Blood Noir by Laurell K. Hamilton

Blood Noir - Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, book 16 by Laurell K. Hamilton

.1. Guilty Pleasures
.2. The Laughing Corpse
.3. Circus of the Damned
.4. The Lunatic Cafe
.5. Bloody Bones
.6. The Killing Dance
.7. Burnt Offerings
.8. Blue Moon
.9. Obsidian Butterfly
10. Narcissus In Chains
11. Cerulean Sins
12. Incubus Dreams
13. Micah
14. Danse Macabre
15. The Harlequin (see previous commentary)
16. Blood Noir

Category: M&Ms - a bit lighter and/or not quite as satisfying as Peanut M&Ms, but still Oh-So-Enjoyable! (B,B-,C+,C)
Flame Height: 5.5" out of 9"

UPDATE: In her blog of Thursday, June 12, 2008, LKH gives her own explanation for "What's the book about?"

Well, hell. After recently expressing my concerns about some of LKH’s blog content, this commentary is going to seem like I’ve left the stands and am now on the playing field for the sport of LKH-bashing. This is soooo NOT appropriate behavior for fangirls, is it? Aren’t I supposed to be defending MY author at all costs and beyond all logic? Am I not betraying her if I do not express the opinion that every single book she writes is the Best Book Ever and is now my All Time Favorite? Well, since this is MY blog, and I consider this my book diary, then I’d only be lying to myself if I was less than honest-- about LKH's books or those of any other author.

Blood Noir was an… okay read. I didn’t hate it, I didn’t dislike it. It was just okay. But I confess a bit of disappointment because this just wasn’t an LKH book.

Jason's mother calls to tell him that his father only has weeks to live. There are a lot of issues between them and his mother suggests he bring a girlfriend to try and convince his bully of a father he's not gay. Since Jason and Perdy have split up, Nathaniel volunteers Anita for the job.

That’s the setup, now here’s the summary of Blood Noir:

Blood Noir is an extended conversation between Jason and Anita (pages 1-196), followed by a couple of disconnected metaphysical incidents (pages 197-309), followed by a couple of VERY loosely connected scenes where Anita gets to shoot and kill (pages 309-336), then the final wrap-up (pages 337-340).

Anita and Jason talk before sex, they interrupt sex to talk, they talk after sex, they talk in cars, they talk in the plane, they talk in their hotel room, they talk at a gathering of Jason’s old girlfriends, and they talk at the hospital. They talk about their relationship with each other, they talk about their relationships with their families and friends, they talk about the other men in Anita’s life, and they talk about Jean Claude’s power structure. They talk and talk and talk and talk... and talk some more. And when she isn’t talking to Jason, Anita is THINKING about talking with Jason.

Now, don’t get me wrong, getting to know the characters better is a very GOOD thing and I really DID enjoy that aspect of it. LKH’s characters are like old friends to me. But what makes this a very non-LKH like book is that nothing else is going on during the first 58% of the book where this extended conversation takes place. It’s NOT intertwined with any larger action or mystery plot, or even a metaphysical emergency. It’s just two people talking nearly non-stop as they travel from St. Louis to and around Ashville, NC (that’s a whole ‘nuther issue- I’ve never been there, but her description doesn't sound quite right). They do interact with other people, but the first half of this book is mainly devoted to Anita and Jason talking to each other.

I will say however, that the sex during these first 196 pages is just that—sex. No metaphysical manifestations or increase in Anita’s power, which is a welcome change of pace even if the scenes still felt a bit... less than passionate

This is a single layer, simple story. No complexity, no layers, no multi-dimensions. If she was a new author, I’d say she showed promise with her characters, but needs to give them more story to work with. Yes, other authors have been semi-successful with not much more than that, but this is Laurell K. Hamilton and that is NOT how Laurell K. Hamilton writes, at least not the writing that has landed her on the Best Seller lists all these years.

