A review by shelfaddiction
Burnt Offerings by Laurell K. Hamilton

2.0

OMG...Ms.Hamilton!!! Jeez. Talk about wanting to bang your head against the wall. I'm so over these characters. It's official, I am putting this series on the back burner...for a long while. I may pick this up again if I'm desperate and there's nothing else to read. Seriously, I can already see the beginning transformation of this series and I'm not sure I'm liking it. Again, same as with the last book, I had a hard time deciphering exactly what the actual plot. It's so much going on, almost too much. In the end the story was tied together, but barely.

Anita is clearly getting further and further away from her roots of Zombie raising. Instead, she's running around town trying to protect everyone which she considers "her people". She's the head of the werewolves, the werepanthers, and the vamps! She's Richard's Lupa, she's Jean Claude's human servant, she's a 1/3 of their weird power trio...it's all too much. In the next book will she be in charge of the wererats too? I have no idea how one Necromancer can save everyone and be at the top of the food chain for every supernatural being in St.Louis. Ridiculous. Then to top that off, the whole "I love Richard still, yet I'm grossed out that he ate people". Then in the next sentence, "I may love Jean Claude, but I'm grossed out that he's dead"....LOL...again, too much relationship angst for a grown ass woman. I'm sure in no time she'll be having three ways with them both, then there won't be a need for that ongoing inner monologue about her relationships. I don't want to know! Lol!

This series is definitely crossing into the world of Horror for me. In addition to the killing, there's dominance, rotting vampire corpses, humiliation, rape, torture, etc. This whole book seems centered around Anita and Jean Claude making deals to try to keep the members of the Council from harassing and raping Vamps, and all the types of Were's, men and women alike. Yuck. Then the never-ending power struggle between Anita and Richard, who has turned into a completely different character by the way, it just one more thing that made my eyes roll. I'm a little mad that Richard's no longer any better than that Jean Claude. Oh well.

I listened this on audio and Kimberly Elise is good as always, but the story line takes over and it's almost a mute point if she's a good narrator or not. Personally for me, this series has gotten a little bit worse with each book. I'm stopping now before I'm at the point of not liking them at all.

What do you think of this series? Do you love it? Hate it? Or are you like me, you just gave up on it? If so, when did you stop reading? I'm curious to know!