue Moon (First Edition 1998)
9. Obsidian Butterfly (First Edition 2000)
10. Narcissus in Chains (First Edition 2001)
11. Cerulean Sins (First Edition 2003)
12. Incubus Dreams (First Edition 2004)
13. Micah (First Edition 2006)
14. Danse Macabre (First Edition 2006)

Short Stories in Anthologies:

* "The Girl Who Was Infatuated With Death" in "Bite" - Set between "Blue Moon" and "Obsidian Butterfly"
* "Magic Like Heat Across My Skin" in "Out of This World" - a segment of "Narcissus in Chains"
* "Beyond the Ardeur" in "Cravings" - Actually several excerpts from "Incubus Dreams" edited together.

~

1. Guilty Pleasures

In the first installment of this mega-blockbuster series, we meet Anita Blake, vampire executioner and animator. She's no fan of "the monsters" - the shapeshifters and vampires with which she shares her world - but she agrees to assist the Master of the City, Jean-Claude, by discovering the identity of someone who is murdering "innocent" vampires.

Back Cover Blurb: "I don't date vampires. I kill them"

My name is Anita Blake. Vampires call me The Executioner. What I call them isn't repeatable. Ever since the Supreme Court granted the undead equal rights, most people think vampires are just ordinary folks with fangs. I know better. I've seen their victims. I carry the scars...

But now a serial killer is murdering vampires - and the most powerful bloodsucker in town wants me to find the killer...
Encounter with a Vampire!

I arrived at Guilty Pleasures a little after midnight. Jean-Claude was standing at the bottom of the steps. He was leaning against the wall, utterly still. If he was breathing, I couldn't see it. A lock of black hair trailed across the smooth paleness of his cheek.

"You smell of other people's blood, ma petite."

I smiled at him, sweetly. "It was no one you knew...."

2. The Laughing Corpse

A man named Harold Gaynor offers Anita a million dollars to raise a 300-year-old zombie - an act that will require a human sacrifice to accomplish. Anita is willing to do a lot for her job, but that's not one of them. She turns the job down, but when dead bodies showing signs of being torn apart by zombies start appearing all over the city, she figures out that someone has done the deed in her stead. Anita must face the Voodoun and the zombie to stop the slaughter.

Back Cover Blurb: "The older the zombie, the bigger the death needed to raise it."

After a few centuries, the only death "big enough" is a human sacrifice. I know, because I'm an animator. My name is Anita Blake.

Working for Animators, Inc., is just a job - like selling insurance. But all the money in the world wasn't enough for me to take on the particular job Harold Gaynor was offering.

Somebody else did though - a rouge animator. Now he's not just raising the dead....he's raising Hell.

And it's up to me to stop it.....

Interlude with the vampire

I felt bad. Itchy, grumpy, restless. I was mad at Harold Gaynor for victimizing Wanda. Mad at Wanda for allowing it. Angry with myself for not being able to do anything about it. I was pissed at the whole world tonight. I'd learned what Gaynor wanted me to do. And it didn't help a damn bit.

"There will always be victims, Anita," Jean-Claude said. "Predators and prey, it is the way of the world."

I glared up at him. "I thought you couldn't read me anymore."

"I cannot read your mind or your thoughts, only your face and what I know of you."

I didn't want to know that Jean-Claude knew me that well. That intimately. "Go away, Jean-Claude, just go away."

"As you like ma petite," And just like that he was gone. A rush of wind and then nothing.

"Show off," I muttered.

3. Circus of the Damned

A new master vampire has arrived in St. Louis, and he's after one thing: Anita. The third book in this series introduces Richard, Anita's werewolf paramour, and Larry, her partner at Animators, Inc.

Back Cover Blurb: "Most women complain that there are no single, straight men left. I'd just like to meet one that's human."

I'm Anita Blake, expert on creatures of the night. I've dined with shapeshifters, danced with werewolves, and been wooed - but not won - by Jean-Claude, the Master of the City.

