Review: Kiss the Dead by Laurell K. Hamilton

Goodreads Summary:
When a fifteen-year-old girl is abducted by vampires, it’s up to U.S. Marshal Anita Blake to find her. And when she does, she’s faced with something she’s never seen before: a terrifyingly ordinary group of people—kids, grandparents, soccer moms—all recently turned and willing to die to avoid serving a master. And where there’s one martyr, there will be more…

But even vampires have monsters that they’re afraid of. And Anita is one of them…

My Review:
I fell in love with this series when I stumbled upon the first book (Guilty Pleasures) shortly after it had been published. One of the bookstores I went to was pushing this book hard- it was shelved face out and was on the counter being hand sold.

Over the next, say, decade I fell in love with the characters and eagerly awaited each book. Then, to me, they started to go bad after this one Obsidian Butterfly; Obsidian Butterfly was the last book in the series I really enjoyed. As any longtime reader can tell you, this is when she started with all of the sex stuff.

For what it's worth, here's my opinion about the best parts of the series (If enough of these are in one of the books, I'm more prone to like it):

1. Edward is in it. I love Edward, I think he is my favorite character in the whole series. (Edward is not in this book)
2. Anita has an interesting case for either RPIT (The Regional Preternatural Investigation Taskforce) or a cool necromancy assignment. I.e., this series is only as good as its villains. (The enemy in this book was lackluster and laughable.)
3. Edward is in it. Did I already mention Edward? Because he is not in this book. (Boo!!!)
4. The sex is non-existent (my best case scenario) to very limited (what I can live with). (Well, there were only 3 sex scenes in the book. Only one involving Anita with more than one "person". So, that's some progress, I guess)
5. Edward is in it.

Plus, she has turned Asher (my second favorite character) into an annoying, whiny, wimp. I think I'm going to start a new series of posts, my "I Hate You" author of the month, or something like that. I think Hamilton would be the first featured author.

"How to Quickly Scan Through Anita's Sex Scenes" Tips:

Clothes are coming off (scan, scan, scan)
Breast (continue scanning)
Heaving, glistening, buttocks, or thrusting (rapidly scanning)
Foreskin (Wow, who's European? Oh, that's right...scanning)
"X" is done, "Y is taking his place" (Crud, scanning. Probably okay to flip at least 2 pages forward)
"Oh, God"; "Oh, my God" or some variation (Stop scanning. Will be over and wrapped up in a paragraph or two.)

Overall rating: 2 stars (This is with a 1/2 star bump for reduced sex scenes)
Genre rating: 2 stars

This book makes me feel dirty. Not because of the sex, but because I can't stop reading these books even though I know I won't love them.