The Books

Here are the books, in order.  Each does stand alone to a certain extent but I would recommend reading them in order if at all possible. 

"I don't date vampires. I kill them."

My name is Anita Blake.  Vampires call me The Executioner.  What I call them isn't repeatable.

Ever since the Supreme Court granted the undead equal rights, most people think vampires are just ordinary folks with fangs.  I know better.  I've seen their victims.  I carry the scars...

But now a serial killer is murdering vampires -

and the most powerful bloodsucker in town wants me to find the killer.

"The older the zombie, the bigger the death needed to raise it."

After a few centuries, the only death "big enough" is a human sacrifice.  I know, because I'm an animator. My name is Anita Blake.

Working for Animators, Inc., is just a job - like selling insurance.  But all the money in the world wasn't enough for me to take on the particular job Harold Gaynor was offering.

Somebody else did, though - a rogue animator. Now he's not just raising the dead...he's raising Hell.

And it's up to me to stop it...

"Most women complain that there are no single, straight men left.  I'd just like to meet one that's human."

I'm Anita Blake, expert on creatures of the night.  I've dined with shapeshifters, danced with werewolves, and been wooed - but not won - by Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire of the City.

And now a darkly dangerous vampire named Alejandro has hit town.  He too wants me for his human servant.  A war of the undead has begun.  Over me. 

I would be flattered.  If my life weren't at stake.

"You don't volunteer for slugfests with vampires.  It shortens your life expectancy."

And you don't fall in love with a werewolf.  It interferes with your work.  Especially when you're a preternatural expert, like me.  My business brings me up close and personal will all shapes and sizes of monsters.  And not all of them want to kill me.

Take, for instance, the local pack of lycanthropes - that's werewolves to you.  A number of them are missing, and they've come to me for help.  Maybe because I'm dating the leader of the pack.  I've survived a lot - from jealous vampires to killer zombies - but this love thing may kill me yet...

"When the monsters are involved, it's never just one dead body.  One way or another the dead multiply."

First, there were the dead in the graveyard, two-hundred years dead.  I'd been hired to raise them and settle a dispute over who owned the land they were buried in.  Then there were the three dead teenagers in the woods, slaughtered in a way I had never seen before.  And then they found the dead girl, drained of blood and left in her bed.  I knew what that meant, all right.  It didn't take a degree in preternatural studies to figure out that something was very wrong in and around Branson, Missouri.  And I was right in the middle of it.  My name is Anita Blake.  Welcome to my life...

"These days my life is a cross between preternatural soap opera and an action-adventure movie.  Sort of As the Casket Turns meets Rambo."

The first hit man came after me at home, which should have been against the rules.  Then there was a second, and a third.  Eventually, I found out that the word on the street was that Anita Blake, preternatural expert and vampire killer extraordinaire, was worth half a million dollars.  Dead, not alive.  So what's a girl to do but turn to the men in her life for help?  Which in my case, means an alpha werewolf and a master vampire.  With professional killers on your trail, it's not a bad idea to have as much protection as possible, human or otherwise.

But I'm beginning to wonder if two monsters are better than one...

"You can't trust anyone who sleeps with the monsters."

That's what I've always said.  That's what I've always believed.  But now I'm the one sharing a bed with the Master Vampire of the City.  Me, Anita Blake.  The woman the vampires call the Executioner.  From part of the solution, I've become part of the problem.  So it hits close to home when an arsonist begins to target vampire-owned businesses all over town - an arsonist who seems to want to destroy more than just property.  It's the monsters who are in danger now.  And it's up to the Executioner to save them from the inferno...

"Richard was an Alpha Werewolf.  It was his only serious flaw.  We'd broken up after I'd seen him eat somebody."

Still, you never forget your ex-fiancé.  And when the call came at three in the morning, I thought for a moment it was him.  It wasn't.  It was his brother.  And it wasn't good news.  Apparently, the former love of my life had gotten himself thrown in jail for assaulting a woman.

Since I made my living as a preternatural expert, I tend to believe almost anything's possible. But though he may be one of the monsters, Richard would never harm a woman.  So here I am in the wilds of Tennessee, Anita to the rescue.  I've got just a few days to spring Richard and find out who framed him - any why.

There's a full moon coming, and if my werewolf love is still behind bars when it rises, he'll be facing a lot worse than an assault charge...

The Girl Who Was Infatuated With Death

A short story which is part of the Bite anthology.

This story takes place between Blue Moon and Obsidian Butterfly.

When the phone rings before dawn something big is probably up, and the fact that Anita Blake has been up all night dealing with zombies doesn't make this call an exception.  "Ted Forrester needs backup from Anita Blake, vampire executioner," Edward tells her, using the pseudonym he keeps for those rare times when he needs a legal identity.  And she owes him a favor.

So by noon she's on a plane to Santa Fe, sun-drenched town of wealthy retirees, where in the last two weeks twelve people have been murdered. The dead ones had it easy; other victims have been completely flayed, but kept horribly alive by magic.  Seeing them in the hospital, Anita feels uncharacteristically shaken.

Edward's "Ted Forrester" identity has her nearly as spooked as the crimes: He's working with the local police, courting a likeable widow with two kids, and generally making like a good ol' boy.  Anita knows the real nature he's hiding beneath his mask for normality - and she finds "Ted" perhaps more frightening than Edward.

With the highly acclaimed Obsidian Butterfly, Laurell K Hamilton's vampire hunter, Anita Blake, came into her own.  She survived a supernatural onslaught unlike any she had ever faced - and she did it without the two men in her life.

Now, six months have passed since Anita has seen either Jean-Claude or Richard.  Six months of celibacy.  Six months of indecision.  Six months of danger.  For her body carries the marks of both vampire and werewolf, and until the triumvirate is consummated, all three remain vulnerable.

But when a kidnapper targets the innocents that Anita has sworn to protect, she needs all the help she can get.  In an earth-shattering union, Anita, Jean-Claude, and Richard merge the marks - and melt into one another.  Suddenly, Anita can harness both their powers.  She can feel their hearts...hear their thoughts...know their hungers...

Nothing can save Anita from a twist of fate that draws her ever closer to the brink of humanity - to finally surrender to the bloodlust, the beast, and the desire transforming her body and consuming her soul...

Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter is not quite as human as she once was.  Consumed by both the lusts of the vampire and the primal hungers of the wereleopards, her desires must be sated.  But it is Jean-Claude, the Master Vampire, who needs her now.

When she is asked to reanimate the body of a long-dead corpse, it seems like just another case to Anita.  What she will soon discover is that the corpse may hold the secret to an ancient crime that not everyone wants to be remembered...

In the pulse-pounding new story of suspense and sensuality, Anita will need to muster all the dark forces of her passion if she is to save the ones she loves the most.

Now in Incubus Dreams, Anita's life is more complicated than ever, caught as she is between her obligations to the living and the undead.

As consultant to the Regional Preternatural Crime Investigation Unit, Anita's called in on what appears to be a case involving a serial killer - a vampire serial killer - who may be preying on strippers.

She's sure that none of the local vamps are responsible - but her judgment may be clouded by a conflict of interest.  For she is, after all, the consort of Jean-Claude, the ever-intoxicating Master Vampire of the City - something that both her human friends and her ex, the alpha werewolf Richard, are quick to point out.

Surrounded by suspicion, overwhelmed by her attempts to control the primal lusts that continue to wrack her as a result of her passionate contacts with vampire, werewolf, and the shapeshifter Micah, Anita is pushed to her limits - and beyond...