And now a darkly dangerous vampire named Alejandro has hit town. He wants me for his human servant. A war of the undead has begun. Over me.

Lust of the Vampire!

Alejandro stroked his free hand through my hair, then grabbed a handful and pulled my head backwards so he could see my eyes. His eyes were solid, absolute black; the whites had drowned. "I will have his name Anita, one way or another."
I spit in his face.

He screamed. Tightening his grip on my wrists until I cried out. "I could have made this pleasant, but now I think I want you to hurt. Look into my eyes, mortal, and despair. Taste of my eyes, and there will be no secrets between us." His voice dropped to the barest of whispers. "Perhaps I will drink your mind like others drink blood and leave nothing behind but your mindless husk." I stared into the darkness that was his eyes and felt myself fall forward, impossibly forward, and down, down into a blackness that was pure and total and had never known light."

4. The Lunatic Cafe

Anita agrees to help the alpha of the local werewolf pack, Marcus, find the whereabouts of a number of missing local shapeshifters. The problem is, her new boyfriend Richard is locked in a vicious power struggle with Marcus over the leadership of the pack. To make things worse, Jean-Claude is getting jealous of her relationship with Richard, and her bounty hunter friend Edward is none too pleased (in a deadly way) with either of Anita's relationships.

Back Cover Blurb: You don't volunteer for slugfests with vampires. It shortens your life expectancy.

And you don't fall in love with a werewolf. It interferes with your work. Especially when you're a preternatural expert, like me. My business brings me up close and personal with all shapes and sizes of monsters. And not all of them want to kill me.

Take, for instance, the local pack of lycanthropes - that's werewolves to you. A number of them are missing, and they've come to me for help. Maybe because I'm dating the leader of the pack. I've survived a lot - from jealous vampires to killer zombies - but this love thing may kill me yet...

Convincing a Werewolf

It was barely dark, and I was tired. Tired enough to go home and crawl into bed and hide. Instead, I was on my way to the Lunatic Cafe. I was going to try and convince Marcus to let me talk to the police. Eight missing, one dead human. It didn't have to be connected. But if it was a werewolf, then Marcus would know who did the killing, or not, but I had to ask. They'd come closer to telling me the truth that they would to the police. Funny how all the monsters talked to me and not to the police. You had to begin to wonder why the monsters were so damn comfortable around me.

I raised zombies and slew vampires. Who was I to throw stones?

5. Bloody Bones

Anita is hired to raise 200-year-old zombies from a jumbled mass of bones to settle a land dispute. But then she's called in to see the bodies of three teenagers murdered by what appears to be a sword-wielding vampire, and she's forced to turn to Jean Claude for help.

Back Cover Blurb: When the monsters are involved, it's never just one dead body. One way or another the dead multiply.

First, there were the dead in the graveyard, two hundred years dead. I'd been hired to raise them to settle a dispute over who owned the land they were buried in. Then there were the three dead teenagers in the woods, slaughtered in a way I had never seen before. And then they found the dead girl, drained of blood and left in her bed. I knew what that meant, all right. It didn't take a degree in preternatural studies to figure out that something was very wrong in and around Branson, Missouri. And I was right in the middle of it. My name is Anita Blake. Welcome to my life...

Old Magic

We'd awakened something old and long dormant. It made me hesitate. Made me not want to finish the circle. Stubbornness, and fear. I didn't completely understand what I was feeling. It was someone else's magic, someone's spell. We'd triggered it, but I didn't know what it would do.

We could raise our dead but it would be like walking a tightrope between another spell and ... something.

6. The Killing Dance

As if Anita needed more complications in her life, now there's a $500,000 price on her head. Her friend, bounty hunter and hired killer Edward, agrees to help her find out who is after her, but that's not her only problem. Richard's rivalry with pack leader Marcus is coming to a head, and Jean Claude has demanded equal dating time with Anita or he'll kill Richard himself. This is the book that ends with a bloody breakup between Anita and Richard, and a very hot tryst between Anita and Jean Claude... in the bathtub.

