Guilty Pleasures: An Introduction to a Whole New World

A few plot secrets ahead: Read at your own risk!

I just read this book for the second time, and I was no less enthralled this time than the last time. Laurell K. Hamilton has the ability to create a world that you can believe in, and that you'd actually want to live in. Ok, so it's about vampires, were-creatures and zombies. But with women like Anita Blake around, you wouldn't have to worry!

Guilty Pleasures is the first book in the Anita Blake series. Anita is a vampire hunter, but her "real" job is an animator--she raises zombies from the grave, mostly to settle legal and family issues. This first novel is not really about her job though, it's more of a sideline. The real story is how Anita is hired to find a vampire killer. Since vampires are legal in Anita's world (even though they suffer prejudice), the police must find the killer.

Anita is recruited after much coercion by the master vampire of the city, Nikolaos (a 1000 year old "child"), to find the murderer. Nikolaos doesn't trust the police to play fair. Along the way several other characters show up, who are admittedly not well developed, but will play important roles in future novels. Ronnie is Anita's detective friend who helps her research the murders. Edward supplies Anita with guns, ammo and back-up, but even she has to watch her back around him. Jean-Claude is a master vampire, which Anita feels herself inexplicably drawn to, considering she claims to hate vampires. These relationships are explored in much more detail in following novels. The way that Hamilton develops these relationships is the best thing about the series. She always leaves you wanting more and hoping (or not hoping) that certain characters end up together.

Anita eventually does find the murderer, but not without alot of pain and violence along the way. She gets shot at, has ghouls (zombies who have lost their mind) sent after her, were-rats and vampires attack her, and we can't forget the plain ol' humans.

The only drawback to this book is the ending seems to happen too quick. You have about 30 pages left of the book and wonder how it can all get resolved. And it does, just really rushed. Granted, that leaves potential for then next novel, but it leaves you feeling a little unsatisfied. There are some questions that need to be answered.

I recommend this book to any who want a nontraditional vampire story, however I would warn away from younger readers since violence, strong language and sexual overtones are prevalent.

Overall, this is a wonderful book for the beginning of the series. It introduces all of the main characters that will come into play later and leaves you wanting more. I'm just really glad there are more books to the series to explore the relationships between the characters.