The Lunatic Cafe, Bloody Bones and The Killing Dance By Laurell K. Hamilton

Images from Chapters.Indigo.caSo I continued delving into the world of Anita Blake and after another three books (six in total), I think I can say I'm finally done with them.

It was the solid murder mysteries that kept me through the first four books, but by the fifth book things began to get muddled. I was skipping pages and rolling my eyes way too much, but I kept going with the hope that things would get back on track. They didn't.

Anita's personal life never struck a chord with me to begin with. Her two loves interests aren't fully developed characters and the whole situation (if vampires and werewolves existed) seems entirely implausible. Two of the most powerful men in the supernatural world somehow both are in love with Anita (one after only knowing her for a couple of months), are ok with dating her at the same time and respect her decision to wait till marriage to have sex....what??? They're putty in her hands and sometimes you have to wonder why.

The books start to focus more and more on this, kind of ridiculous, menage a trois. This in the fifth and sixth books combined with the author's personal afterwords detailing the end of her marriage, the loss of her virginity and the discovery of the depth of her sexuality mark the point of no return. Anita stops being a tough and jaded vampire executioner and instead becomes Laurell K. Hamilton's vehicle for unfulfilled fantasies.

Was it worth the read?

Yes. I enjoyed getting to know Anita's world and the mysteries made for great subway reading. I was always curious to see what these were all about, but I can see where the rest of the series is going and there's only so much "Anita you are amazing..." I can take!!!

After the Falls By Catherine Gildiner

Images from Chapters.Indigo.caMy friend bought me Catherine Gildiner's first book "Too Close to the Falls" as a birthday present when I was still in high school. Years later I still have some vivid memories of the book, I think it was the first memoir I had ever read.

I was excited when I finally got After the Falls from the library. As soon as I started reading it I fell right back into the quirky life of Cathy and her family.

Cathy's story more or less continues where it left off in the last book, but all too soon Cathy begins to grow up and as she does her view of the world and the innocence with which she once viewed it begin to falter.

The book starts off strong but seems to lose it's focus as we get to Cathy's university years. She seems less candid with her thoughts at this point and the personal memoir starts to feel more like a recount of politics in the sixties.

The author seems to try and reel everything back into focus at the end by focusing on her family again, but the effect is very abrupt and leaves the story unfinished.

Was it worth the read?

Not for me. I would have rather left my memories of Cathy and her eccentric family back in Lewiston, where life was a little less complicated.

Grave Secret By Charlaine Harris

Images from Chapters.Indigo.caAs an avid (or is that rabid?) Sookie Stackhouse fan, I've been constantly looking for books of equal quality to fill my time between installments. When I read the first book in the Harper Connelly series I was immediately hooked. Charlaine Harris is a wonderful writer –her characters are richly layered and her background in amateur sleuth novels always promises a gripping read.

Harper's got a gift in the same vein as Sookie. But instead of reading other people's minds she can read the last moment of a dead person's life. And unlike Sookie, Harper wasn't born with this gift–it was a side affect of being hit by lightning.

She's turned this gift into a job and goes state to state with Tolliver trying to give peace to the families that hire her to find out more about their beloved deceased. Usually these deaths turn out to have more than meets the eye and Harper ends up knee deep in mystery. The fourth book in this series is no exception.

Harper and Tolliver are settling into their new relationship as a couple and it's only fitting that this is the novel where their troubled family past finally comes to the forefront. They're back in Texas, their home state, visiting their two young sisters who were adopted by their aunt and uncle, running into Tolliver's recently released ex-convict father, and meeting up with the detective who has never stopped helping them look for their missing sister Cameron.

I thought this was going to be the craziest, most emotionally involved story yet. There were some good things set in place to start the drama ball rolling, like when Tolliver becomes bedridden and Harper has to go out on her own. I thought this was going to be really significant, because there's always been a lot of emphasis placed on how much Harper relies on Tolliver and how she couldn't do a lot of the things she does without him. But the theme didn't really seem to pan out.

In fact, "not panning out" seemed to be the biggest theme in the book. The mystery Harper gets involved with at the beginning never becomes as tangled and heart-thumping as we've come to expect and the relationships between Tolliver and his father and Harper and Iona don't really get resolved. But the biggest let down by far was the Cameron mystery. It seemed to only really occupy the end of the book and it felt more like a device used to bring more gravitas to the plot...but a little to late and without much impact.

The book wasn't bad, but I've just come to expect such well-thought out mysteries from Charlaine Harris and considering that this seems to be the final book in the series, I felt the characters deserved a much bigger and more thorough send off.

Was it worth the read?

Yes. Even a mediocre Charlaine Harris book is a good book. I just hope she hones her series finale writing skills before she finishes the Sookie books!