Back Cover Blurb

"These days my life is a cross between a preternatural soap opera and an action adventure movie. Sort of As the Casket Turns meets Rambo."

The first hit man came after me at home, which should be against the rules. Then there was a second, and a third. Eventually, I found out that the word on the street was that Anita Blake, preternatural expert and vampire killer extraordinaire, was worth half a million dollars. Dead, not alive. So what's a girl to do but turn to the men in her life for help? Which in my case, means an alpha werewolf and a master vampire. With professional killers on your trail, it's not a bad idea to have as much protection as possible, human or otherwise.

But I'm beginning to wonder if two monsters are better than one ...

A Threesome?

"If I didn't know you loved me, this would be easier," he said. "If it wasn't for that damned vampire, you'd marry me."

"That damned vampire introduced us," I said.

"And he's regretting it, don't think he isn't," Richard said.

I looked at him. "How do you know that?"

He shook his head. "All you have to do is see his face when we're together. I may not like Jean-Claude, and I hate the thought of you with him, but we aren't the only two hurting here. It's a threesome, don't think it's not."

I huddled in my seat, suddenly miserable. I'd have almost welcomed a hit man appearing out of the darkness. Killing I understood. Relationships confused me.

7. Burnt Offerings

When a pyrokinetic arsonist begins targeting vampire-owned businesses in St. Louis, Anita feels compelled to help stop the crimes. Especially since she has become the lover of the Master of the City, Jean-Claude.

Back Cover Blurb:

"You can't trust anyone who sleeps with the monsters."

That's what I've always said. That's what I've always believed. But now I'm the one sharing a bed with the Master Vampire of the City. Me, Anita Blake. The woman the vampires call the Executioner. From part of the solution, I've become part of the problem. So it hits close to home when an arsonist begins to target vampire-owned businesses all over town - an arsonist who seems to want to destroy more than just property. It's the monsters who are in danger now. And it's up to the Executioner to save them from the inferno ...

The Power of Positive Thinking

Pete, on the other end of the phone, sounded frantic. "The city is going nuts. So far we've managed to contain the fires to just a few buildings, but if the crazies keep this up, it's going to get out of hand. There's no telling how much of the city would go up.
"We need to know who's behind this," I said.

"Yes, we do," Pete said. "Get here as soon as you can." He sounded so sure I could help. I wished I was as certain. I wasn't sure I could do much in broad daylight. I'd been told once that the only reason I couldn't raise the dead at high noon was that I thought I couldn't. I was about to put it to the test.

8. Blue Moon

Even though they broke up, Richard is in trouble, and only Anita can save him and his family from greed and politics in a small Tennessee town. The series takes a more erotic turn in this installment.

Back Cover Blurb:

"Richard was an alpha werewolf. It was his only serious flaw.

We'd broken up after I'd seen him eat somebody."

Still, you never forget your ex-fiancé. And when the call came at three in the morning, I thought for a moment it was him. It wasn't. It was his brother. And it wasn't good news. Apparently, the former love of my life had gotten himself thrown in jail for assaulting a woman.

Since I make my living as a preternatural expert, I tend to believe almost anything's possible. But though he may be one of the monsters, Richard would never harm a woman. So here I am in the wilds of Tennessee, Anita to the rescue. I've got just a few days to spring Richard and find out who framed him - and why.

There's a full moon coming, and if my werewolf love is still behind bars when it rises, he'll be facing a lot worse than an assault charge ...

Another Way to Bleed

I wondered what Jean-Claude would think of me dropping everything to go rescue Richard. It didn't really matter. I was going. And that was that. But I did spare a thought for how that might make my vampire lover feel. His heart didn't always beat but it could still break.

Love sucks. Sometimes it feels good. Sometimes it's just another way to bleed ...