Honestly, this book does not feel like she put her best effort into it. As if her only goal was to get word count/page count down each day and adding any other layers would have slowed her down from meeting that daily goal.

If she’s developing that kind of tunnel vision, then I sincerely hope that she has built increased intervals between books into that new contract she just signed. I'd like to see her slow down, and take time to CREATE and THINK, to CRAFT her stories again instead of publishing stream of consciousness thoughts. Seriously, thought processes DO change as we get older (she’s only a few years younger than me.) And what worked for her before-- sit your ass in that chair and write x number of pages-- may not work for her now that she’s getting older. Or is it burn-out? Or she’s not “hungry” anymore? I dunno. I only know that Blood Noir is, BY FAR, not her best effort in the ABVH series.

Now for that last 42% or so of the book--- spoilers and all. Okay, I don’t normally give spoilers, but since there are only two events of note in the book, and they occur towards the end, it’s kind of hard to NOT mention them. Although, much of it is a bit… random… and confusing… so I can’t promise there’s much sense in my ramblings.

If you are reading this in Firefox, you should know that much of the code I use for my scrollbox (i.e. custom colors) is ignored by FF. So if it looks weird, switch to IE. If you’re already using IE7… Hee, I FINALLY found something that no one can tell me is better in FF.

**YO! Thar be SPOILERS AHEAD-- Scroll to see ‘em**

Remember in The Harlequin, Anita was given a charm to wear that would protect her from Marmee Noir? Well, when a weretiger stripper shows up at the bachelorette party for one of Jason’s old girlfriends, Marmee Noir decides she wants a little weretiger sumpin’ sumpin’. She makes Anita, who discovers that she carries multiple tigers among her inner beasts, take off the charm and Anita, Jason and TWO weretigers (seems she needs them in more than one color) proceed to lose themselves in two solid days of mindless (literally) ardeur and Marmee Noir driven sex (no, we don’t read all the details of what happens during those two days).

Then, after regaining a few of the memories that Marmee took away from her during that time, Anita frantically tries to find the charm so she can be protected again. Um… the charm didn’t work, remember? Marmee made Anita take it off, so it doesn’t make sense that she would feel protected with it back on.

It’s kind of interesting to learn about the weretigers. For instance, you know how Anita has those metaphysical emergencies where she has to give her beast to someone? Turns out that female weretigers also do that so they can carry a baby to term. But I have to admit that Anita becoming a queen to yet another weregroup is getting a bit… excessive.

The Marmee Noir sexathon also severs the ties between Anita, Jean Claude, and Richard. Presumably it leaves her tri with Nathaniel and Damion untouched since no one mentions them dying. Evidently JC’s marks are wiped out and Anita gets Marmee Noir’s marks 1 and 2 instead. Or not. Because Anita DOES link up with JC and Richard again after she feeds on Richard. So, really, either Marmee did NOT give Anita the marks, just overrode JC’s marks 1-3. Or she DID give Anita the marks, but somehow did not get rid of JC’s marks 1-3. I dunno. I was hoping JC would explain it.

Oh, and Richard-- I’m not sure how I feel about all this. Richard shows up to find out why the link between the triumvirate has been severed. Of course, he’s his usual pissed-off self, but they’ve finally figured out that Richard is angry all the time because the marks gave him Anita’s anger just like she carries JC’s ardeur. So, another metaphysical emergency blows through and Anita, who fed the ardeur through Love in The Harlequin, now discovers that it (the ardeur) has evolved and she is also able to feed from Anger. Specifically, Richard’s Anger, or rather, she is able to take back all of HER anger.

Let me repeat that-- Anita has taken back her anger from Richard. And what we find is that the Anger that was so strong in Richard was overpowering the ardeur that Richard had inherited from Jean Claude!! Yep, you read that right—Richard has his very own ardeur!

