Blue Moon: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 8

I would have enjoyed this audio book so much more if Penguin would have held back on the dramatic music/sound effects or at the VERY least lowered the VOLUME on them. I had to fast forward over one of the most dramatic scenes at the end of the book because I could barely hear the narrative over the crap! After waiting YEARS for the backlist of LKH books to be released, it's a huge disappointment to have to deal with this. I also wished they could have used the same narrator as the current books just because it's hard to get used to another narrator but that was a much smaller hurdle than the dramatic sounds...

Laurell K Hamilton never fails to deliver characters and scenes rich in detail and emotion that let you into the hearts and minds of her creations. The performance by Kimberly Alexis brings the Anita Blake series to audio with great care and understanding of the characters, her talent continues to portray the emotional depth and internal struggles with a skill perfectly matched to this series, but..............The addition of background audio, in this book in particular, is frustrating in some scenes, distracting at times and down right inappropriate and diminishing to the material and performance in others. I would not recomend listening to this audio rendition without having read the book first. The additional audio turns key emotional scenes of this book into the equivalent of a made for t.v. version of your favorite book, watering down the drama and failing to let the origional work shine.

I loved everything about it. I love this whole series so far. I'm on book 9 now. I'm only bummed that there is not an audible book 10. Everyone must read that book, and then pick up listening on book 11, and with a new narrator. I havent gotten that far yet, but I hope I like the new one.

Anita really starts growing and changing in her beliefs and this book chronicles the meat of it. My only problem with this point in the series is this is also when she sort of stops using her necromancy. I'd forgotten just how much I really like this book in the series. I'm still not crazy about the french accent as performed by the narrator, but there's less Jean Claude in this book so not as much of his "voice." Actually, the accent might be pretty decent, I'm just having trouble hearing Jean Claude with such a high tone in his voice, I always imagined it much lower.

I really liked this book. The storyline moved along and it really developed the relationship between Richard and Anita. I loved the new characters too.

Doing more then a couple hours of driving a day in rush hour traffic, this is my cure to Road Rage! lol Well... I don't get Road Rage but I had never been a fan of stop and go traffic. These Audio Books make it so I don't mind at all, in fact I sometimes feel I get home too quickly and have to sit in the car for another 5 minutes until I get to a part I can feel good about pausing. hehe Group Hugz!

Some of the music in it. Some of it gets annoying and some is a little too loud.

Anita Blake. Because she's the main character.

Definitely.

With every book I listen to Anita gets more and more hypocritical! It's painful! I find myself yelling and my iPhone as if it's Anita "shut up!!!" I am interested in the story but I don't know if I can tolerate Anita! One minute she's like "she wouldn't feel anything if she kills someone or something the next minute she's vomiting and upset that one of the werewolves killed someone!!! Can you say HYPOCRITE!!! I know people are complicated and she's a fictional character but I'm listening to these Anita Blake books and Im getting tired of her and her personality! HYPOCRITE!!! LOL

Also you see some similarities in Asher and Reese (from the Merideth Gentry series)

I dunno I'm getting bored with this series and I'm only on book 8 of 19 :-/

Laurel K. Hamilton will not disappoint, Anita Blake is one tough girl. I really like the entire series.