Thursday, June 18, 2015

Dead Ice (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #24) by Laurell K. Hamilton

*does some silly reader-girl dancing about*

Yay! Some of the old Anita was peeking out and I loved it!! This series. Some love it. Some hate it. Some love to hate it. And do so passionately. People are all over the place with it. And I can be too. It's one I love overall but some books are hit or miss for me. Dead Ice...definitely landing on the hit side of things. I was nervous about starting Dead Ice but within a few pages that nervousness started turning to excitement because I could see that old Anita from earlier in the series peeking out and that...was freaking awesome. I've missed her!

There's a lot happening in Dead Ice but I think overall there was a great balance between the heat and the paranormal. Way more balance than recent books have had. There's romance and lust. There's a little skin time (but not overly much--only 2-3 scenes in a near 600 page book and it wasn't all that kniky). There's some zombie raising and some police consultation work as well. Relationship woes and advances as well and some metaphysical woo-woo to top it all off. It's pretty much 600 pages of non stop action in one form or another and while that can be exhausting it can also be exhilarating. It edged towards the latter for me and I really could not put this book down.


While it wasn't perfect--there was a bit of repetition happening--it was a great read and a lot of fun watching Anita spending time in all of the different aspects of her world.

  • Consulting on a police case involving zombie porn/slaves and dealing with difficult detectives, old acquaintances and just not knowing what was happening with the logistics of the case. The case gave me a good case of the heebies and totally glecked me out.   
  • There was some actual zombie raising on her job side of things too. Dealing with her powers escalating--there were some crazy moments and again with the glecking me out. There was some zombie ick happening. There was a bit of gore and gack in this one. Not complaining about that though. lol 
  • And finally dealing with the many varied men and women in her life and making permanent commitments to some (commitment ceremonies and engagements in the works), cutting others lose, struggling with power plays--there are a couple in the menagerie that really just need to die--, unexpected metaphysical hotspots and adding in new members to keep everyone happy and content. 
It was a lot to keep both Anita and me on our toes watching the three parts of her life weave in and out of each other. I liked getting little bits of time with a bunch of the different men too. Nicky, Nathaniel, Jean-Claude, Micah and such. Just little scenes that either gave an interesting insight into them, were funny or curious or hot. This one was Nicky who is a bit of a psychopath but damn I do love him and his sometimes scary self.
"Second, I'm sorry about <name taken out so not to spoil it>. I didn't mean to kill him."

"You didn't," I said, looking at him.

"I almost did, and it would have been an accident, if I kill people, it should be on purpose."

I studied his profile, because he was the one looking away now. "So, you're not apologizing for almost killing him, really: you're apologizing for accidentally almost killing him."

"Yes."

"Because if you kill anyone it should be on purpose, is that it?"

"Yes," he said.

I laughed, started to hug him, and settled for patting his arm. "That is one of the weirdest apologies I've ever had, but I'll take it, thank you."

He nodded. "You're welcome."
The heat...was interesting. Compared to previous books this one was incredibly tame. There were a couple sex scenes but they were very tame and for the most part only one on one action-ish. No big orgies or such. While there was some sexual tension and lots of relationship changes throughout the book the actual heat and sex too a backseat instead of being front and center. What was there was hot though.

Overall, I was really pleased with Dead Ice. It was nice seeing the series not get back to it's roots entirely but start to show some of it's old flare and what made it so special. I'm very much interested to see how a few of the somewhat open threads of the storyline will progress in the next one. Here's hoping Hamilton keeps it up and the next has that same taste of the original Anita who was so badass.

What's your favorite Hamilton book?
Do you have a favorite series that's gone on for 20+ books?
Zombie ick...yay or nay?


***And just a note. I'm usually very okay with people expressing other opinions but this time I'm asking if you have nothing nice to say to please skip commenting on this review. I honestly just am not up for it today. My Amazon review has gotten beat up enough and pretty much every post I did on social media while reading it had a number of people leaving anti-Hamilton or Anita comments and I just don't want to have that on the blog. It's fine if you don't care for the books/author anymore but I'm just over the "it's cool to hate on her" thing so many people want to bring out every time her name is mentioned. The series has changed. We all know that. Thanks. 
Anita Blake has the highest kill count of any vampire executioner in the country. She’s a U.S. Marshal who can raise zombies with the best of them. But ever since she and master vampire Jean-Claude went public with their engagement, all she is to anyone and everyone is Jean-Claude’s fiancĂ©e.

It’s wreaking havoc with her reputation as a hard ass—to some extent. Luckily, in professional circles, she’s still the go-to expert for zombie issues. And right now, the FBI is having one hell of a zombie issue.

Someone is producing zombie porn. Anita has seen her share of freaky undead fetishes, so this shouldn’t bother her. But the women being victimized aren’t just mindless, rotting corpses. Their souls are trapped behind their eyes, signaling voodoo of the blackest kind.

It’s the sort of case that can leave a mark on a person. And Anita’s own soul may not survive unscathed . . .

Amazon | All Romance | Book Depository | BAM | Goodreads

Bwahah. Yeah. I'm too lazy. There are 24 books in the series. You can find them all here :)



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