Beauty

Beauty
   (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter, #20.5)
   ~ Laurell K. Hamilton
Publisher ~ Penguin Publishing
Published ~ 8 May 2012

My Rating ~ 2.5 out of 5

This enovella is a scene that was deleted from the upcoming Anita Blake book, Kiss the Dead. It involves my favorite Master of the City, Jean-Claude, my favorite PITA vampire, Asher, and my favorite kick ass vampire/monster hunter, zombie raiser, U.S. Marshal Anita Blake. Sorry Edward, but you’re a close second. It takes place after Anita gets back from a crime scene and she’s going to take a bath with Jean-Claude and Asher. Need I say that there will be sex involved? Of course not. Did I not just say Jean-Claude, Asher and bath in the same sentence? Who wouldn’t want some of that?

This short is not much different than her usual novels. LKH has a tendency to be repetitious with certain favorite words and phrases, so it gets tedious at times to read. The scene (enovella) itself is not horrible, but then again it’s not great either. Unfortunately, I’ve read much worse than this, so I was able to read it with very little pain to my brain. It took me approximately 10 minutes to read and that includes interruptions by my kids asking for spelling help during homework time.

Now, I will not deduct in my review for the price of this short because as far as I’m aware the publisher, not the author, sets the price of a book. I will say this: as short as this was it should’ve been offered as a freebie to her loyal fans on her website. As well as the excerpt from Kiss the Dead which I didn’t even read because I want to read it when the entire book is out. Shame on Penguin for exploiting people! I would have found it acceptable to pay .99, but $2.99 is beyond ridiculous for this amount of text.

Ok. I am not one of those fans who doesn’t like (or approve of) all the sex in the books. I don’t mind the sex at all. I read books with far more sex in them than all of the Anita books put together. There is also nothing wrong with the way Anita’s life is evolving (though I’d love to see more crime fighting and zombie raising.) However, the sex scenes have repetitive words and phrases and are, for the most part, boring because of it. They need an infusion of freshness and different imagery. And maybe a thesaurus would be nice.

I also don’t mind shorts that are just a sex scene. Or shorts that have no real plot to them. To me they’re like a tasty snack. There doesn’t need to be a ‘plot’ for a snack. It’s just a snack, not a meal! Maybe if people would think of it as a snapshot of a moment in time then they wouldn’t get their panties in a twist about the ‘no plot’ part of this short, or any short for that matter.

Anyway, this story didn’t suck big hairy sweaty donkey balls, but it wasn’t a monumental toe-curling, lethargy-producing, all-over-the-body-tingling orgasm either. It was ‘eh’ and I don’t think I got my money’s worth so I’m returning it.