Skin Trade

An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Novel

By: Laurell K. Hamilton

Narrated by: Kimberly Alexis

Length: 18 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

A proven series with a hot new look. The #1 best-selling author returns with her most anticipated novel yet.

When a vampire serial killer sends Anita Blake a grisly souvenir from Las Vegas, she has to warn Sin City's local authorities what they're dealing with. Only it's worse than she thought. Ten officers and one executioner have been slain - paranormal style. Anita heads to Vegas, where's she's joined by three other federal marshals, including the ruthless Edward. It's a good thing he always has her back, because when she gets close to the bodies, Anita senses "tiger" too strongly to ignore it. The weretigers are very powerful in Las Vegas, which means the odds of her rubbing someone important the wrong way just got a lot higher.

Love in vein: listen to more tales of Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter.

©2009 Laurell K. Hamilton (P)2009 Penguin

Hot Darn---- Anita is Back

This is the best Anita Blake book in the last few offerings. It is a good read(listen) all the way through. While Hamilton writes hot sex scenes, this one has more plot and I enjoyed it as much as the first Anita Blake books where she kicked butt and took names. Hamilton is back to writing good characters and story and much less sex. My only complaint is that the narrator was different from the one who has been reading the audio for all of the previous ones, and I prefer the first narrator. The characters do not sound quite right, especially Jean Claude.
I am sooooo glad to see this series get back to the plot and character heavy books that I enjoyed from the first.

Anite, but just not the same

I'm a massive LKH fan, and I have all her audiobooks. This was probably the first Anita book, that I actually had to force myself to finish.

My first issue with this book is the change in narrators. The voices are all off. I couldn't always distinguish between character voices, even the new characters. The miss-pronunciation of vital words as in "ardeur" and "pomme de sang" made me absolutely CRAZY!!!! I found myself dazing in and out, due to he voice. I think she was an awful choice to narrate this series. I probably would have given it a better rating, if the old narrator was back.

My second problem, is that I liked the past few Anita book (unlike a lot of people). I think that ALL the cop stuff got a little boring. I dislike when they take Anita out side of her little St. Louis comfort zone. I miss the other characters a lot.

I should have went with my first thought and just read the book. I think that the publishing company is making a massive mistake changing the narrator in both of LKH's long standing series. I think I may be done buying audiobooks from this author.

Anita Blake die hard.

Awesome story. entertaining from beginning to end. great to see just how afraid of Anita the vamps are.

Kim Alexis is awesome

Her ability to give every character their own voice is amazing.
Fluid and clean performance makes for 18 hours of nice escape

More story and less sex.

There was a good plot to this one. It reminds me of her earlier works!

Back into it!!!

So glad Kimberly Alexis came back to narrate! Makes a WORLD of difference!! I love these books and they deserve to be read well!!

Great Book awful narrator

I love this series and was planning on purchasing all of the older books coming out on audio, but if they use this narrator I'll have to re-think that plan. The return to more plot and less sex was nice, but I did miss the St. Louis characters.

fantastic book

I love the book and storyline it was fantastic it was interesting book just love it

Finally, Anita's back!

I was a huge fan of the first nine or ten Anita Blake books, and doggedly stuck through the last several installations in the hope that Hamilton would bring back the tough-as-nails vampire hunter I knew and loved. Unfortunately for me, the last few books ran like this:

There's a murder. Anita and Jean Claude talk. Anita and a few guys have sex. Then they talk about all the reasons they had sex. Anita feels guilty because she's having too much sex. She has some more sex. Lather, rinse, and repeat a few times, throw in some overdramatic scenes with Richard/Micah/whoever, solve the murder case in the last twenty pages, slap a twenty-five dollar price tag on it, and call it done.

In Skin Trade, however, Hamilton brings Anita back to herself. This story is a decent paranormal mystery, almost as good as "Circus of the Damned" or "Blue Moon". She does throw in a few sex scenes (pretty good ones, too), but doesn't lose the thrust of the mystery in all of the. . .well, thrusting.

I, for one, am thrilled to have the old girl back to carrying around more weapons than boyfriends. For the first time in a long time, I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the next book.

I love all of these books but.....

I really miss the original narrator. She did an amazing job on Jaun Clauds and the rear of the men's accents. I hope this whole magical sex thing passes. I like it better when she gas only one maybe two lovers.