The Lunatic Cafe / Laurell K. Hamilton

3.5 out of 5 stars

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...

What a treat, to find out you have a cousin who shares your reading habits! My public library has this book on order and I’ve been waiting for it for months! While visiting over New Year’s, my cousin & I got discussing this series, and she sent me home with a suitcase full of reading material—a happy New Year indeed.

Although some aspects of the series are silly, I’m enjoying it despite that. I mean Anita accepts a marriage proposal from a man (well, a werewolf) she really barely knows—and that becomes more and more obvious as the book progresses—and even though she has serious misgivings, they keep on as if they were actually going to go through with a wedding. Then her vampiric nemesis, Jean-Claude objects, stating that if she has feelings for him too, he should get equal time to press his suit. And Anita takes this bit of sophistry seriously. I mean, last time I checked, women were allowed to marry as they chose and didn’t have to give anybody equal time to make an impression! (Besides, I’m usually of the opinion that if a woman really does have feelings for two men, she shouldn’t have to make a decision between them!)

I will also confess to a bout of severe eye-rolling when I read Anita’s reasons for not sleeping with either of them. Betrayed by her first fiancée? OMG. But, as a plot device to keep the love triangle stretched out, it works beautifully. Will I continue to read? Of course! Especially since I now have a suitcase full of Anita Blake books to keep me supplied.