Could this be the pivotal moment in the series? The logical resolution to Anita’s ardeur that LKH said would happen? Anita knows how to control Anger because she’s lived with it all her life. So, if that Anger overpowered the ardeur in Richard, shouldn’t that mean that, through controlling the anger, Anita will now have control over the ardeur?

And Richard with the ardeur riding him? Well, it turns out HIS ardeur is closer to Auggie’s in that it rolls Anita with more Love than Lust. ::shrugs:: Could be… interesting… eventually. But it was kind of “I love, Love, LOVE you” sappy in this book.

But here’s why I hesitate to get too excited about all these developments. The end of The Harlequin was a MONUMENTAL moment for Richard—he confessed that he thought Anita and JC were evil and then ran away and left their asses hanging out to face-off with the enemies. This was a HUGE moment- I actually gasped out loud when it happened! But it’s not mentioned in BN. Whatever came AFTER that is not mentioned in BN. Everything is same-old same-old between JC, Anita and Richard when he appears in BN to save her ass. Where’s the fallout from The Harlequin? This was just too important to ignore!

But wait… there’s one final random metaphysical development… Are you ready?
Somewhere during the Marmee Noir induced sex binge, Jason became Anita’s animal to call. Seriously. They can read each other’s thoughts and everything. How? Dunno… since the sexathon is pretty much a big blank to them (and us), I guess no explanations needed to be created at this time.

So that was pages 197-309. Now let’s move on to part 3. Throughout pages 1-196, Jason kept being mistaken for one of the governor’s sons. This is the week before one of the son’s wedding and all the prenuptial activities are taking place in the same hotel that Jason and Anita are staying in. Turns out that, even back in high school, the three boys were nearly identical. Although, actually, other than Jason's sisters, EVERYONE born in Ashville eerily resembles each other.

Jason has to constantly show his ID to prove he’s NOT the governor’s son. At an impromptu press conference where he tries to clear up the confusion, Anita is recognized as JC’s girlfriend and Jason as Ripley, the stripper. The tabloid press makes a HUGE assumption on national TV that the girlfriend of the Master of St. Louis has left him to run off and elope with one of his strippers.

Which brings us to page 309-- Anita and Jason are drugged and kidnapped. Anita wakes up to hear Jason being tortured. But the bad boys have underestimated her by assuming she’s not dangerous and they’ve left her tied up in a bathroom... where there are scissors and throwable chemicals. She escapes, grabs a gun and kills them.

Turns out the governor’s son has eloped with the wife of another master of a city and that master doesn’t believe that Jason isn’t the governor’s son and Anita isn’t his wife, or maybe he believed the governor’s son had already dumped his wife and was with Anita now but knows where his wife is, or… uh… shoot, I don’t quite know WHAT the reasoning was, just that it didn’t make sense. So he sent his henchman after them.

But now they are dead, Federal Marshal Anita Blake has been stripped of her weapons while the other Federal Marshals conduct an investigation, and eventually the other master of the city, minus his wife who really DID marry the governor’s son, mysteriously disappears.

And that’s a wrap.

Bottom Line: I think Blood Noir should have been a novel-lite like Micah was. I wouldn't have had a problem with a novel-lite, especially if the conversation had been tightened up and the menace and metaphysical elements were introduced earlier in the book. As published, those elements did not feel integrated into a cohesive story.

So how does a fangirl defend this book? No disrespect intended, but honestly, I can’t. It wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t a Laurell K. Hamilton book. I can only hope that it is an aberration and that LKH’s next ABVH book will be co-authored by her infamous Muse rather than Word’s page count.

And now, I’m off to read other reviews for Blood Noir. I’ve avoided nearly all of them so they wouldn’t color my own opinion. But now I’m hoping someone will point out something I missed or will give me a new way of looking at certain scenes.
Piquant Opines: RT, Darque Reviews, Graeme's, A&F, BlogCritics: ABVH series and Blood Noir review

Have you read this book? Feel free to review or link to a review in the comments. Even if you don't agree!