Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Anita Blake, necromancer and servant to master vampire of St Louis Jean Claude, has grown more accepting of her succubus (ie, ardeur) powers. She uses them quite a bit in this book, more so than in the last few books. I'm not a prude and don't have a problem with sex in a book, however a strong storyline and good character development also needs to be present. Unfortunately that was not the case with Bullet. There wasn't as much action in this installment; the book seemed to be a setup for the next book with nothing major happening. Anita didn't work any animator jobs or cases with the cops (other than a brief phone consult). The death of a character that was hyped in the author's blog ended up being kind of ho-hum--it wasn't someone I was attached to. The main focus was on the over-the-top sex scenes and creating a power base to fight the mother of all darkness, who turns out is not dead after all. There was a brief statement towards the end saying that "Jake had helped us hunt Padma the master of beasts." WHAT? I would have liked at least a good scene of them facing off against Padma and less of the orgies with characters we don't know and don't care about. So many extraneous characters have been introduced at this point, the character development is almost nonexisitent. And while I was glad to see Jean Claude and Richard have more of a presence in this book, Jean Claude still seemed too secondary to Anita. He's supposed to be the powerful, master vamp but instead he cowtows to Anita too much. At least Richard's whining was cut back, however Asher was hugely annoying and Anita herself whined too much. The editing was also poorly done. There were typos and a lot of repetition that should have been edited out with a good line editor. Almost the entire book was set underground the Circus of the Damned, so that got quite a bit boring. When you combine that with the low action, there wasn't much to hold the reader's interest. It's sad to say, but I didn't even find the sex scenes appealing. I think mainly because they were more of a chore, i.e., 'I have to do this to solidify my power', not 'I want to do this because I care about or am attracted to this person'. I don't know what happened to the early suspenseful, high action, mystery style of this series. It used to be great. I've stuck with it hoping it would get better. I thought it got a smidge bit better with Blood Noir and Skin Trade, but we were dragged further downhill with Flirt and Bullet. The one positive remains the world building. The setup for the next book sounds interesting, so I will probably give it one last shot. If you are looking for good urban fantasy, here are some series I enjoyed and recommend: Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs Alpha & Omega series by Patricia Briggs (Don't miss the anthology in On the Prowl,which is a prequel to Cry Wolf) Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews (Don't miss the anthology in Must Love Hellhounds, which should be read between Magic Strikes and Magic Bleeds) Chicagoland Vampires series by Chloe Neill Cassandra Palmer series by Karen Chance Dorina Basarab Dhampir series by Karen Chance (Don't miss the anthology in On the Prowl, which should be read between Midnight's Daughter and Death's Mistress)...I liked Dory better than Cassie but it's best to start w/Cassie from a timeline perspective Sookie Sackhouse by Charlaine Harris World of Lupi series by Eileen Wilks October Daye series by Seanan McGuire Kara Gillian series by Diana Rowland Elemental Assassin series by Jennifer Estep