Nightshade Tavern

Forever my favorite author laurel k Hamilton’s Anita series is spectacular. After books 15-17 her style changes a bit in how she writes her story. However she is still an amazing author. Whose merry and Anita series are both forever great reads

this series is fantastic! i can't wait until the next book comes out and this book has one of my favorites in it, obsidian butterfly! i recommend anyone to read this series!

"Nightshade Tavern" is the fourth hardcover collection of multiple Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels by Laurell K. Hamilton. Previously we had "Club Vampyre," which collected "Guilty Pleasures," "The Laughing Corpse," and "Circus of the Damned"; "The Midnight Cafe" bought together "The Lunatic Cafe," "Bloody Bones," and "The Killing Dance"; while "Black Moon Inn" combined "Burnt Offerings" and Blue Moon" and constituted a shift in these reprints from 3-in-1 to 2-in-1, which is more to our liking. The two novels published together this time are the ninth and tenth in the Anita Blake series, "Obsidian Butterfly" and "Narcissus in Chains," and from the perspective of today, as we await the fourteenth novel in the series, it becomes clear that there is a significant break between the two novels included here. Suffice it to say that many fans of the series consider the first of these efforts to be the last great, or even really good, Anita Blake novel. Consequently, this might be as far as some readers will go, but they are certainly encouraged to progress to this point. "Obsidian Butterfly" was the long-awaited Anita Blake novel in which Edward the Bounty Hunter finally calls in the favor our heroine owes him for his services back in "The Killing Dance." So Anita heads to New Mexico, where something is out ripping the bodies of some people apart while removing all the skin from others. Whatever type of monster this might be, it is something so bad that even Edward is spooked. Anita is spooked because Edwards, in his cover identity as "Ted," has a girlfriend who has two children. If all this was not troubling enough throw into the mix the two other backups Edward has enlisted, Olaf, the serial-rapist who keeps threatening Anita, and Bernardo, who keeps trying to hit on her, as does Ramirez, a local cop. Oh, and did I mention she has been celibate for months? This title around the title refers to both a bar and the English name of Itzpapalotl, the vampire Master of the City, which serves to indicate that whatever it is that is out there has something to do with Aztec mythology. One again, Anita Blake, vampire hunter/animator/necromancer has her hands full. Laurell K. Hamilton is perhaps the finest writer of horror stories around as in book after book in this series she comes up with gruesome scenes that match the best you can find in Stephen King or Clive Barker. In "Obsidian Butterfly" this comes when the last of a group of flesh-eating zombies on a killing spree in a hospital makes its way into the nursery. The main problem with the Anita Blake series, as others have pointed out, is that there is a sense in which things keep repeating themselves as our heroine mouths off to the wrong people, complains about her love life, and keeps calling herself a monster as her personal body count continues to rise. However, the basic mystery here and all its various involved sub-plots are combined in a compelling narrative that overwhelms the problems wi