"Guilty Pleasures?" Yes please!

Hello again and welcome to another review here at Ink Stained Fingers.

As those that are in the know, my few reviews have either been about vampires or about one Christmas story I threw in for the holidays. Well, those who came here looking for something different…sorry to disappoint.

However, we are going to be doing a different version of vampires. No sparkling in the sun, no weak lines, or akwkard teenage girls.

No this series is quite different. Though, this is your only warning, if you don’t like sex from the basic to the exotic in graphic detail, orgies, blood, murder, sexual innuendos, rotting corpses, cannibalism, or voodoo then this series is not for you.

For those of you that are still with me after all of that, welcome to the review of the first book of the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series called Guilty Pleasures.

This book series takes the idea of vampires as they started from the classic Dracula and added to it. That’s a huge point in its favor in my book. I don’t want the same thing over and over but I do expect certain things to happen with something new and fresh added in. The Anita Blake series does just that.

Just for a quick overview, vampires do “sleep” during the daytime unless they are a super old and super powerful vampire. However, even those that can remain awake during the daylight hours can NOT go out in the sun. Not unless they want to be turned into ash. They have to feed on humans because feeding on animals causes some seriously bad side effects. All vampires come from different lines or lineages of vampires. Each lineage has a specific set of powers that only their line has.

However, this series isn’t just about vampires. It has werewolves too. However, not just werewolves but a whole species called lycanthropes. This means along with the traditional werewolf you have weretigers, werefoxes, werecobras, werebears etc. etc. All of the lycanthropes are much much larger than their natural counterparts. They can shift at will though there are side effects to that as well but they all must shift during a full moon.

Unlike series like The Vampire Diaries, Twilight and the Anne Rice series, these creatures are set in a world where everyone young and old and everything in between know and live around them. Vampires and Lycanthropes can live in the open and have all the rights and privileges of the humans. Though, of course, nothing is ever perfect. But still they have a choice to be mainstream or keep it a secret. They can have jobs, get married, have a family and all sorts of things.

This is the world Anita Blake lives in. Anita Blake herself has two jobs in this world where the supernatural lives next door. She is a licensed vampire executioner and animator. And by animator I mean she raises the dead. Not resurrection but true blue zombies for pay. Why? Sometimes daddy didn’t leave a will. Sometimes mommy was murdered and they have to figure out who did it. Or any number of other reasons.

Now that all the needed info is out of the way time to really dig in to Guilty Pleasures.

This book has it all, lycanthropes, sexy and scary vampires, eye candy, a sexy but empowered woman trying to take it all on and stay alive all while the sexy vampire Jean Claude is trying to seduce her.

I won’t give too much away about this book because if you didn’t know this series existed before now I highly suggest you pick this book up and give it a shot.

Now another fair warning, this series is a long one. It has a total of 20 books in all. The author seems to be done with the series…for now. So, once your hooked be aware you’re gonna be in for the long haul. Not to mention the three or four short stories that are floating around in small anthologies of other vampire short stories.

So, if you love sexy vampires, scary vampires, supernatural battles and gun fights give this series a try.

I’m Creative Karma and remember the next time you see me I might be reviewing your favorite book.