Blood Noir, by Laurell K. Hamilton

Blood Noir
by Laurell K. Hamilton
340 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Romance/Fantasy

Anita goes to Asheville, North Carolina, with Jason to see his dying father. Complications (i.e. political manuveurings) ensue, both mortal and supernatural. The Mother of All Darkness a.k.a. Mommie Dearest is mightily interested in Anita. Hamilton's books have come to pretty much pure erotica--there is less unnecessary sex here, but it definitely makes itself known. And thankfully, there's also substantive plot development. SPOILERS--Richard gains a version of the ardeur, Anita manages to reclaim her anger from Richard (but not having read the earlier books, I have a hard time believing that she really is this raging), Jason nearly dies...oh yes, Jason's father is magically cured of cancer (Authorial Device, anyone?) and Anita gains another hanger-on, Crispin the young white weretiger.

Essentially, typical LKH. I still prefer her faerie series, but this one's not bad. A quick read, at least.

Thud!, by Terry Pratchett

Thud!
by Terry Pratchett
373 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy/Humor

Damn title made me commit a sin of punctuation, up in the subject. Sigh.

I'm on a Pratchett binge, which will have to stop soon because my local library branch only has one more unread Pratchett on the shelf (Night Watch). Anyway, Thud! is about a historic troll-dwarf conflict, but also about werewolves vs. vampires, Vetinari vs. the rest of the political world, the Watchman vs. the Dark, good vs. evil (always, in this case often the same side), and Sam Vimes not-vs. Young Sam. Where's My Cow? is so cute, and I believe Pratchett has actually published it as a children's picture book. Hee.

I did notice several typos in this, which speaks to sloppy copyediting. Tsk tsk. The mystery plot was nicely suspenseful, and I'm now madly curious about the past histories of Nobbs, Carrot, Angua, and Vimes. Light, engrossing read; I think I personally prefer Monstrous Regiment, though.