9. Obsidian Butterfly

This time, it's Edward the Bounty Hunter who reaches out to Anita for help. And the enemy is like nothing she's encountered before - an ancient Aztec vampire goddess. But that's not all. Anita has to deal with the fact that Edward seems to be getting more human, while she is becoming less. This book is different from most in the series in that Anita is celibate, and none of her "boys" are part of the story.

Back Cover Blurb:

Edward was a hit man.

He specialized in monsters. Vampires, shape-shifters, anything and everything. There were people like me who did it legal, but Edward didn't sweat the legalities or, hell, the ethics. He was an equal opportunity killer. I may be one of the few friends that Edward has, but it's like being friends with a tame leopard. It may curl on the foot of your bed and let you pet its head, but it can still eat your throat out....

Favors called in.

Whenever the phone rings before dawn something big is probably up, and the fact that Anita Blake has been up all night dealing with zombies doesn't make this call an exception. "Ted Forrester needs backup from Anita Blake, vampire executioner," Edward tells her using the pseudonym he keeps for those rare times he needs a legal identity. And she owes him a favor.

So by noon she's on a plane to Santa Fe, sun-drenched town of wealthy retirees, where in the last two weeks twelve people have been murdered. The dead ones had it easy: other victims have been completely flayed, but kept horribly alive by magic. Seeing them in the hospital, Anita feels uncharacteristically shaken.

But she must put aside her fear to help Edward hunt down the greatest evil she has ever encountered. It's ancient and devious - and in the end, she will have to face it alone.

10. Narcissus in Chains

Things get wild and kinky in the tenth installment of the Anita Blake series. It's been six months since Anita left St. Louis, Richard, Jean-Claude, and the wereleopards she rescued behind. Anita must battle a gang of shapeshifters in a D/s bar to rescue her leopards, and in the process, is possibly infected with lycanthropy herself. There is increasing tension between Anita and her abandoned lovers, Richard and Jean-Claude, both of which have faced serious challenges to their power in her absence. This book is the introduction of Nathaniel and Micah. Anita also encounters her own Ardeur for the first time, increasing the erotic content of the series exponentially.

This was the first book in the series to be released in hardcover.

Back Cover Blurb:

With the highly acclaimed Obsidian Butterfly, Laurell K. Hamilton's vampire hunter, Anita Blake, came into her own. She survived a supernatural onslaught unlike any she ever faced before-and she did it without the two men in her life.

Now, six months have passed since Anita has seen either Jean-Claude or Richard. Six months of celibacy. Six months of indecision. Six months of danger. For her body carries the marks of both vampire and werewolf, and until the triumvirate is consummated, all three remain vulnerable.

But when a kidnapper targets innocents that Anita has sworn to protect, she needs all the help she can get. In an earth-shattering union, Anita, Jean-Claude and Richard merge the marks- and melt into one another. Suddenly, Anita can harness both their powers. She can feel their hearts...hear their thoughts...know their hungers....

Nothing can save Anita from a twist of fate that draws her ever closer to the brink of humanity-to finally surrender to the bloodlust, the beast and the desire transforming her body and consuming her soul....

11. Cerulean Sins

Jean-Claude asks Anita to animate the body of a long-dead corpse, it seems like just another case to Anita. What she will soon discover is that the corpse may hold the secret to an ancient crime that not everyone wants to be remembered. A centuries old vampire named Musette comes to town wanting to claim Jean-Claude's ancient lover, Asher, and Anita and crew are forced to new lows to save him.

