" This book was kind of scary. In a good way, I mean. And not really what I expected at all. I knew it was contemporary horror, so I figured it was something resembling The Dresden Files or Buffy. Which it was. Except I didn't expect it to be so...dark. From what I'd heard, I'd expected Hamilton's book to be the kind of horror that's so sex-drenched it takes the edge off things that *should* be scary to anyone that's sane. And with one of those wise-cracking snarky protagonists like Harry Dresden or Buffy. Only I didn't find it particularly sexy at all, and Anita Blake doesn't do much snarking. None of this is in the way of criticism, mind you. I like a heroine who takes her situation seriously and is intelligently frightened by it and keeps her head and gets the job done. And having her be genuinely menaced by "friend" and foe every other page doesn't inure you to the dangers she's in. The book's not long enough for that. Plus, the main character is herself pretty dark. Re-animating the dead for a living? How icky is that? In an intriguing way, I mean.
The one thing I was not fond of in the Blake-o-verse: the fact that everyone's aware of vampires and other supernatural creatures. When it comes to my fictional "kinks", I want a world where the supernatural is considered debunked and its dangers lurk in the shadows, only known to a select few. In other words, I want a fictional word that by all appearances is the scientifically skeptical world we all live in. Because I read these kinds of books (fantasy, horror) so I can imagine that the supernatural exists around me in the world I see everyday. And I don't live in Anita Blake's America. I know that for certain. "
— Nancy, 2/1/2014