"fantastic urban fantasy"
Federal Marshal Anita Blake, vampire hunter and zombie
raiser, is worried that she is pregnant. She has no idea
who the father is since she is sleeping with three
vampires, two were-leopards, and one werewolf. She is
part of a triumvirate with Jean-Claude Master Vampire of
St. Louis and Richard the werewolf leader of his pack.
Together they are stronger than they are apart. However, the ardeur, a magical essence that needs sex to
nourish it is growing more powerful inside Anita and she
needs to keep feeding it or it will start selecting its
own victims. As Anita's powers grow, so do those of the
other two members of the triumvirate, While Anita looks
for someone she is not metaphysically attached to so that
she can feed the ardeur, masters of the cities from all
over the United States are coming to St. Louis to attend a
vampire ballet hosted by Jean-Claude. Not all of the
attendees are friends; some want to gauge how powerful
Jean-Claude is with his two allies at his side while
others want to use Anita for their own ends. Unless Anita
can control her ardeur their enemies might defeat them. Every Anita Blake book is a fantastic urban fantasy and
DANSE MACABRE is no exception. Readers wonder who amongst
the guests is an adversary that the trio must deal with at
a time when Anita is not at her best between the pregnancy
and the increasingly out of control ardeur. This is a
fabulous action-packed story line filled with characters
readers have come to think of as friends.
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted June 29, 2006
SummaryIt was the middle of November. I was supposed to be out
jogging, but instead I was sitting at my breakfast table
talking about men, sex, werewolves, vampires, and that thing
that most unmarried but sexually active women fear most...
Anita Blake needs to be concentrating on a dangerous
situation: the ardeur, the sexual power that flows between
Anita and Jean-Claude, Master Vampire of the City, and
Richard, the volatile werewolf who loves her passionately,
is reaching new levels, perhaps evolving into something
altogether new. The ardeur seems to be choosing new lovers
for Anita, acting with a will of its own. As Jean-Claude
says, the ardeur is hunting powerful prey. The unexpected
effect of this is that Jean-Claude's own power as a master
vampire has grown to new levels—and Richard, never
predictable, is changing too.
But as the days pass, Anita's less interested in vampire
politics than in an ancient, ordinary dread she shares with
women down the ages: she may be pregnant. And, if she is,
whether the father is a vampire, a werewolf, or someone else
entirely, she knows perfectly well that being a Federal
Marshall, known for raising the dead and being a vampire
executioner, is no way to bring up a baby...
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