The Sunday Salon #3

Morning all! Are all you Read-a-Thon readers crawling out of your beds yet? I REALLY wanted to participate, but life didn't let me. As it was, I just harassed Trish all night.

There once was a lady named Trish
Who did not look like a fish
All night she read
then took to her bed
T'would be my greatest wish.

Dude. Limericks are hard.

Trish posted pictures of her lovely kitty Maggie during the read-a-thon, so I thought it was Bijou's turn for the spotlight this morning.

Ahem. Anyway. On to the Sunday Salon! I am a single parent today, so I can't make big plans to do much of anything. I'm hoping to get a little reading done- I've started a Meg Cabot that is just right, light and fluffy. I'm carrying The Boy in the Striped Pajamas around in my bag. Harry Dresden is waiting by my bed. I'm in a super mushy romantic book mood, so I might have to scour the shelves for something else.

This week I read Cerulean Sins by Laurell K Hamilton. After being a bit put off by the book and a conversation with Gina, the person who knows my reading habits best in all the world (16 years of sharing books will do that to a friend) I have decided to trade off the rest of the series unread. I have too many good books waiting and if I can't bear it later I can find them at a library.

I know you're all waiting to hear who won the books this week! I wrote all the entries for the Cry Wolf on a piece of paper in random order. The Pirate closed his eyes and picked samantha.1020 from Sam's Book Blog as winner! Congrats sam! Email me at bookslistslife AT gmail with your mailing address! If you didn't win and this was your first visit to my blog, welcome! I hope you find something here to bring you back.

This week I'm gonna give away something different, but I'll announce it tomorrow. Stay tuned!

TBR Day- Cerulean Sins by Laurell K Hamilton

Ok, this is a BIG one. It's been on my shelf making me nervous for YEARS. Every time a new Anita Blake book comes out, I dutifully add it to my paperbackswap wishlist and then don't read it, but finally, I broke the hold.

Cerulean Sins is the 11th book in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. I read the first one, Guilty Pleasures, in 2001. I LOVED it. I had read a little fantasy prior to this, but fantasy is very clearly a different world. This is the first thing I'd ever read that took place in MY world, and had elements of the paranormal. Elements? More like was FULL OUT paranormal. I loved the first one so much, that I called my S.O. to stop at the bookstore on his way home from work to bring me the second one. THAT DAY. No, it couldn't wait. This was the first (and probably last) time I ever had someone go to the bookstore for me. He brought me the next four. I read them all within just a very few days. I bought them all and didn't stop for air.

The first five or six books in the series were tremendous, and for me, groundbreaking. So many new things, such a great new world. Anita was kickass. She could raise the dead! She was somewhat immune to vampires and she was the Executioner. (I had not at this point ever seen Buffy.) She was hot for Jean-Claude- a vampire! Then Richard comes along and while I didn't love him, I loved the triangle. The threesome get more powerful, a force to be reconned with, and then thats when it happens. The ardeur. Bleh. If ever a worst plot line was ever invented. The series starts to get a bit sketchy. Anita loses some of her principles because of the ardeur. Some? The ardeur makes her need s-x* like a vampire needs blood. Literally. By the first half of Cerulean Sins, she's been with six different men in a situation that I would call intimate. Now, I'm no prude. I appreciate a good story as well as the next person, but REALLY? It's like 24 hours since the book started.

Apparently, Belle Morte, the vampire that created Jean-Claude and Asher's line has the power of desire. Any kind of desire, but of course, this one is her special gift. So through her connection to Jean-Claude, now Anita has the ardeur. Since she's so new at it, it has to be fed every twelve hours. And this wears out a lot of men! Nathanial almost DIES from it!

As for the rest of the story- Belle Morte vs. Jean-Claude, vampire politics, supernatural serial killer does gory things, Zebrowski mentions Anita puking on a body, Richard still hates Anita, her undies still match. What else? The rest of the book feels somewhat like the Anita of old. The opening scene had me hopeful that all would be ok. By the end- I'm not so sure. It did grab my attention (not like the first few did!) and I read it pretty quickly, given my life and the amount of free time I have lately. I think I'll give her one last chance with book 12, and then put the series back on hold. I really hope she pulls out of this, or gets control, or whatever it takes to go back to the Anita we used to know.

*I decided that given the rest of the content of my blog that I shouldn't make it easy to google some words and come here. Hope ya'll dont mind.

Also, don't forget to enter my drawing for Cry Wolf and On the Prowl, found here. I'll be drawing for that one on Sunday.

This post is part of avidbookreader.com's TBR Day. Jump over there to see what the other participants read.


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