Inside Flap Blurb:

"With her New York Times best-selling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels, Laurell K. Hamilton wraps readers up in stories of suspense and sensuality. Cerulean Sins is no exception. Now, Anita learns what it's like to be at the new end of a centuries-old bloodline-and just how far she'll let herself get pushed around. How the mighty have fallen! Once a sworn enemy of all vampires, Anita is now the human consort of both Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire, and Micah, the leopard shapeshifter. But her love life doesn't stop there. It can't. For Anita-not quite as human as she once was-is consumed by both the lusts of the vampire and the primal hungers of the wereleopards. Desires that must be sated-time and time again. But it is Jean-Claude who needs her now. His oldest ancestor has sent one of her vicious and powerful underlings to St. Louis, putting Jean-Claude and his clan on the defensive. Unsure of where she stands with the interloper, Anita finds herself tested as never before-needing all the dark forces her passion can muster to save the ones she loves the most."

12. Incubus Dreams

Anita is recruited to investigate a pack of serial-killer vampires who are preying on strippers, and learns to deal with her new and growing responsibilities as nimir-ra of her wereleopard pard, her increasingly complicated sex life, and her relationship with Jean-Claude, Richard and an ever-growing group of lovers.

This book shows the introduction of Anita's second Triumvirate, this one with Nathaniel and the vampire Damian.

Blurb:

No one is as good at stripping bare the dark desires of the inhuman soul as Laurell K. Hamilton, something she has proven time after time in her New York Times best-selling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels. Now, in Incubus Dreams, Anita's life is more complicated than ever, as she is caught between her obligations to the living and the undead.

A vampire serial killer who preys on strippers is on the loose. Called in to consult on the case, Anita fears her judgment may be clouded by a conflict of interest. For she is, after all, the consort of Jean-Claude, the ever-intoxicating Master Vampire of the City. Surrounded by suspicion, overwhelmed by her attempts to control the primal lusts that continue to wrack her as a result of her passionate contacts with vampires, werewolves, and the shapeshifter Micah, Anita does something unprecedented: She calls for help.

13. Micah

A novella that takes a closer look at Anita's relationship with her current #1 lover, Micah. Anita has to go out of town to raise the zombie of a federal witness who was murdered before he could testify.

Blurb:

"RAISING THE DEAD IS EASY. LOVE IS HARD..."

"There are lots of reasons to raise the dead-some private, some public. In this case, the feds have a witness who died before he could speak on the record. They want him raised so his testimony can be taken. So here I am, on a plane to Philadelphia, flying off to do my job. But I'm not alone. Micah is with me. Micah, head of the St. Louis wereleopard pard. King to my Queen. The only one of my lovers who can stir my blood with just a glance from his chartreuse cat's eyes. I was happy to have him at my side. Until he mentioned that this will be our first time alone together. No Master Vampire. No Alpha Werewolf. Just me and Micah. And all my fears and doubts..."

14. Danse Macabre

Anita might be pregnant, but that's only the first of her worries. The Ardeur continues to hold its erotic sway, and a group of master vampires has come to town to see the immortal dance troupe Jean Claude is sponsoring. The true agenda of everyone involved is uncertain, and that can cost Anita and friends more than their pride.

Inside Flap Blurb:

"It was the middle of November. I was supposed to be out jogging, but instead I was sitting at my breakfast table talking about men, sex, werewolves, vampires, and that thing that most unmarried but sexually active women fear most... "

Anita Blake needs to be concentrating on a dangerous situation: the Ardeur, the sexual power that flows between Anita and Jean-Claude, Master Vampire of the City, and Richard, the volatile werewolf who loves her passionately, is reaching new levels, perhaps evolving into something altogether new. The Ardeur seems to be choosing new lovers for Anita, acting with a will of its own. As Jean-Claude says, the Ardeur is hunting powerful prey. The unexpected effect of this is that Jean-Claude's own power as a master vampire has grown to new levels - and Richard, never predictable, is changing too.

But as the days pass, Anita's less interested in vampire politics than in an ancient, ordinary dread she shares with women down the ages: she may be pregnant. And, if she is, whether the father is a vampire, a werewolf, or someone else entirely, she knows perfectly well that being a Federal Marshall, known for raising the dead and being a vampire executioner, is no way to bring up a baby...