Killing Dance [Hardcover]

On a non-raunchy note, this book is just as action-packed, gory, and darkly humorous as the last five. In it, Anita is faced with three annoying dillemas. One: She's been approached by a vampire with a hideous blood-related disease who hopes that, as a powerful necromancer, she can cure him. Two: Her wolfish boyfriend, Richard, is trying to overthrow the current alpha male of the local pack and become alpha himself -- but since he refuses to kill anyone, he's likely to get himself killed instead. Three: An unknown someone has put a bounty on her head, and now she's become the target of various local assassins. Throw in an expansive supporting cast of bloodsuckers, werebeasts, zombies, cops, lawyers, etc., and you've got the usual tale. Ms. Hamilton is great at keeping our interest and making us care about the characters. I won't say which boyfriend Anita goes all the way with (some other reviewer on this page has probably given it away already), but it's still rather exciting to those of us who faithfully follow Anita's exploits.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go buy the rest of this series.

The sixth part of the series is centered more on shape shifters, lycanthropes and whether or not Richard decides to be courageous (a sugarcoated way of putting it, really) enough to fight to the death with another alpha werewolf. His self-righteousness got irritating at times. Richard was fun and flirtatious in Circus of the Damned, but I no longer see anything remotely appealing about him. Why Anita loves him so much is beyond me. Jean-Claude on the other hand becomes sexier and more compelling in each installment. The love triangle between Anita, Richard and JC comes to a head in this one and readers will finally get some of the erotica that's been promised to them since Guilty Pleasures. But Ms. Hamilton makes us wait awhile until we get to read the juicy chapter I mentioned earlier. You can cut the sexual tension with a knife before said chapter comes along. But it was worth the wait. This is by far by the best part of the series! I cannot wait to continue to read more of these great characters, especially Jean-Claude. He's truly one sexy vampire! He can call me "ma petite" any time. :-)