73. The Harlequin by Laurell K. Hamilton (Urban Fantasy) 422 p.

About a month after the events of Danse Macabre, Anita and Jean-Claude are still dealing with the problem presented by the Church of Eternal Life, but they’re not the only ones concerned with the lack of blood oaths between Malcolm and his followers. On a date with Nathaniel to celebrate their first anniversary, Anita receives a strange gift, one with greater and more frightening implications than she knows.

In some ways The Harlequin exceeded my expectations (not that they were very high, after the travesty that was Danse Macabre.) A lot of characters who’d been sidelined and seemingly forgotten in the last books were present, which was a change for the better, but it wasn’t enough to correct some of the series’s worst faults.

I know I bitch all the time about Laurell K. Hamilton’s poor command of language and her obsession with sex, but I think her biggest mistake has actually been to introduce way too many new characters. Although I like most of them, Anita’s struggle to maintain relationships with so many men means none of those relationships are ever properly explored. It makes it really hard to care about any of them. I personally also find it difficult to identify with a heroine who thinks about men and sex all the time—it doesn’t matter how good a canonical reason there is for it.

Although I didn’t do any objective comparisons, The Harlequin seemed to have less actual sex in it than many of the more recent books, but there were still way too many boring conversations about sex, and the descriptions of the sex that did happen were overly detailed and somewhat tedious, as usual. The number of men attracted to and/or in love with Anita continues to rise, which is frustrating. It’s not that it makes Anita Mary Sue-ish (although it does), it’s that reading about it isn’t the least bit interesting. I don’t care how tertiary male characters feel about Anita unless it has an impact on the plot. Most of the time, not even then.

A lot of the characters I liked from previous books are back, giving The Harlequin a sense of continuity that has been lacking for a while. Which is good. Except…bringing too many old characters back at the same time, along with all the new characters, means no one really gets enough focus. Still, I was glad to see Edward back again, even if there wasn’t nearly enough of him.

There were two really strange continuity errors. At one point, Anita mentions Willie McCoy’s vampire girlfriend, but says her name is Candy, which it most assuredly was not the last time she appeared. And she specifically says that Sylvie doesn’t do women—but IIRC, Sylvie was actually a lesbian in the earlier books, with a lover and everything.

I still feel like Anita’s growing powers, and the new threat in the form of Marmee Noir, are a mistake. I’m not interested in watching Anita and company fight against an unbeatable foe, and watching Anita’s powers grow is very boring, as well as helping to make her a Mary Sue. And the number of fights that get picked during emergencies is ridiculous; I’m surprised Jean-Claude hasn’t slaughtered the lot of them in sheer frustration by now.

So it looks like Laurell K. Hamilton may have managed to stop the series’s downward slide, although she hasn’t turned things around yet. This book didn’t really introduce any new characters, which was a relief and may be a hopeful sign for the future of the series.

Books read: 73/100 (73%)
Pages read: 21,880/25,000 (88%)

Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2007, Anita Blake, Laurell K. Hamilton