Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton

Hamilton, Laurell K. Guilty Pleasures.
Berkley Trade. 2002.
ISBN 978-425197547
$15.00. Paperback. 368 pages.

Readers Annotation
Anita Blake, animator and vampire executioner is called upon by the Master of the City to uncover the person murdering vampires.

Plot Summary
Anita Blake works for Animators, Inc. and raises zombies out of graves for a living. She is also a state sanctioned vampire executioner. The local Master of the City, Nikolaos wants to hire Anita to investigate who is murdering the most powerful vampires in St. Louis. Anita refuses and is later coerced into working for the vampires. Jean-Claude, a vampire who works for Nikolaos, and manager of the all male strip club Guilty Pleasures works with Anita. When Anita is nearly killed during her first meeting with Nikolaos, a very old vampire in the body of a young girl, Jean-Claude saves her by sharing some of his life force. This gives Anita the first vampire mark. Nikolaos introduces another animator to Anita. His name is Zachary. Anita knows that something is just not right with Zachary, but she can’t fathom what it is. Meanwhile, Edward another vampire executioner shows up at Anita’s apartment. He has been hired to execute the current Master of the City. Anita meets a number of supernatural beings including the king of the wererats.  Ultimately, Anita discovers that Zachary is a zombie who is only alive through gris-gris magic. Anita, along with Edward, kills Nikolaos, and Zachary who is responsible for the murders. In doing so Jean-Claude becomes the new Master of the City of St. Louis. Anita is on her way to becoming his human servant.

Critical Evaluation
In this debut novel, author Laurell K. Hamilton introduced a set of fabulous characters. Anita, is charismatic and at the start of her career. Hamilton embued her character with a snarky sense of humor, and an unknown power that continues to grow with the series. Jean-Claude, is smart, sexy and 300 years old. It becomes clear in later novels that although he is a Master Vampire, he is no master to Anita. Edward, the sociopathic killer is scary good at his job. Anita learns how to kill efficiently and effectively from him. The storyline is original. In Anita’s world, supernatural beings are out, and living with the humans. The novel is smart, funny, sexy, and a good read. I would recommend this novel to older young adults (17 an up) who have read YA vampire series and want more vampire-themed books. I would not however, recommend the novels from #4 on, because they include graphic sex. This novel does not include scenes of graphic sex, but is has a great deal of violence. It is not for the squeamish. Young adults who read this novel should not expect the romance of Twilight or its sequels.

Information about the author
Laurell K. Hamilton has been writing since she was a child. She had difficulty selling this novel because no one knew what genre it should fall into. She is consistently on the New York Times Bestseller list. There are currently 16 books in the series. You can find out more about her at http://www.laurellkhamilton.org/index.php.

Genre
Paranormal thriller, horror, fantasy.

Curriculum ties
None

Challenge Issues
Violence.

Challenge defense ideas
· Become familiar with the book and its contents.
· Refer to the collection development policy of the library.
· Refer to reviews from Booklist, School Library Journal, and Publisher’s Weekly available for viewing on amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Guilty-Pleasures-Anita-Vampire-Hunter/dp/0425197549/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260155655&sr=1-2
· Try to get reviews of the book from teens that have read it.

Booktalking Ideas
1. Discuss Anita’s ability to raise the dead.
2. Talk about her work with the police in uncovering supernatural crimes.

Reading Level/Age
Adult crossover.

Why I included this title
This is the first book in one of my favorite vampire series.