Blood Noir
Book 16, Anita Blake series
Laurell K. Hamilton

Werewolf Jason Schuyler needs Anita Blake - not as a vampire hunter, federal marshal, or a necromancer, but as a friend. He wants to pretend, just for a few days, that he's an everyday guy in an everyday relationship with a pretty woman who loves him, so he can say good bye to his dying father. It shouldn't be hard to keep their real identities under wraps for a few days in Jason's small hometown.
Really, by now, Anita Blake should know better.
Marmee Noir, ancient mother of all vampires, picks this weekend to make a move. Somehow she has cut the connection that binds Anita and Jean-Claude, leaving Jean-Claude unable to sense what is happening. Dangerous even as she sleeps, buried in darkness for a thousand years somewhere beneath the old country of Europe, Marmee Noir reaches for power. She has attacked Anita before, but never like this. In Anita she senses what she needs to make her enemies tremble.

As with all of the recent Anita Blake books, this book does contain explicit sexual scenes. It's not as prominent as in the other novels, but there is an odd scene involving Anita, a werewolf, and two weretigers she doesn't even know. So as a warning, the bizarro sex continues.

But, as with the previous novel, that isn't the only plot anymore. The main plot in this novel is Anita and Jason heading to Jason's home town to see his ill father before he dies and to try and prove to his father that he really does date women. They happen to be staying in town at the same time that the son of a governor (who happens to look exactly like Jason) is supposed to get married, but instead has run off with a vampire. That vampire happened to already be married, and so the governor's son is now marked for death - and Jason takes the rap just because he looks like him. While this plot is okay, and better than the former non-stop sex plots, it really isn't up to par with the writer's abilities.

The secondary plot is that Marmee Noir has found a way to black Anita out for a time and cut her connection to Jean-Claude. She has yet to awake, but she plans on using Anita and weretigers to regain her power. This was a minor part of the novel, but if expanded would have made a much better plot than the main plot.

If you're into the Anita Blake series, then definitely read this. There's no point in stopping now. While it's not as good as the first novels of the series, it is better than the ones in the middle that were nothing but supernatural sex.

My rating: Three out of five snails.