Look. I need to talk about Richard Zeeman.
Not because I care about his love life — though Laurell K. Hamilton clearly wants me to — but because this man gets arrested for attempted rape and Anita's immediate response is to roll into Myerton, Tennessee with an entourage of vampires and werewolves like she's assembling the Avengers for a custody dispute. And I'm sitting in my driveway at 7:45 AM after a twelve-hour night shift, engine idling because I refuse to stop listening, yelling at my dashboard: "THIS IS NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS."
Not the vampires. The vampires I can accept. It's the casual way everyone just... goes along with it.
The Lycanthrope Love Triangle That Won't Die
So here's the thing about book eight in a series — you're either in it or you're not. And I'm in it. I've been in it since the early books when Anita was a sharp-edged animator who raised the dead and solved crimes and didn't spend forty percent of her mental energy ranking her boyfriends. Blue Moon is where the Richard-Jean-Claude-Anita triangle really starts consuming oxygen, and if you're team "just pick one already," this book will test your patience.
But Hamilton does something sneaky here. She drops Anita into small-town Tennessee, away from her usual St. Louis power base, and suddenly the supernatural politics feel more personal. The lycanthrope pack dynamics — the dominance games, the violence that's one breath away from intimacy — actually work better in this claustrophobic setting. There's a land-grab plot underneath all the relationship drama that I found genuinely interesting when the book let me pay attention to it. That mix of political maneuvering buried under something more emotionally consuming reminded me of Narrow Road Between Desires, where the actual plot keeps getting elbowed aside by complicated feelings that won't stay in their lane.
The problem is the book doesn't always let you pay attention to it. There are stretches where Anita's internal monologue about Richard's attractiveness and her own conflicted feelings goes on long enough that I started mentally charting vitals. Heart rate elevated, respiratory rate up, patient presenting with acute indecisiveness. Somebody get this woman a consult.
Kimberly Alexis Gets the Sarcasm Right (And That's Half the Battle)
Here's where I give credit. Kimberly Alexis voices Anita Blake like she's personally irritated by everyone in the room, which — if you've read these books — is exactly right. That cold, slightly pissed-off delivery? That IS Anita. When Anita is being interrogated or facing down a new threat, Alexis nails the steel underneath the sarcasm.
What surprised me was her Nathaniel. She gives him this breathy, almost whiny quality that on paper sounds annoying but actually fits the character perfectly — he's submissive, vulnerable, and a little too eager to please, and you hear all of that in Alexis's voice choice. Her character differentiation isn't dramatic — she's not doing full theater — but the slight accent shifts and tone changes are enough that I always knew who was talking during group scenes. And in a book with this many supernatural beings arguing in the same room, that's not nothing.
The sarcasm injection is the real win though. Anita's internal narration is 60% attitude, and Alexis delivers it dry enough that I actually laughed out loud twice on my drive home. (Carlos later asked why I was in such a good mood after a night shift. I did not explain that a fictional necromancer's dating problems cheered me up.)
Where It Lost Me (And Where It Kept Me)
At nearly fifteen hours, Blue Moon asks for commitment. The pacing sags in the middle third — there's a stretch where the pack politics and the relationship processing blend together into this warm soup of testosterone and feelings that I had to push through. If you're coming for the thriller element — the false rape charge, the small-town conspiracy — you'll get frustrated waiting for it to resurface.
But when it clicks, it clicks. The violence is sharp and has consequences (as someone who's actually worked a code, I appreciate when fictional injuries don't magically heal between chapters — though, being lycanthropes, they kind of do here, which... fair). And the Tennessee setting gives the whole thing a Southern Gothic edge that felt fresh compared to the usual urban fantasy backdrop.
Content warning: this one's got violence, sexual content, and enough dominance-submission dynamics to warrant a heads-up if that's not your thing.
Who's This For and Who Should Run
If you're already deep in the Anita Blake series, this is a solid middle chapter. If you're thinking about starting here — don't. You will be lost in a sea of supernatural relationship history that makes my family group chat look simple. (And I'm the eldest of five. That's saying something.)
Perfect for that post-shift decompression when you want something with teeth but don't need to think too hard. Night shift approved, with the caveat that the romance-heavy stretches might put you to sleep if you're already tired.
My mom would love this. She still thinks I should've been a doctor, but she reads paranormal romance on her Kindle when she thinks nobody's watching. I see you, Mom.
