Laurell K. Hamilton: Divine Misdemeanors

• ISBN-13: 9780345495976
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Publication date: 7/27/2010
• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Pages: 384

 You may know me best as Meredith Nic Essus, princess of faerie. Or perhaps as Merry Gentry, Los Angeles private eye. To protect my unborn children, I have turned my back on the crown, choosing exile in the human world with my beloved Frost and Darkness. Yet I cannot abandon my people. Someone is killing the fey, which has left the LAPD baffled and my guardsmen and me deeply disturbed. I thought I'd left the blood and politics behind in my own turbulent realm. But now I realize that evil knows no borders, and that nobody lives forever - even if they're magical.

 Merry has given up her throne in faerie, rightfully given to her by Goddess herself, in order to live with her many men and raise her babies in peace. But that's not really going to happen because this is Laurell K. Hamilton, first of all, and second, Merry is the only other available ruler for the Unseelie court and Andais has gone off her rocker, officially. So there are factions galore and everyone wants to kill Merry, maybe. Which we pretty much only get because Doyle still has spies at court.
 Now on to the actual "mystery" portion of the novel. We are, for the first time since like the third book,  back in the real world and working for the detective agency again. It's kind of nice to have an actual problem to solve instead of power politics. Namely, someone has been killing the supposedly immortal demi-fey/lesser fey and Merry is called in to give her expert opinion. Of course, she's followed by her massive entourage because she's pregnant and royal and famous and screw the paparazzi. Basically.
 Now we encounter my first complaint, that actually isn't a huge complaint, but enough to get mentioned - there are way too many characters floating around. Several times I found myself wondering if I'd seen that character before and in what context. She talked about them like we already knew them, but for the life of me I couldn't remember why. Also, since there are so many, it's hard to get any good characterization in. I especially miss Doyle and Frost having the foreground after book 4, I think it was. That, for me, was the best of these novels. We had that emotional breakdown from Doyle when he thought Mistral had been chosen as king to Merry's queen - and it was beautiful. There's not a lot of that going on anymore. There is a lot of emotional/sexual healing going on, though, since all of Merry's guards, which now include Cel's female ex-guards, have some serious mental scars from their abuse at court.
 Which brings me to point number 2: for whatever reason, Hamilton has become incredibly heavy-handed i with her development strategies. We'll be rolling merrily along, detecting, advising, etc. when HALT FOR MERRY'S REVELATION ABOUT A GUARD. We have these strange breaks to have a breakdown, or have some crazy powerful sex, or just to have one of the guards reveal a little more of their life story. There was one particular passage that screamed complete lack of fluidity, being that it jumped between the present investigation, to Merry's thoughts on something else, back to the investigation, and back to Merry's thoughts. Usually Hamilton's much more focused. I think it's a symptom of way too many characters to deal with.
 Other than these complaints (and the shockingly short appearance of Mistral) it was an interesting mystery, and sufficiently squick-y at the end. Although I do think Merry was a tad dense on this one - the clues added up a little faster than she realized.
 Overall: B
 The saving factor for this grade was the murder mystery. Otherwise, I felt like the developments in Merry's world were not coherent, connected, or especially well handled. And I miss the fathers of the babies being around more (yes, I said fathers - Doyle, Frost, Mistral, Sholto, Rhys, and Galen, I believe. Which handily solved the problem of me having too many favorites, and Hamilton as well, is my guess).

Laurell K Hamilton: Cerulean Sins

• ISBN-13: 9780515136814
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
• Publication date: 9/28/2004
• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Pages: 560

How the mighty have fallen! Once a sworn enemy of all monsters, Anita is now the human consort of both Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire, and Michah, the leopard shape-shifter. Not quite as human she once was, she is consumed by both their hungers - desires that must be sated time and time again. And when a centuries-old vampire targets Jean-Claude and his clan, Anita finds herself tested as never before - needing all the dark forces her passion can muster to save the ones she loves the most...

 Lord, are we ramping up the sex now. And it's only going to get worse, or so I hear. However, it hasn't gotten to the point that I don't see the point, as I've heard complained on various boards and Wikipedia and what have you. In this installment, Anita has to deal with Belle Mort's envoys, who have arrived in St. Louis before schedule. This, of course, throws Jean-Claude's court into a tizzy, and a slew of complicated vampire politics and relationships cause quite a bit of confusion for our ravishing heroine. (Can we just talk about how much I want Anita's hair? Just for a moment.  -  Okay, moment over.)
 Her issues are further complicated by our erstwhile friend Dolph going off the deep end because his son is marrying a vampire. His anger toward all things associated with "monsters" - Anita included - seriously hinder her ability to do her job when she's called onto a case. Much frustration ensues. And what a gruesome case. We've had gruesome before, which - to become truly disturbing - can only be found in paranormal fiction, since there are no boundaries of physics. For example, tearing apart a human to the point that all is left are bones and goo. A normal human can't do that without the aid of some type of machinery. Thus, the imagination is given limitless opportunity. It's a little twisted that this is what the mind comes up with when there are no restrictions, but that's a subject for a different discussion.
 Anita also adds another suitor to her growing list of guys she's slept with. Possibly two, but I'm not counting non-penetration. Are you? I won't tell you who it is, but it becomes abundantly obvious. Obviously. We also have a return of who I like to call piss-ant-Richard. He is the one incredibly obnoxious part of this series. I started off liking him a lot, but as time has gone and he has failed to adapt to circumstances or even make a lame attempt at an understanding attitude, he has become more and more distasteful. He doesn't change much in this installment. I will give him kudos for coming to Anita's aid on one occasion, but as he follows that with a colossal act of blatant, stubborn stupidity, it kind of cancels that out. I think Anita just needs to punch him in the face or do something else violent to put him in his place. I feel like it's only going to get worse, and from what I've read of future books, I'm not far off.
 Overall: B+
 The Anita Blake series is not going downhill, at least not to the extent I've heard. I think it's still incredibly entertaining and interesting, although Hamilton is increasingly falling to her own personal curse of too much action in too short a time. We have a lot of things going on, and it seems like more time should be passing, only to realize that the day isn't even over. In fact, I think the events in this book take place over a mere two or three days. But the fact that you barely notice says much more about the attention-grabbing power of these novels. I sincerely hope I always enjoy these books as I have been.